This Man

‘This is my first and last, trust me. I’m going to get Jesse, then we’re leaving.’ He looks around the bar nervously. Okay, now I’m convinced he’s definitely hiding someone or something. I’m begi

He jogs off, leaving Kate and I exchanging puzzled faces.

‘Excuse me ladies,’ Drew gets up. ‘Nature calls.’ He leaves us at the bar like a couple of spare parts.

‘Oh, fuck this,’ Kate exclaims, taking my hand. ‘Give me the tour.’ She pulls me back towards the entrance hall.

‘A quick one,’ I agree, taking over the lead and guiding her up the massive staircase. ‘I’ll show you the rooms I’m working on.’

We reach the balcony landing and Kate’s gasps increase as she takes in the opulent splendor of The Manor. ‘This is some serious special.’ she mumbles, gazing around in awe.

‘I know. He inherited the place from his uncle when he was twenty one.’

‘Twenty one?’

‘Hmmm,’

‘Wow!’ Kate blurts. I look behind me, finding her gawking at the huge stained glass window at the foot of the second staircase.

‘This way,’ I call behind me, walking through the archway that leads to the extension rooms, leaving Kate to scuttle after me. ‘There are ten altogether.’

She follows me into the middle of the room, gazing around. I can’t deny, they are mighty impressive, even as empty shells. Once completed, though, they’ll be royal worthy. Will I get through to completion? After our little sorting of shit I might not see this place again. I can’t say that would disappoint me. I don’t like coming here.

I wander further into the room and follow Kate’s gaze to the wall behind the door. What the hell?

‘What’s that?’ Kate asks the question that’s batting around in my own head.

‘I don’t know. It wasn’t here before.’ I run my eyes over the huge, wooden, crucifix style cross propped up against the wall. With giant, black, wrought iron screw eyes bolted to the corners, it looks imposing, but it’s still a fine piece of art. ‘It must be one of the big wall hangings Jesse was talking about.’ I approach the piece, ru

‘Oh. Sorry, ladies.’ We both swing around, finding a middle aged man in overalls holding a sander in one hand and a coffee in the other. ‘Looks good, huh?’ He points up at the frame with his sander as he takes a slurp of his coffee. ‘I’m just checking the size before I make the others.’

‘You made this?’ I ask in disbelief.

‘I certainly did.’ He laughs, joining me by the cross.

‘It’s stu

‘Thank you, Miss.’ he says proudly. I turn around and see Kate observing the piece of art on a frown.

‘We’ll leave you to it.’ I give Kate the lets-be-going nod, and she smiles at the workman before following me out of the room.

We walk back through to the gallery landing. ‘I didn’t get it.’ she grumbles.

‘It’s art, Kate.’ I laugh. It’s not pink and chintzy, so I’m not surprised she doesn’t like it. Our tastes are very different.

‘What’s up there?’

I follow her gaze up the staircase to the third floor, stopping to look with her. Those intimidating doors are slightly ajar. ‘I don’t know. I think it might be a function room.’

Kate takes the stairs. ‘Let’s have a look.’

‘Kate!’ I start after her. I’m keen to find Jesse. The longer I delay speaking to him, the longer I have to convince myself not to. ‘Kate, come on.’

‘Just a peek.’ she says, pushing against the doors. ‘Fuck!’ she screeches. ‘Ava, look at this.’

Okay, my curiosity has been well and truly teased.  I run the rest of the way up the stairs and into the function room, skidding to an abrupt halt next to Kate. Fucking hell.

‘Excuse me!’

We both look in the direction of the foreign accented voice. A dumpy lady, holding cleaning cloths and anti-bacterial spray, comes wobbling towards us.

‘No, no, no. I clean. The communal room is closed for cleaning.’ She shoos us back towards the door.

‘Chill out, Senorita,’ Kate laughs. ‘Her boyfriend owns the place.’

The poor woman recoils at Kate’s harshness, giving me the once over before bowing. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She shoves her spray in her apron and clasps my hands in her ta

I fidget uncomfortably on the spot at the woman’s panic, throwing Kate a disgusted look, but she doesn’t notice. She’s too busy looking around at the colossal room we’re stood in. I smile reassuringly at the Spanish cleaner, who’s got herself in a bit of a pickle over my presence.

‘It’s fine, really.’ I assure her. She bows again, moving off to the side, leaving Kate and me to try and comprehend our surroundings.

I gaze around, and the first thing that strikes me is how beautiful the room is. Just like the rest of the house, this room has been lavished with beautiful materials and furniture. The space is huge, easily spa

Beds?

‘Ava, something tells me this isn’t a function room.’ Kate whispers.

She starts to wander off to the right, while I remain frozen in place, trying to grasp what I’m looking at. It’s an immense, super luxurious, communal bedroom – The Communal Room.

The walls are free from paintings, allowing space for various gold metal frames, hooks and hoists. They all look i

The delayed reaction finally crashes down. ‘Fucking hell,’ I whisper to myself.

‘Watch your mouth.’ His soft voice rolls over me.

I fly around and find him stood behind me, watching quietly, his hands in his jean pockets, his face completely expressionless. My tongue is like lead in my mouth as I search my brain for something to say. What can I say? My head is invaded with a million memories of the last few weeks. All of the times I’ve brushed things off, ignored things or, more to the point, been distracted from things. Things he’s said, things other people have said – things I thought odd, but didn’t pursue because I was distracted by him. He’s been distracting me this whole time. He’s been going out of his way to keep all of this from me. What else is he keeping from me?

Kate appears in my peripheral vision. I don’t have to look at her to know she’s probably displaying a similar facial expression to me, but I can’t drag my eyes away from Jesse to be sure.

He flicks his gaze in Kate’s direction, smiling at her nervously.

Sam barges into the room. ‘Oh, fucking hell! I thought I told you to stay put!’ he shouts, fixing Kate with a furious glare. ‘Damn you, woman!’

‘I think we need to go.’ Kate says quietly, walking towards Sam and taking his hand to lead him out of the room.