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Until it was time to go home.
We called into Molly’s to have our usual breakfast and then got on the road, just to sit in a traffic jam for hours on end. It took forever and zapped all the good vibes I’d built up from the week away.
We do our best to keep ourselves entertained, but three hours in, with more than the same to go, we’re both grumpy.
By the time I get home, it’s the evening, and I’m ready to ignore the unpacking, jump in the shower, and climb into bed for an early night. I’ve missed having my own space. Even with Mum, you make small concessions when you share a space, and I’m too selfish to do that all the time — I have to be.
Pulling my bags through the doorway, I kick the door shut behind me and take a relieved sigh.
“Oh, welcome home.” Reece comes running out into the hall.
“Err, thanks. What are you doing here?” I drop my backpack and holdall to the floor.
“Well, I’ve been kinda waiting for you.” He slinks back through into the front room, and I follow, to be presented with my front room taken over with game consoles, bags of crisps, and old pizza boxes. Reece has gone straight back onto whatever game he was playing, waving his hands and the controller towards the screen with a headset on.
No.
Absolutely not.
I go through to the bedroom, but that’s in a mess, too. The bed’s been slept in, and the covers are all over the place. “Reece!” I shout.
He doesn’t answer right away, which only stokes my anger. “Reece!” I repeat, my temper already worn from the long drive. And now this?
“I’m kinda in the middle of something,” he shouts.
“Oh, what happened to waiting for me?” I go back through and see he’s still on his game. “When did all of this happen?” I stand in front of the TV and shove my hands on my hips to stop them from wringing his neck.
He has the nerve to look pissed off, but he pauses the game. “I’ve always been a gamer. Your being away was a good opportunity for me to see the set-up at yours. You know. Get used to it here.”
“Without asking me? In my home? No. Out. I want it all gone.”
“Anna, it’s fine. It doesn’t?—”
“No. This is my space. Not yours.” I knit my arms together across my chest and wait for an apology, a look of concern, anything. I’ve put in the work to have this little space as mine, and it’s a reminder of how hard I’ve worked for the life I have now. So, I’m not going to let someone come in here and taint it like this without my permission or even a conversation first.
He looks taken aback and still a little pissed off at my outburst. Not the reaction I was hoping for.
“I’m going to go and take a shower because it’s been a shitty journey. I expect the bed to be remade while I do it. Then, you can sort this mess out.”
“You’re not being very?—”
“Don’t finish that sentence. You had no right to come in while I was away and move in. None.” It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him not to bother coming back, but I take a breath.
“And don’t say you were waiting for me to come home because that’s bullshit.”
The relaxing shower wasn’t what I’d hoped, but it did allow my nerves to settle and my anger to ebb away. It also gave me time to think of what the next step was with Reece.
Him being nice isn’t enough, and being kind is something I’m reassessing, given this little stunt. So, why am I with him?
A vision of Jeremy stares back at me in my mind: his brilliant blue eyes that mirror the sea, the smile he shared with only me.
I shove the temperature control onto cold to shock myself out of those thoughts.
I have no place thinking about him unless it’s a reminder of how bad things got.
But it does prove that I don’t have the feelings for Reece that I might want one day, and hoping they will come may not be the best decision.
When I step out of the bathroom, the bedroom is put back together, and I get to slip between the sheets of the freshly made bed. It soothes me, and I snuggle down and pick up the book from my bedside table.
