Chapter 3-1
630 Words
Chapter 3
Darren kicked the door shut, dropped his backpack on the rug, and flopped backwards onto the bed, arms out. He bounced once, his glasses flew off onto the pillow, and he groaned at the eased pressure off his heels. Work shoes absolutely sucked.
He was training as a crime scene examiner with the police. His first week had just finished, and they’d already progressed from desk safety (seriously?) to graphic descriptions of what happened to the human body when exposed to certain toxins. But it was interesting stuff, even if it was a lot of wandering around fake crime scenes. He’d figured in a few years, they’d all want degrees off their applicants, not just A-levels, so get in now before they started asking, and it had worked. Okay, so he’d had to move a fair way to do it, and rent wasn’t particularly cheap on the coast, but it was manageable. Pay in training sucked, but he’d get an automatic pay rise when he passed the course, and it wasn’t exactly rocket science, so…
It was good, but goddamn, being on your feet all day killed.
He eyed the ceiling dispassionately. It was dusty up in the eaves like this. He’d rented a studio flat on the top floor of a converted house, and it was tiny. He was also fairly sure the lettings agent had lied about the insulation. He lived in what used to be a loft, and last night had been about as warm as sleeping in the park. As had every night this week.
“f*****g hell!”
Aaaaand then there was the neighbour. She lived in the other loft room on the other side of the stairs. Darren hadn’t met her yet—he’d only been here six days, and five of them at work. Frankly, if she was anything like the weird old lady on the first floor, he didn’t want to know. Apparently he was responsible for the Nazis and the Israel-Palestine problem. Would’ve been nice if someone had told him.
“Hey!”
Darren groaned. She was banging on the door. “It’s open!” he yelled.
It banged off the wall, and Darren blinked, groped for his glasses, put them on, and squinted. Nope. Same vision.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
There was a girl. In his room. In a T-shirt and knickers. And socks, he noticed, but nothing between the knickers and the socks. Except these gangly bare legs that she hadn’t shaved in at least a week, that matched her general tall-and-gangly appearance, and the cropped dark hair, and the scowl. And the hands on hips pose. Not that she was very intimidating. She was…okay, she was tallish, for a girl, but she was scrawny. No boobs. Brown hair in one of those weird cuts that even pixies called short, so short it wasn’t even rumpled. Bony sort of a face. Kind of luminously white—even Jayden had more of a tan than she did. White T-shirt that didn’t help the skin tone, or do anything to hide those tiny boobs. Offensively pink knickers.
Pretty, he supposed, in a very rough and sketchy way.
“Stop leaving the landing door open when you come in,” she said. “It creates a draught!”
Darren stared at her. “The what?”
“The landing door!”
“…The door at the bottom of the stairs?”
“Yes!”
“Um, okay.”
She scowled harder, then folded her arms. “Okay.”
“Uh, yes,” Darren said. “Now, do you mind? At least put some trousers on.”
She scowled again and huffed. “Why do you think I felt the draught?”
“Fair enough,” Darren said and sat up. “Darren Peace.”
“Rachel Yates,” she said and shifted her knees. Darren didn’t blame her. It was chilly; he wasn’t paying for extra heating before winter hit. “You like omelettes?”
“Yeah.”
“Come on then,” she said imperiously and swept out. Darren eyed the door that she left open, showing the tiny landing and her own open flat door. He considered his sore heels, then figured if his neighbour had decided to show up in her knickers and offer him free food, who was he to turn it down?
He heaved himself off the bed and followed.
- Writer
