The Wedding Pact

by Isla Gordon

  He drank his pint swiftly, tiredness and confusion taking over, and made his exit.

  At home, August was sprawled on the sofa wearing a sheet face mask – which made him jump out of his skin – and re-reading Persuasion. As he stood there, looking at her, all thoughts of Poppy drifted away like petals on the wind.

  Chapter 32

  August

  I would like to perform an inspection on your apartment in 24 hours’ time.

  Oh, crap.

  It was Saturday morning, and with August’s big audition next month still at the forefront of her mind, she’d been planning to spend the entire two days in character. Wasn’t Hilary Swank a method actress? And she had an Oscar. Really, it was the least August could do.

  ‘Flynn?’ August called out, the letter that had been slipped under their door in her hand. ‘Flynn?’ She knocked on his door – was he even home?

  She heard a big, manly yawn, followed by a sleepy, ‘Come in, August.’

  August cracked open the door, her eyes scrunched closed. ‘Are you sure? Are you alone?’ She wasn’t sure why she’d asked that.

  ‘Yes, of course I’m alone,’ he laughed, his voice husky, like he’d just woken up. Which he had. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Ten. Did you have a late night?’

  ‘Yes, but only catching up on work,’ he yawned, gesturing to his work laptop, which lay closed on the other side of the bed. He was all messy hair, among the crumpled bedsheets. The room was dark and cool, though morning sun filtered through the closed curtains so it wasn’t pitch black. ‘Come and get into bed with me so I don’t feel like a lazy sod.’ Flynn rolled onto his front and closed his eyes again, the duvet down to his waist, and he patted the gap on the mattress beside him.

  ‘I’m not getting into bed with you,’ August said, taking a step forward.

  ‘Come on, baby, climb on in,’ he slurred, but one of his eyes opened and he peeped at her, and she could see he was playing.

  Instead, August sat on the bed with him, propping the spare pillow up behind her back, and thwacked his back with the letter. ‘You’re such a tease.’

  ‘You’re a tease,’ he shot back, and slung an arm over her outstretched legs. Flynn’s skin was warm and his arm heavy, and she liked this familiarity between them. It felt light, like it always had with him from the start, and sometimes she felt it transfigured with the complications of … life … and their situation. But sometimes, on lazy mornings or long evenings, she liked to just forget everything else and just be like this. Enjoying each other.

  ‘We’ve had a letter,’ August stated.

  Flynn yawned. ‘Post is nice.’

  ‘It’s from Mrs Haverley.’

  He lifted his head to look at August. ‘Everything okay?’

  ‘Yes. At least, hopefully. She wants to do an inspection tomorrow morning.’

  Flynn looked over his shoulder at his room, which was a bit of a state with piles of clothes, bigger piles of paperwork, coffee mugs scattered on surfaces. He really needed to cut back on his hours.

  ‘It’s part of the contract, just a standard thing during the first couple of months,’ August continued, skimming through the letter. ‘Tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. She likes to do things on Sunday mornings, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Mmm,’ Flynn agreed, closing his eyes again.

  August sighed and shuffled down in the bed, so she was lying next to him after all, moving his arm to rest across her stomach instead of her legs. She pulled the duvet over her, succeeding in not glancing down for a peek as she moved it, and tried to formulate a plan. She loved living here so much, so this needed to go well.

  ‘Hi, there,’ Flynn said, his face close to hers.

  ‘Hello.’ She gulped.

  ‘Nice of you to join me.’

  She knew he was joking around, but … they were sure finding themselves in a lot of situations where they were ‘joking around’ since moving in together. August focussed on the present. ‘Don’t try anything. We need to have a house meeting is all, and you’re too lazy to get up for it so I guess we’re doing it in here.’

  ‘Don’t you try anything,’ stretched Flynn. ‘I’m the one not wearing any clothes.’

  ‘You’re naked?’ August screamed.

  ‘Ah relax, I’m not naked, I have boxers on.’ He rolled onto his side to face her properly. ‘All right, so the landlady is coming on down tomorrow morning.’

