A 'Sim'ple Story

First Impressions (2)

Joe awoke the following morning to the sound of soothing music and heavy breathing coming from the living room. Half-asleep, Joe couldn't figure out what was going on in there. His first thought was that Dianne was moving furniture around, but it wasn't as though there was much to move in the first place! 

Slowly, Joe opened the bedroom door and stepped into the living room warily. He was immediately faced with Dianne bent into an upside-down 'v' shape with her bum in the air; an unusual sight to be faced with first thing in the morning! It was at that moment that Joe remembered Dianne mentioning her love of yoga and morning workouts, something that he had been fine with during their initial interview. Not to say that he wasn't fine with it anymore, but he hadn't exactly been expecting her to be quite so literal about it.

The redhead lowered herself down to her knees and grinned as she noticed him, "G'day".

"Uh, hey," Joe greeted hesitantly, "Sorry, I didn't mean to intrude".

"You're not," Dianne assured him, "Besides, it's your house".

Joe shook his head, "Our house".

Dianne smiled sheepishly, "And speaking of which, there is a plus side of having a ridiculously oversized living room: more space for this!" she remarked as she gestured around herself, "I've never had so much room to work out before".

Joe mulled this over, "Every cloud and that".

"Exactly," Dianne nodded, then waved to the space next to her, "Do you wanna join me?"

"Not right now, thanks," Joe replied slowly, "I'm not really awake yet; if I tried any of that, I'd probably snap in half!"

Dianne shrugged, "No, it's a great way to wake up your mind and body".

"You know what else works?" Joe questioned pointedly, "Coffee!"

Dianne chuckled, "I'm one step ahead of you," she replied, then pointed over to the freshly made pot of coffee on the counter, "Well, more than one!"

"I can see that," Joe murmured before pouring some of the warm liquid into the mug already set out for him; suspecting once again that his new housemate was too good to be true, "Thanks".

"No problem", Dianne shrugged before stepping one leg through to a lunge.

There was a pause before Joe began rummaging through the cupboards to find ingredients for breakfast, "So, any plans for the day?" he asked, "Apart from having your yoga session interrupted!"

Dianne sniggered, "Probably catching up with the fam, and jobhunting," she replied, "What about you?"

"Pretty much the same, really", Joe shrugged. There was a long pause as he prepared breakfast whilst Dianne finished her flow.

"Nice day though, isn't it?" Joe began awkwardly as he pointed to the window, "I mean, it's still really cold; but it's sunnier than yesterday".

Dianne nodded slowly, "Yeah, I guess".

"And you'd be in the middle of summer in Australia, right?" Joe continued, "Pretty different weather compared to here!"

Dianne blinked at him, "Wow, this is the most British conversation I've ever had!"

Joe chuckled coyly, "Well, you'd better get used to it".

"I hope not," Dianne countered, "We're gonna be living together for the foreseeable, we need to move beyond small-talk".

"Yeah, we will," Joe assured her uncomfortably, "Sorry, I'm not trying to be weird".

"It just comes naturally, right?" Dianne teased.