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She turned on her side, trying not to make Willis topple from the bed, and reached for her glasses on the nightstand. She caught sight of the time on the clock radio. It was almost seven-thirty.
‘Daddy up early again, Willis? Come on, let’s go and get you some breakfast and see what he’s up to,’ Freya said. She stroked the cat’s head.
She got out of bed, tied her robe around her and headed out of the bedroom. Willis skipped in front of her and led the way down the stairs.
The door leading to the basement was open. That meant Nicholas was working out. Converting the cellar into a state-of-the-art gym was the only modification they’d made to the house since moving in.
Freya knew he found it tiresome, but keeping himself in shape was essential for Nicholas’ profession.
When the equipment was first installed, she’d attempted to have a turn on the running machine. She soon found out it wasn’t an activity you could multitask on. She had nearly choked on a chocolate muffin and almost scalded herself with a hot cup of tea. She hadn’t been near the equipment since.
Willis weaved in and out of her legs as she negotiated the stairs down to the gym. Nicholas was seated, his back to her, bare from the waist up, using the lateral pull-down.
Freya stood and watched him. He had an amazing physique she could look at all day. She quickly pulled a small digital camera out of the pocket of her robe and snapped a couple of pictures.
‘Hey,’ he greeted. He let go of the weights and turned around to face her.
‘Morning. So, at what hour did you decide you’d rather spend time with these boring, ugly, stiff machines instead of me?’ Freya asked, walking towards him, Willis hot on her heels.
‘It was about six, or just after. I woke and I couldn’t get back to sleep and I thought if I do this now, I won’t have to do it later. I thought maybe we could go out to dinner tonight.’ He stood up, reached for his towel and rubbed his face with it.
‘My choice?’
‘Yeah, why not. I’ve just about recovered from the last feeding frenzy we went on when we did four different restaurants in the one evening.’
Willis let out a miaow and jumped up on to the stepper machine. It started to move and scared him.
He leapt off and raced up the cellar steps.
‘Willis is hungry and so am I. Have you eaten?’ Freya asked. She took the towel from him and rubbed the sweat from his back.
‘No, what have we got?’
‘The leftover pizza’s still there. It’s probably still good for one more day. Or there’s a carton of Chinese we didn’t finish on Tuesday. Or there are blueberry muffins from the diner but they’ve been hanging around a while so perhaps they ought to go in the bin,’ Freya recounted as they made their way back up to the main house.
‘Do we not have bread and eggs or cereal?’
‘Well yeah, we have those things. But they aren’t very exciting.’
‘I’m making scrambled eggs with toast and I’m putting all that leftover takeaway food in the trash,’ he told her.
‘The bin, God damn it! The bin! Even the pizza? It’s got everything on it.’
‘Especially the pizza. If it’s been around that long, it’s got everything on it and a whole lot more.’
Willis was sat on the kitchen counter when they arrived in the room, rubbing his head against the cupboard housing his food.
‘So, you haven’t forgotten what we’re doing today, have you?’ Nicholas asked.
‘Do we have something planned?’
‘The new scanning equipment’s going to be used for the first time at Carlton General Hospital today. We’re doing a meet and greet with the patients, cutting a ribbon and having lunch with the hospital board. You really had forgotten, hadn’t you?’
‘Oh God, is that today?! Yes, I had forgotten, but that’s fine. I’ll call Sasha, have her check the diary and cancel anything I might have stupidly put in. I did say I wasn’t an organiser,’ Freya reminded him.
And Nicholas definitely hadn’t told her. His assistant probably sent her a bossy email and she probably deleted it.
‘Well, while you’re on the phone to her, you can ask her to check appointments for next month and then we can make a firm date for the wedding.’
