Free The Gentleman Has Left the Building by Lucy V. Morgan

 
    Part One
     
     
    Cooking
spagheeeeetti. Singing like a diiiiiick. It’s the weekend-y…I can’t
rhyme for shiiiiit…
    I am the master
of the kitchen. Captain cheese grater. I told Harper when we first
got our apartment that my only goal for the next six months was to
make her horrendously fat (just ‘cause it‘d be funny); so far she
hasn’t succumbed, but there’s a whole pound of bacon in this
carbonara and a litre of ice cream in the deep freeze, so maybe
she’ll magically inflate in twelve hours?
    My mum taught
me to cook. She said it was a good way to impress a woman; I think
she was secretly terrified that I’d be single for the rest of my
life and would survive on Doritos dipped in boiled eggs (which is
the food of Gods, by the way). She’s still confused because Harper
and I aren’t a couple--“but you live together all on your own!” she
says--and she doesn’t understand why we don’t just confess our
secret affair and run off into the sunset. The idea of Harper
running anywhere amuses me...but still.
    It’d be like
marrying my sister. Well. Harper and I did kiss one rainy, grim
Sunday evening. We were hung-over and dejected from our respective
break-ups--her ex was conveniently having an affair with mine--so
it seemed like it was worth a try. Half way through, I opened my
eyes to find that she was watching Supernatural over my
shoulder; her tongue went limp in my mouth and then we were
laughing, the kind that gives you belly cramp and makes your face
crease and ache. When all that subsided, we swore never to speak of
it again. I’ve had more fun being single with Harper than I did in
my entire last relationship, and that’s really not worth trading
in. We're cool advertising execs together, we have our modern,
minimalist little bachelor(ette) pad...it's a good arrangement.
    “Rhys?” Harper
called from the hall in that throaty, Alanis Morissette voice of
hers.
    The front door
groaned on its hinges and I heard Harper curse as she bent to take
her heels off. Normally, I’d have hopped through and grabbed her
ankles so she fell backwards, but my softly bubbling white sauce
was more important. (That‘s less pathetic than it sounds).
    “I’m in the
kitchen!”
    She padded
through and folded her arms. “I forgot the wine.”
    “Well, now
you’ve done it. We’ll have to crack open the tequila instead.” I
sighed. “Let me guess-- Nathan blinked three times in four seconds
and you were too busy orgasming to remember?”
    “That sounds a
bit painful. But no.” She pulled her long blond hair from her face
and went to stir the carbonara.
    I smacked her
hand out of the way. “Bad Harper! Do you know what happens if a
woman touches this pan?”
    Her tongue
clicked against her teeth. “It’ll taste good for once?”
    “Screw you
then. You’re not having any of it!” Sticky spoon aloft, I chased
her through to the bathroom, where she hid behind the door and
shrieked with laughter.
     
    Twenty minutes
later, we were slobbing out in the lounge with bowls of pasta; me
in my sauce-flecked work shirt and Harper in her fuzzy pyjamas
(this is how I’m certain the girl doesn’t fancy me: nightwear in
hedgehog print).
    “Tequila does
not go with smoky bacon and cheese.” She winced.
    “We can’t do
soft drinks on a Friday night, Harpcore. We’re already staying
in--that’s bad enough.”
    “But it’s our
mantra, remember?” She leaned over to prod me with her fork. “We
don’t feel sad for not going out on the prowl. We’re secure in
our…”
    “…Patheticness?” I said.
    “That’s not
even a word!”
    “Yeah, well.
You’ve been on the prowl all day anyway, you whore. I’ve seen
you.”
    Harper
swallowed without chewing properly; she was too busy blushing like
a fourteen-year-old in a sex ed class. We worked together at Knoll
& co, an advertising agency in London, and Harper had been
flirting with Nathan, the new guy, with an embarrassing lack of
subtlety. Which amused me no