The Plus One Pact by MacIntosh Portia

The Plus One Pact by MacIntosh Portia

Author:MacIntosh, Portia
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boldwood Books
Published: 2020-05-20T16:00:00+00:00


15

I feel the bubbles gently tickling the sides of my face as I relax in the bath with everything but my face under the water. With only my mouth, nose and eyes above the surface, the smooth warm water caresses almost every inch of me and it’s glorious. I had no idea deep baths could be so relaxing. Well, I didn’t have a bath in my old flat, and even in the one at my parents' house I always had my head, boobs, knees or a combination of them poking out of the water. I would almost have to let my different body parts take it in turns to be under the water, but not here, not in this amazing bath.

There’s something so peaceful about having your ears underwater. It’s the way the water fills them, blocking out the sound from the room, sort of like when you pick up a seashell and raise it to your ear to ‘hear the sea’.

My state of ultimate relaxation is disturbed when I notice a faint sound. Is that… is that a ringing in my ears? Do I have tinnitus? Is that even what tinnitus sounds like? Like a sort of strange alarm sound.

I sit up quickly and realise that the noise isn’t in my head (or my ears), it’s in the house. It sounds like a smoke alarm.

I spring from the water, giving my body the fastest once-over with a towel before throwing on my clothes and my trainers, which I’d thankfully brought up with me. I dash down the stairs with a level of athleticism I didn’t know I had in me and, for some reason I don’t run out of the front door, I run to the kitchen, where the alarm is coming from, where I left Millsy.

I breathe a sigh of relief when I realise that he’s absolutely fine. He’s just wafting a tea towel under the smoke alarm. The room is a little smoky but there are no signs of a fire. With the large patio door open in the living room the smell will hopefully drift outside, and the fresh air coming in will clear out the smell of smoke before people get back.

‘What happened?’ I shout over the alarm.

‘Huh?’ he calls back.

‘What happened?’ I shout again, raising my voice even louder. The alarm cuts off halfway through my sentence.

‘I accidentally set the pan on fire,’ he says, a little more casually than I would have expected.

‘Well, I did figure it would have been an accident,’ I reply. ‘You OK? Where’s the pan?’

‘I ran outside with it,’ he tells me. ‘Don’t worry, I put it out.’

‘Maybe we should check,’ I suggest. ‘Imagine if you destroyed your gran’s garden – imagine if it spread to the house.’

‘OK, yeah,’ he says. ‘Let’s go.’

Sure enough, on the patio outside the large sliding door, there is a frying pan with rather black-looking contents inside it. It smells a little smoky but the fire is definitely out.

‘Phew,’ he says. ‘Crisis averted.’

‘Thank God,’ I say.



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