[18+] Mark just wants a quiet life. With plenty of action at work, he has no interest in bringing the drama home with him. But he does need a flatmate, and when blonde bombshell Zoe crashes onto the scene, she's more than he bargained for.
Zoe is a...
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June 2007
ZOE
There's nothing special about my last day at uni. In fact, I'm glad to be out of there. Every damn corridor holds memories of JJ. Our first unofficial date in the cafeteria. Our first kiss outside his economics lecture theatre. The bathroom where I cried when I caught him cheating for the third time. The library where he broke up with me, probably because he knew I wouldn't be able to cause a scene in there.
With my final exam done, I don't spare the campus a second of sentimentality. Onto the next chapter. A better one, hopefully.
"Do you want to go out tonight?" Mark asks when I get home. "I've got a couple of evenings off work. We can celebrate you finishing."
"I'm seeing my parents," I say. "Let's leave it until next week and we can celebrate your birthday at the same time."
He won't want to celebrate his birthday. He never wants to do anything remotely personal. It drives me up the wall, but I've learnt to accept it, because no matter how much he shuts me out, he still cares for me. He looks out for me. And that's more than can be said for my other friends.
Plus, he's great in bed. He doesn't treat me like I'll break. I'm having the best sex of my life, and it only gets better each time we go there, even though we always say it's the last. It never is, because every time we give in, we trust one other a little more. In fact, the bedroom is where I get the most communication from him. And that's fine, because if we can keep sex separate from emotions, then I'll stand a fighting chance of coming out of this with my heart intact.
The guy is emotionally unavailable, and I've no interest in dating someone who's eventually going to break my heart just like JJ did.
"I don't want to celebrate my birthday," he says.
"What a surprise." I kick off my shoes and collapse onto the sofa.
His eyes narrow as they follow my trainers tumbling across the living room floor. Such a neat freak. Except in the bedroom. In there, he's just a freak.
He folds his arms and stares at me. "Everything okay? Did your exam go badly?"
"Exam was fine. I'm just not looking forward to seeing my parents later."
"Oh." He sits down on the armchair and adjusts his cuffs. "I thought you got on fine with your parents."
"I do. They can just be overbearing, that's all. It comes from a good place but it's intense."
"Do you want company?" he offers. "I still owe you from the funeral."
I try not to bristle at the insinuation. We're friends. Even he admits that we're close. So why does he always insist on justifying something that should be totally normal by suggesting there's an unemotional reason for doing it?
