Read Online Pompomberry House by Rosen Trevithick - Free Book Online Page A

somebody whom I’d been trying my hardest to overlook.
    I crept closer, as if seeing him might somehow harm me. I
could hear talking. With whom could he be speaking? There was nobody else in
the kitchen.
    Feeling like a naughty child out of bed after lights-out, I
peered through the inviting crack between the heavy door and the granite wall —
a tiny window into the world of Biff. There he was, sipping a mug of something
steamy, like a sexy, strapping actor plucked straight from a coffee advert.
    What was the matter with me? In the last ten years, I’d been
intimate with only one man. Yet here I was, mentally inventing anatomically
impossible sexual positions for a man so different from my usual type that they
wouldn’t even be in the same episode of a wildlife show.
    Eventually, I realised that he wasn’t having a conversation,
but watching something on a laptop.
    Then I heard a familiar voice croon, “I’ve made a huge
mistake.”
    “Oh my God!” I cried, pushing open the door and barging into
the kitchen. “You’re watching Arrested Development .”
    “I am. You know it?”
    “Know it? It’s my favourite!”
    “Pull up a stool!”
    “Is it safe?” I asked, wobbling on a broken stool, whilst
secretly enjoying the metaphor for the perils of spending time with Biff.
    What was I so afraid of? My marriage was over. The decision
had been made. The relevant party had been informed. Six whole days had passed.
Watching television with a hottie was acceptable now, perhaps even something to
be actively encouraged.
    He looked at me with penetrating steel blue eyes. In return
I managed a weak, timid smile.
    “How come you’re still here?” I asked. “It’s really late.”
    “I stay the night sometimes, particularly when it’s rough.”
His voice had a slight resemblance to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s — was it the
rhythm, or the tone? Either way, it was working for me.
    “It’s not that rough out there.”
    “Well, I have to work here tomorrow morning.”
    “Do you not find it a bit ... spooky?”
    He chuckled quietly. “Enjoying the weekend are you?”
    “It’s all right,” I lied.
    “You feel a little disillusioned?”
    “I don’t know what you mean!” I lied, with a little smile.
    “I liked the inspirational exercise.”
    “Oh, you heard that.”
    “Journey. Gurney,” he said, draining all of the emotion from
his voice, to match Danger’s.
    “Well, I wasn’t exactly expecting Stephen Leather to turn
up.”
    “What about Stephen Acrylic, or Stephen Polycotton?”
    “I’ve heard he’s coming tomorrow,” I laughed. “You seem to
know a lot about it. Are you a writer?”
    “No, but I read.”
    “What sort of things do you read?”
    “I enjoyed The Red River .”
    Oh. My. God.
    “I loved the bits about lads’ mags.”
    He’s read my book. This gorgeous, Arrested Development-loving,
hunk of a man has read my book.
    “It was a relief to read something a bit different, after trudging
through Montgomery’s entire series.”
    “You read all four?”
    “Yeah,” he said, grimly.
    “I heard they’re well-written.”
    “They’re all the same, a vigilante tax lawyer goes around
assassinating criminals in his firm’s client base.”
    “Why a tax lawyer? I mean surely a criminal lawyer would
make more sense.”
    “I have no idea. Maybe it had never been done before.”
    “God forbid.”
    Our eyes met, and we both smiled, then I looked away
quickly. We were close together now, and I felt if I got any nearer, his
magnetic field would suck me in, and I’d stick to him. My back would be jammed
against him whilst my limbs flailed around as I screamed, “Help! I’m not ready
to move on!”
    I wasn’t ready to move on, was I? From my stool, a mere foot
away from his, I could smell his scent — earthy, like pine soap. Mmm ... pine
soap. What? When did I develop a liking for pine soap?
    We must have sat there for ages, watching episode upon episode,
and chatting about the world. It