  ‘At 10 a.m. You’ll be up, right?’

  ‘I sure will.’

  ‘Our biggest problem is that we’re going to need this pigsty to look like we share it. And my room to look like the spare.’

  Flynn scanned his room again. ‘Luckily, this is all just surface mess because I’ve not had a minute to breathe this week. It’s actually pretty clean and tidy underneath.’

  ‘But even cleaned, it still doesn’t look like the room of a married couple.’

  ‘How should a married couple’s room look?’

  She thought about it. ‘It’s fine that all my clothes are next door, if she comments on it we just say we each had too much stuff to fit the built-in wardrobes, so rather than split it we use the spare room – i.e. my real room – as my walk-in closet, as it were. But … ’

  ‘But?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly what it needs, I just know that right now this room feels one hundred per cent “Flynn” and zero per cent “August” ’.

  ‘You could just move in here with me permanently, and then it would always feel like you,’ Flynn joked, and immediately looked as if he regretted it, like he’d given away his subconscious.

  ‘Flynn! What are you suggesting?’

  ‘Nothing, I’m just messing with you.’ He sat up and she followed suit, pulling the duvet higher to cover them both.

  August didn’t quite know what to make of all this. He seemed extra flirty today. But was it teasing, was it his tired, sleep-deprived mind trying to make jokes she wasn’t quite getting? Either way, it was having an effect on her, and now she couldn’t shake the thought of sharing a bed with him every night, what that would potentially lead to, and—

  Stop it, August.

  ‘Right,’ said Flynn, getting a hold of himself, and running a hand through his hair. ‘So, let’s put your dressing gown on the back of the door along with mine, and bring in your bedside table. Then we should also put a little pile of your scripts or books on the windowsill. That looks like you’ve been in here practising, which you wouldn’t do if it weren’t your room … would you?’

  ‘Of course not! If I was rehearsing for something and you were out, and I had this whole beautiful apartment to myself, I’d hardly come and stand in here and clog my nostrils up with your aftershave.’

  ‘Hey, you don’t like my aftershave?’

  ‘Well, actually I do, I was just including it for dramatic emphasis.’ She mused for a moment. ‘I think I’ll get a bunch of flowers and a vase, to go on your windowsill.’

  ‘Uh-oh,’ Flynn said. ‘Watch out, flowers.’

  ‘All right, all right, we both know I have the least green fingers in the world but I’m sure I can keep them alive for one day.’ It seemed like overkill, and slightly clichéd, to try and make the room look ‘girly’ by putting flowers in there, but August figured that Mrs Haverley and her old-fashioned ways might consider it proper to have fresh flowers around, so August was willing to play the part.

  ‘Come on, then, get up,’ she instructed, climbing out of the bed. ‘I’ll go out and get everything we need for some great bacon sandwiches, and you make a start in here. Ugh, I sound so bossy.’

  But Flynn just laughed lightly and sat down, the duvet dropping back down to his waist again. ‘No you don’t, you’re just the boss. I’m on it, in just five more minutes,’ he yawned, and after she left his room he snuggled back down under the duvet with a smile on his face.

  Chapter 33

  Flynn

  By early afternoon, the apartment had transformed from a flatshare into a mari
tal home. August had cleared the decks in her room, throwing everything into her drawers and wardrobe, and put some spare towels and a box of tissues neatly on the side, so it looked like they were ready for weekend guests at the drop of a hat. The living room was much as it always was, but with their new ‘wedding’ photos prominently printed and framed, and a card on display that August had picked up that morning that said ‘Husband, just to say I love you’. Flynn had laughed at that.

  Flynn’s room was looking, well, quite inviting actually. It was neat and tidy, like he usually was, to be fair, but now it had accents of August dotted about. Some of her books on his shelf. Her Northanger Abbey script plus a few older ones and the flowers on the windowsill. A few select pieces of makeup and toiletries on her bedside table that they’d moved in. She’d swapped his big, framed, signed Star Wars poster for a print that usually hung in her room, a photo of the crest of a wave taken from the side, the sunshine streaming through. It actually went well in his room, coordinating with the Japanese artwork he had up of The Great Wave.

