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“Oh, just a clean slate, you mean? Forget everything you did, move on, and pretend it never happened?” Must be great to be a guy like Trystan Abbott. How often did this work for him? Just wave the magic Zero Consequences wand and start over.
She shook her head, and gave a short, incredulous bark of laughter.
“I can’t simply forget what you did to me, Trystan. And right now, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forgive it, not after everything that has happened. But what I can do is set it aside for the duration of my stay here, if only to make life more tolerable for both of us. We don’t have to be friends, we don’t have to be anything. We just have to get through however long we have left here together and then move on with our lives. That would be simplest, I think.”
“What about the interview?”
“You don’t want to do it, I respect your decision.”
“And that’s it?”
“Frankly, I don’t care anymore. I just want this ordeal to end so that I can go home.”
He dipped his head and for once he was the one avoiding her eyes.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
Thrown by the abrupt switch in topics, Iris blinked in confusion.
“What?”
“It’s only four in the morning, but you’ve slept for nearly twenty-four hours. You must be starving.”
It was ridiculously prosaic after the intensity of the last few minutes, but she was hungry and she did need to eat. And since she’d—only moments before—resolved to set the matter aside for now, she might as well focus on something she had some control over. Sulking and not talking to him would achieve nothing and exacerbate an already complicated situation.
“I am, yes.”
“I’ll whip up some breakfast,” he said. “Have a seat.”
“I could help,” she offered, and he eyed her for a moment, as if he were evaluating her condition. Eventually, he nodded.
“I’m making omelets. Why don’t you fix the coffee and toast and set the table?”
Happy to have something to do, she sprang into action.
They didn’t speak much while they each went about their individual tasks, but the silence between them was surprisingly companionable. Luna was asleep in her basket close to the back door, clearly disdainful of so much activity this early in the morning.
“Do you live with your family?” The question, coming as it did off the back of a nearly ten-minute-long silence between them, surprised Iris. She looked up from the mug of coffee she was pouring, but his back was to her as he fried the omelets.
“No. I share a flat with two women in Wandsworth. I’m shocked your comprehensive background check on me didn’t tell you that.” She couldn’t resist the barb.
“If it had, I wouldn’t be asking,” he responded evenly, before continuing. “Sharing for how long now?”
“Nearly three years.”
“And you get along with them?”
“For the most part. Nobody’s ever late with the rent, we’re respectful of each other’s space, we don’t nick one another’s stuff. It has worked out better than any of us imagined it would. Especially considering we were total strangers when we moved in together.”
“I shared an apartment with my mates Dazza—Darryl—and Quinny during and after college,” he volunteered the information freely, as he slid the omelets onto a couple of waiting plates on the counter next to the stove top. He carried the plates to the banquette, while Iris brought over the coffee and toast. “Those were some of the best years of my life.”
Once they were seated, he smiled fondly and continued speaking while he buttered a slice of toast. “Dazza’s the one who wrote and directed Night of the Killer Wetas. He went on to do some pretty amazing shit after that.”
“Are you talking about Darryl Constanza?” New Zealander Darryl Constanza was one of the most acclaimed directors in the world right now—three of his last eight movies had won best picture awards. Everybody knew that the two men were friends, and had been since childhood—when they’d met shortly after Darryl’s family had moved to Australia—Iris just hadn’t realized that Constanza had directed that terrible movie.
“Yeah, he’s a good mate.”
“He directed Wetas?”
