Temporary Housemate

Chapter Six

“He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.”

-          Sir Francis Bacon.

I lay in bed that night literally unable to sleep. There was pain everywhere and having to sit around for three hours for Adam to get home was not my idea of fun. At first I tried to find another way of getting in, then went to call Adam only to realise that I had not taken his phone number. So sitting and waiting in the slowly cooling weather it was.

Despite my current discomfort, I couldn’t help but to smile that in four more sleeps I would be getting ready to go to work – work!! A proper job. I honestly couldn’t calm down, although I was exhausted. I simply squirmed until I got to the point where the pain was unbearable and the beyond-exhaustion sleep deprivation was simply too much. In removing myself from the comfort of the duvet, I stumbled down the two flights of stairs and landed in the kitchen with a thud from walking in to a rather warm chest.

“Oh my goodness, Adam I’m so sorry!” I squeaked out surprising even myself with the small sound of my voice. Looking up I saw a smirk adorning the graceful face of the Adonis of a man I shared this house with, “I’m sorry, I was just...” I discontinued what I was going to say at the look he was giving me, not quite amused but not quite upset either.

“Char please stop apologising, I know you’ve had a long day!”

In that same small voice I simply stated, “So have you!” The self-accusation and contempt clear in my voice.

“I think you need to stop blaming yourself for everything. I offered to help you and we finished the job! I never had to do that myself because beforehand Vince never rented the top floor out and so left it, yours definitely needed doing. Pluuuus, you’re a girl. Girls don’t generally like dark, dingy, unclean places, so it was my pleasure.” He finished with an increasingly playful glimmer in his eye.

Rising above it I went to move around him, ignoring him and the jibe completely. Although this was because he was also kind of, slightly right. Grrr. Beautiful, annoying, irritating, cocky - “Char!” – man. Snapping from my thoughts I looked straight at him, “Yes?”

“I said, what are you doing back down here anyway? It’s gone one in the morning!”

Had it? Squinting my eyes to look at the clock I realised it had, hmmmm. “Oh, I couldn’t sleep and came down for some pain killers and something to help to get me to sleep.” I shrugged, smiling weakly, not having the capacity to do any more.

“Well why don’t we both grab a drink and then we’ll go and relax a little out on the back veranda? Plus then you could explain to me why you need pain killers.” Huh, outside? I never even realised we had a veranda...maybe I should pay a little more attention, then I took in the rest of Adam’s sentence and my cheeks heated a little. I hate days like these.

I suddenly came back into my body – really need to stop day dreaming! “No, don’t worry, honestly I was just going to grab some pills and a glass of water, you really need some rest – you must be beyond shattered!?” I really needed to stop being so self-absorbed as well.

“Are you sure? I really don’t mind, us oldies don’t need as much sleep you know.” He passed on with a wink. Slinking over to the cupboards I began rummaging around for something to remove all the pain, in the meantime finding a glass that I rapidly filled with some water. Turning away from the sink, a hand appeared in front of me with two pills in it, following the rest of the arm up to his torso I watched as he placed the packet back in the cupboard above and to the right of the sink. I accepted the pills gladly and swallowed them in one gulp.