She starts updating me on a situation apparently happening upstairs: Maisie’s friend, a girl called Isla who lives in our building, has overhead some really crazy arguments from one of her neighbors. Apparently this neighbor has been having screaming matches with her boyfriend the last couple of days (which now she mentions it, might explain some of the noise I’ve been hearing from upstairs this week), and it’s escalated to yelling about how they feel about kids and marriage and stuff. Charlotte sighs, telling me she hopes it works out for them, but she imagines what a big, scary conversation that must be. My stomach twists the whole time she talks, and I have to work hard not to give too much away. I’m sweating through my T-shirt.
She notices something is up, because her mouth twists and her forehead puckers in a frown. “I’m boring you, aren’t I? Sorry. I know you don’t really care about some stranger’s drama.”
“No!” I say, maybe a little too quickly. “No, that’s not it, I just—just feel bad for them, is all. I promise, I want to hear all about it.”
Charlotte and I never really talked about getting married, or kids, or our futures, or anything like that, but I guess we never really needed to. We were serious and committed to each other so early on.
I guess she’s always expected me to propose at some point, but it’s not something we discussed so much.
We’ve been to a couple of friends’ weddings over the last year or so.
Once one got engaged, it seemed everyone was doing it. We’ve had five weddings in the last year. Charlotte would say something at each one, like how she didn’t want lilies at her wedding, or she thought it was tacky to have such a big group of bridesmaids and groomsmen, or that she could never get married abroad because she’d never expect her friends to pay that kind of money just to see her tie the knot.
It wasn’t like I didn’t have my share of opinions. When her friend from university had a kid and we went to visit, we both laughed over the name (they’d called their kid Leia, after the Star Wars character) and I’d joked to her that if we had a son, I’d definitely name him something appropriately dorky too.
Everything had always been such a throwaway comment, though, or part of a joke.
Hearing her tell me this gossip I don’t actually care about, though, I wonder if we should’ve talked about it more, before I go ahead and propose to her.
As if she can read my mind, Charlotte turns suddenly serious and says to me, “Ethan?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I ask you something?”
My stomach lurches and my heart is somewhere in my throat, but I nod and say in the most breezy voice I can manage, “Sure, anything.”
And she asks me, “How do you feel about pineapple on pizza?”
apartment #15 – isla
Chapter Twenty
Nope, sorry, Danny, I tried and I can’t do it.
Even with the door shut, the noise from the kitchen is so distracting it’s making it impossible to focus. It doesn’t help that my head’s not really in it because this late in the afternoon isn’t when I’d usually be working out, so as much as I grit my teeth and try to push on, I only end up frustrated and fed up.
Like, seriously? I’m here with my whole routine in disarray, even wearing mascara and some BB cream to exercise so I don’t look totally hideous for Danny, while he’s barely stepped away from his computer for more than two minutes at a time today to speak to me, and now he’s making a total racket while cooking dinner—and probably making an absolute mess of the kitchen I only just cleaned this morning.
There’s a loud metal clatter, like the sound of a saucepan falling, which is the last straw.
Huffing, breathless, I pause the HIIT workout video I’m following on YouTube, almost tripping over my yoga mat and the wine-red rug I pushed out of the way in my haste, and storm across the hallway.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the ornate vintage mirror hanging behind the sofa: dripping in sweat, hair scraped back into a ponytail but starting to form a frizzy halo around my head from the exercise. But I can’t even care about the state I’m in. I’m too riled up. No, I’m not just riled up, I’m plain old pissed off.
I throw open the kitchen door and I’m hit by a wall of steam.
“Could you please turn that down?”
“What?” Danny has to shout for me to hear him over the roar of the fan over the oven and the Spanish podcast he’s listening to.
“I said, could you turn that down?”
“What?”
I’m grinding my teeth and resenting the interruption to my workout; I run a hand over my flushed face and don’t notice him reaching to turn off the fan on the stove and hitting pause on the podcast until it’s too late and I’m yelling into a now-silent kitchen:
“CAN YOU PLEASE GIVE ME SOME GODDAMN QUIET?”
Danny blinks at me, taken aback.
I’m breathing hard, but now it’s nothing to do with the workout.
“And will you open a fucking window? It’s like a sauna in here.”
Danny turns down the temperature on the hob, giving the bolognese he’s making one last stir before turning to me. Behind him, the counter is piled with pots and bowls and knives from some earlier part of his cooking process. Somewhere in the depths of my kitchen, he’s found an apron. Pink gingham. I vaguely recognize it as one that my mum bought, when she helped me kit out my new apartment. Even though Serena dropped off a small pile of Zach’s clothes an hour ago, Danny’s not wearing a shirt under the apron; I’d have teased him about it, maybe made a couple of flirty comments, but I think we both know that wouldn’t go down well.
“Your kitchen windows are locked,” he tells me slowly, “and I didn’t want to interrupt your workout.”
“Bit late for that,” I mutter, scowling, but stride across the kitchen to yank open a drawer by the sink and get the key out, unlocking the windows and throwing them wide open. The fresh air feels glorious, especially when I’m overheating from my workout and the kitchen is so steamy. I take a second to try to calm down and enjoy it, to stop feeling so angry. It’s not particularly effective.
Making an effort to sound at least a bit calmer, I tell him, “I couldn’t even hear the workout video over all the noise you’re making in here. And honestly! How can you possibly have used this many pots and chopping boards for one dish? I didn’t even know I owned this many knives!”
“I’ll clean it all up after.”
“That’s—that’s not the point! What about the fact that you’ve been working all day, and you worked all yesterday evening. It’s like you could barely look up from your laptop long enough to acknowledge me all day, and I don’t want to be that couple who don’t talk to each other, and—”
“Not talk? Isla, I was in meetings, like, all day! It’s not like I was trying to ignore you.”
Danny shuffles closer, reaching for me, but I draw away to pace the length of the kitchen again, anger boiling in the pit of my stomach.
He says, “You’ve got all black under your eyes. I think it’s mascara.”
“Well at least I’m wearing mascara!”
He looks at me like I’ve well and truly lost the plot now, his hand-some face crinkling in confusion. “What?”
Oh crap, that didn’t really land with the impact I wanted it to have.
Now he looks like he wants to laugh, which really doesn’t help my mood when I’m so pissed off.