I walked into the kitchen. I could smell what was cooking from upstairs. Jerry the chef looked up at me and smiled. Just Jerry. The kitchen was completely empty otherwise.
“Did you have a good night Miss Andrews?”
“I did Jerry, thank you. What are you cooking?”
“Spinach and sundried tomato frittata,” he said. “Coffee?”
“Sounds good, I’d love some,” I said, sliding into a chair at the breakfast table. It wasn’t weird anymore. No, it was still a little weird but it wasn’t that bad anymore. Whenever I wanted to do something on my own, Jerry or Freya the housekeeper would jump in and stop me. It had been a week and I was finally getting used to it. I felt a little guilty, to be honest. My mother would deserve this a lot more than I did. I wasn’t even pregnant yet.
I thanked Jerry as he placed the cast iron skillet with the food in it on the table in front of me. He produced a basket of muffins out of somewhere too. It all smelled delicious. My place was so small that home-cooking was more stressful than it was fun and inevitably, a delivery man was going to be showing up with prepared food. Everything that Jerry had put in front of me since I had been here was incredible.
“Mr. Hampton’s already eaten, I suppose?” I asked.
“He left about twenty minutes before you came down,” Jerry said. Missed him, again. It had been like this for the last week that I had been here and I was getting a little worried. After seeing him the first time at Nova Fertility, I felt like all I did was see him after that. We didn’t just wander back into each other's lives, we crashed back into each other's lives. Now that I was in his house, we were actually one room apart, I had barely even heard his voice through the walls.
I kind of missed the guy. Not that I was going to admit it to him if he aske
d or anything, but it was weird. I thought the point of being in the same house was so he could make sure I was living up to his standards or whatever. Not smoking crack or eating too many Hot Cheetos, or whatever he thought I would get up to when left to my own devices. I ate a mouthful of the frittata. It was fresh and light. I’d choose this if it was ever an option for me before. Being in his house hadn’t been that bad.
The house was beautiful, not creepy or haunted at all. I could come and go as I pleased and as much as I wanted to see Charlie more, I didn’t feel lonely or isolated. I thought something would have happened by now. The way Charlie was about getting me into his house, I would have thought that he was in more of a hurry to get things cooking. We hadn’t been back to the fertility clinic. He hadn’t even talked about what we were going to do to get me pregnant. I didn’t even know what that conversation would look like.
I had been briefed on IVF and intrauterine insemination already at the clinic but I had been alone then. This kind of stuff could take long; couples tried and failed to conceive through these methods over several cycles that each lasted months. How long was I going to be staying here? I had been betting on a little less than a year but that only covered the time it would take to carry the baby and a little recovery time after. We needed to talk.
It was a Saturday. I had no idea what Charlie did all day, but Freya told me he’d most likely be back early at night. I spent part of my day at the house and then met Maggie in the afternoon for lunch. After coming back home as night was falling, I took a shower and came back downstairs with a book. He couldn’t miss me if I was waiting for him, could he? I had legitimate concerns and he wasn’t doing enough to make me feel comfortable or informed.
I waited for about an hour before I heard the door being opened. I checked the time. Just after nine. I was just about to tell him that he had me worried sick waiting up for him when something didn’t fit. He was blond too but it was darker than Charlie’s. He was just about as tall but he was in a t-shirt and jeans, not Charlie’s usual suit. He strolled into the room and completely ignored me. I put the book down. My usual impulse seeing a strange man stroll into the house I was living in would be panic but the way he moved, he seemed completely at home. He let himself in, first of all. How many home invaders had a house key?
“Hey,” I said.
“Huh?” the guy said, looking around.
“Hey, who are you?” I asked. The man spun around and almost fell over.
“Oh, hello pet,” he said. He had an accent. British. It sounded stronger than Charlie’s, didn’t have that American twang to it.
“Pet?” I asked. “Who are you?”
“Who are you?” he countered. He was slurring his words. Was he drunk?
“I asked you first.”
That seemed to stymie him. “Niall. Where’s Charlie?”
“Niall who?”
“Look,” he said, pausing and closing his eyes. Oh yeah, he was definitely drunk. Too many questions. “Only one of us is lost here and it’s not me, alright? My cousin lives here.”
“Your cousin? You and Charlie are related?”
He had finally answered my question but I still had about fifty. Why was he in the house? Okay, he was family and he let himself in but I had no idea Charlie had much family in the States especially after his dad died. He mostly talked about his mother’s side of the family in Britain. Besides my mother, I’d never give anyone my house key. How were they related by the way? He had a British accent but he seemed to live here. Speaking of living here, did he live here here, like in this house?
“We are. Last I checked you and I weren’t.” He paused, looking at me. “Unless we are?”
“We aren’t.”
“Oh, well, nice to meet you. Niall. You’re… oh. Oh! I know who you are,” he said, grinning widely. “Look at that. One of Aunt Veronica’s picks made it to the second date.” The questions just kept coming. I knew now that the man was drunk but why did he also have to talk in riddles?
“Aunt who?” I asked.