  They stood at his doorway now, surveying their work.

  ‘I think we did well,’ said Flynn. ‘Although I might wake up tomorrow morning and forget whose room I’m in for a moment. Let’s not drink tonight.’

  ‘Good plan,’ August agreed. ‘I’ll change my bed covers in the morning, so my bed doesn’t look slept in.’

  ‘So are we done?’ Flynn asked.

  ‘We should clean, I guess,’ August answered, and then went and made them both a cup of tea.

  ‘I can do that – you wanted to rehearse this weekend,’ countered Flynn.

  ‘You know what though? It’s actually been nice taking my mind off it a little. I know that scene like the back of my hand. I know Catherine Morland like the back of my hand. Maybe having a day off is what I need.’

  He looked at her. ‘Okay, but if you want to run lines while we’re cleaning just say the word.’

  ‘You know me so well,’ she laughed. ‘Are you still all right with this whole arrangement?’ August enquired, handing Flynn’s mug to him a few minutes later, and they took a walk out of the building to sit on the wall and relax.

  ‘Living with you?’

  ‘That, but also this whole … ’ August checked behind her to make sure they were alone and then lowered her voice. ‘This whole “fake marriage” thing?’

  Flynn nodded and sipped his tea. ‘Sure. It seems to be working pretty well so far. Are you?’

  ‘Yes. I’m so … ’ She inhaled the fresh, Bath air. ‘ … happy … living here. And you’re a great flatmate. But there have been a few occasions where we’ve had to cover our tracks, or things have got more complicated than I imagined they would.’

  ‘I see what you mean. But I think we’ve handled it all well so far, don’t you?’

  ‘I do, so far.’ She crinkled her nose at him. ‘Sorry for any tricky bits though. I’m sure spending your Saturday prepping your home to make it look like you’re married to your flatmate wasn’t how you expected your life to be when you were thinking about moving from Japan. Hopefully tomorrow will go smoothly.’

  ‘It’ll go fine,’ Flynn replied.

  ‘Did you live with somebody in Japan?’ she asked him outright, for the first time. ‘Did you live with your ex-girlfriend? Tell me to mind my own beeswax if you want.’

  Flynn had been expecting this question at some point. Well, not necessarily that exact question, but he’d never really discussed Yui, or the exact details of his life in Japan, with August. Even when she’d told him about James, he’d still not opened up much. It had felt too fresh, too personal, to start sharing. But maybe now was a good time.

  He took a long gulp of his tea. ‘Yep, I lived with Yui, for about a year.’

  ‘Oh,’ August replied, her eyebrows raising involuntarily. ‘I hadn’t realised. So it was pretty serious.’

  ‘It was. We’d been together for a couple of years before I moved.’

  ‘Did you … ’ she trailed off.

  ‘Did we … do it?’ Flynn teased.

  ‘No,’ August laughed. ‘Did you move to England because you broke up?’

  ‘That’s a difficult question.’ Flynn had never tried too hard to see through the frosted glass window to the end of his relationship with Yui. Sometimes he felt like it ended because he chose to go to England, and that’s certainly the narrative she’d chosen. But other times it felt like he’d chosen to move back because he knew things were over between them, like he didn’t feel wanted anymore, and that’s why he’d started to think about starting afresh.

  August let silence fall over them while he thought. She moved her arm like she wanted to put it around him but thought twice. Instead she waited.

  ‘If I really think about it, the break-up started when Yui and I moved in together,’ Flynn started, his gaze never leaving the vista ahead of them. ‘We had a great first year together, obviously, that’s why we took the next step. We found a nice apartment, equidistant from both our work-places, cosy, lots of natural light. It had this big window seat we could both lie out on – you would have liked it.’ Why did he say that? He hadn’t meant to insert her into the tableau.

