LITMIR.BIZ

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stared at him as he slumped across from her, trying to angle his body to get a blast of air when the fan rotated back in his direction.

      Their house was in a terrace near Victoria Park in Hackney, and the area had gradually become full of professionals and yummy mummies the longer they’d lived here. Gee had bought it back when he’d been in the band and it was one of the few things he had hung on to, and with the music studio he’d built at the bottom of the large garden, it meant security.

      ‘It’s my pension,’ he’d explained to her, ‘because god knows I didn’t make much money. Enough to buy this outright, build the studio. The rest of it…’ Gee had made a whooshing gesture with his hand.

      He’d told her this a few months into their first year at university, when Emma had come around to work on a project.

      Compared to her cramped halls of residence, it had made Gee seem like a grown up. With a plan and a structured life. So far removed from her experience.

      Any structure in her childhood she’d put there herself.

      And when it was time move out of halls… well, there had been a bit of a mix up but Gee had pulled through and made one of his spare rooms ready for her. Saved her. Maybe it was weird that she was still living in the same house she had lived in all the way through uni, but it was the longest she’d ever stayed anywhere.

      It gave her roots that she’d always craved.

      She’d made him up the rent as soon as she’d started earning some money. Just because he could afford the house without a tenant didn’t mean she could freeload. There were some things you didn’t do and that was mooch off your famous best friend.

      And now that he was one of the most sought after music engineers in the business, he didn’t really need the pension. She couldn’t help but smile, she was so proud of him.

      She loved their house – the way it was spread over five floors, with the kitchen in the basement and the living/dining room running from the front of the house to the back on the ground floor; the two battered leather sofas diagonal to each other facing a massive flatscreen TV mounted above the fireplace.

      Home.

      It meant they had a sofa each. And whoever got into the room first was in charge of the remote control, that was the rule. If there were still wrestling matches and sofa cushions flung on occasions then that was kept between themselves and these four walls.

      Filled bookshelves lined the walls either side of the chimney breast.

      ‘Have you been mucking around with my books again?’ Gee said from his prone position on the sofa.

      Emma groaned. This happened every time she picked any book off the shelf, and she was pretty sure she’d put it back exactly where she’d found it.

      ‘You are so OCD,’ she said, wondering if Amazon could deliver an extra fan in the next hour? How did September end up being this hot? June had been a soggy mess.

      ‘Little Miss Planner has no cause to throw stones in glass houses, I’ve seen what you can do with a spreadsheet,’ he said as he leveraged himself off the sofa and moved a book from one shelf to another. He stepped back and scanned it before nodding his head.

      It looked like too much effort for her, she was sweating just looking at him. And not in a good way.

      ‘It has been ten years, Ems. When are you going to remember I don’t like my fiction and non-fiction to get mixed up. Fiction on these shelves,’ he pointed, ‘in alphabetical order by author – not title.’ He glared at her.

      ‘I did that once, when I thought I was being helpful,’ she squawked, some people were so ungrateful.

      ‘It took me a whole weekend to sort it out.’ He pointed to the upper shelves. ‘And this is where the non-fiction goes.’

      ‘I know, Gee. You go through it every time.’

      ‘Well, I’d expect it to stick. Maybe it’s because you don’t know the difference between fact and fiction at work.’

      ‘Ha, very funny,’ she said. ‘Sit down, I’ve ordered Turkish because I’m not going anywhere near an oven and we’re marathoning the latest season of Ten Peaks.’

      ‘Ah, the rock and roll way we spend our Friday nights.’ He pulled his T-shirt up to get some of the air underneath it.

      Had he been waxing his chest again, she thought?

      He usually only did that when he wanted to impress someone. It always seemed to happen just before Emma would start falling over some random woman, or more unusually a man, coming out of his room, who would then use her Nutella and not replace it.

      Damn.

      She should be happy. She should, no, she was. Of course, she wanted Gee to be happy and if that meant dating, then so be it. Just because her plan wasn’t about prioritising dating at the moment.

      Gee worked too hard, he needed someone nice. But… he would have less time for her. Instead of the two of them, there would be three. And other than when it was musketeers, Hanson or Destiny’s Child, three was a crowd.

      ‘Earth to Ems.’ He chucked a pillow across at her, she was too slow and it smacked her in the face. She couldn’t complain as the displaced air cooled her for an instant before it hit.

      ‘What?’ She said, letting the cushion fall to the floor without stopping it.

      ‘Turn on the TV, and there are some tissues on the side table to wipe up your drool as soon as Austen Wentworth comes on.’

      ‘I don’t drool.’

      Gee laughed.

      ‘You drool just as much,’ Emma muttered as she picked up the remote and clicked onto Netflix. ‘That is the reason Harry won’t invite us to meet Austen,’ she said, mentioning their friend, Harry Harville, who also starred in the show. His husband Lewis worked with Gee.

      ‘No, Lewis was very clear it was because of your high-pitched squealing when you caught sight of the topless photo of Austen on his phone.’

      She turned on the episode and turned up the volume. He didn’t know what he was talking about. She had merely gasped in surprise.

      Half an hour later they paused the show when the Turkish takeout arrived.

      ‘Do you think we’re stuck in a rut?’ Gee asked around a mouthful of carrot dipped in humus.

      What did he mean? There was no point her going out on the town and getting drunk for at least another twelve months. Then she’d have to put some serious thought into finding ‘the one’.

      The hummus was a bit drier than normal, she thought as she struggled to swallow.

      ‘What do you mean a rut?’ she answered.

      He definitely was dating, that was what this was about. Or he wanted to. Who was it? No, she didn’t want to know. There was no point in her getting attached to them.

      As if she ever did.

      Maybe she could make sure her next clients needed someone to travel with them? Then at least she wouldn’t be around. And by the time she was back it would be over.

      But then they would have a clear run at him, she thought, they wouldn’t know that Emma and Gee came as a pair.

      ‘I mean, it’s a Friday night and we’re staying in with takeout and Netflix. And we aren’t even using it as a euphemism. You’re not yet thirty and I have a Brit Award and a VMA in the downstairs toilet. What has happened to us?’

      Okay, maybe he wasn’t dating. But he was obviously having a midlife crisis. Early.

      ‘See, this is all because you don’t have a life plan,’ she said as she found the energy to wrap her kebab up tighter, so she didn’t lose any. She watched in fascination as Gee stuck his tongue out to lick the

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