  ‘It sounds lovely,’ said August.

  ‘But I think Yui … no, both of us … assumed moving in together would mean being able to spend more time together. In reality it only highlighted how many hours we both put into our jobs and how neither of us wanted to argue about it when we finally came home.’

  ‘And that went on for a year?’

  ‘Not continually, it’s more that the cracks started to form, and niggles became pain points, which became arguments. But we didn’t really want to break up, we just didn’t know the solution. At least that’s how I felt. Then I found this job transfer and I thought maybe if we both moved over here for a while it would be a change of scene, a change of pace, a new adventure. But Yui saw it as a break-up.’

  ‘Did she want you to stay?’ asked August, treading carefully.

  He looked down then, swirling the remainder of his tea in his mug, and sighed with defeat. ‘Not really. I think, for her, it was a light at the end of the tunnel. An escape route. From me.’

  ‘I’m sure she didn’t see it like that,’ August commented, kindly.

  ‘It’s not like we ever got really mad at each other, it was never horrible between us, I just began to feel like she wasn’t looking at me the same anymore, like I’d disappointed her and she was done. If I hadn’t found this job, I expect we would have split up anyway.’

  He went to take another sip of tea but his mug was empty. August took it from his hands and replaced it with her own, a mug which was still half full.

  ‘Do you miss her?’ August asked.

  ‘I miss the her from before we moved in together. I can look back on that and smile now. But the Yui from the past year still makes me sad. No, the situation makes me sad, it’s really not her fault. It does make me worried about moving in with a girlfriend again though.’ He sighed. That was the truth of it really, the reason he would never jump into living with a girlfriend again, and the reason he knew he had to keep his thoughts about August to himself if he didn’t want to risk their friendship.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Because what if I ruin it again? What if living with me is a relationship destroyer?’

  August thought about this. ‘I like living with you.’ He smiled into his mug of tea, and she continued. ‘I know I’m not a girlfriend, but for what it’s worth, I do. And every situation is different. Your next girlfriend won’t be exactly like Yui, so why would your relationship?’

  Flynn nodded, glancing over at August, at the sun catching her hair, at the way she held her hands around his empty mug, cradling it like she could still feel the warmth. He wasn’t sure what to say. Because what he was thinking was about how it would feel if August were his girlfriend.

  So August spoke again. ‘That said, I’m not as wise as I sound, because I have never lived with a
boyfriend. My last boyfriend broke up with me at the mere thought of living with me, so maybe we’re both complete nightmares, destined to just live together for eternity like a couple of misfits.’

  Flynn laughed at that; his melancholy moment broken. ‘That doesn’t sound too bad.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Nope. James’s loss was my gain, quite frankly. Where does he live now?’

  August shrugged. ‘Same place as he used to, I’m guessing, in a house share across the city.’

  Flynn slung an arm around August’s shoulders, the weight of it heavy but comforting. They both admired the big, open panorama in front of them, and he said, ‘Well, we live here.’

  ‘We live here,’ August smiled.

  Chapter 34

  August

  August watched Mrs Haverley’s profile as she ever so slowly scrutinised the apartment. She’d been there fifteen minutes and hadn’t left the living room yet, barely saying a word. Her eyes were moving along the lengths of the wall, perhaps looking for scuff marks, or signs that August and Flynn were living there under false pretences and needed immediate evicting.

  Flynn asked again, ‘Mrs Haverley, are you sure I can’t make you a tea or anything?’

  Mrs Haverley dragged her eyes from the curtains to Flynn’s face, regarded him for a moment, and then said, ‘I’m fine, thanks.’

  She moved towards August’s bedroom and stopped, her gaze caught by one of their faux wedding photos, sitting in a silver frame and propped up on a shelf. ‘You had a beach wedding,’ she stated, with no indication this was a question, nor whether she considered it a good or bad thing.

  ‘We did,’ August replied in her brightest voice. ‘In Cornwall. It was a magical day.’