Lost then Found

2 - Meeting my Flatmate

Avery’s POV

I know I requested a female, but I guess I wasn’t expecting her to be such a stunner. Even with the obvious evidence of her crying, she is strikingly beautiful, long dark waves of hair cascading over creamy smooth shoulders, deep blue eyes with pouty pink lips. Gods, what have I gotten myself into?

I just couldn’t handle another immature bloke and let’s face it most men looking for a flatmate are young and immature. Men my age have already settled down, have a family even. Exactly what I hoped to have, my jaw tightens at where my thoughts are traveling.

I hadn’t thought about how much of my old heartache would come up having Ellen here. I just loved that she was so honest and transparent with her needs in all of her correspondence and trusting me to know what she was going through. She was refreshing and relatable. As much as I have healed over the last six years, I am now realizing that I can still be brought back to that day. The day my seemingly perfect life came crashing down.

The day I came home early hoping to surprise Ashley, my live in girlfriend with a romantic home cooked meal. The meal I was going to propose to her during. The only surprise that day, was me finding her getting railed from behind bent over our dining room table.

I hate that room now. My Mum insists that someday I will want to have dinner parties and I should have it decorated. I wonder if she would still feel that way if I told her what had happened.

Stupid me, I trusted Ashley completely. All my friends and family warned me, they said her relationship with her best friend seemed a little too close. I insisted that they were crazy and if they were both women they wouldn’t think twice about the closeness of their friendship. I even liked that her best friend was male, I liked that he could help her understand me from a male perspective. Dillard, that’s what I was. An absolute i***t on the grandest scale.

Now here I am reliving it all as I comfort Ellen my new flatmate. Funny her breakdown should happen in the very space that I had to witness Ashley’s betrayal. Ellen sure does feel good in my arms though.

After she settles down, I guide her to the lounge and help her sit on the couch. “What do you think about ordering some take out and watching a movie?” I suggest, something that we can do together, but no pressure to really have a conversation if she isn’t up for it.

She gives a little nod and a ghost of a smile. “Sure, sounds good,” she all but whispers. “Look, I’m sorry-“

I cut her off before things get weird, “Hey, I’ve been there no worries, okay.” She lets out a slow breath and I see her relax into the couch. “If you would rather have some space that’s cool too. I mean-“

She cuts me off this time, “No, company would be nice….it may help me get out of my head.”

“I was thinking Chinese, there is an awesome place right around the corner that delivers,” I suggest.

Her face lights up a bit, “I haven’t had good Chinese in a very long time. My ex never liked it so I only got it occasionally for lunch, that is if I had time.”

“Well then, Chinese it is,” I say as I get up to get the menu for Ellen to look at. After we order enough food for ten people, I turn on the telly and scroll until we both settle on a classic Monte Python movie.

Not long after we started to watch the movie, we hear the knock on the front door alerting us to the arrival of our food. My stomach rumbles at the thought and I hear Ellen giggle to herself at my expense.

“Hey, you can only laugh at me after you have tried the food. I’m telling you, you have not lived until you have eaten at China Coast,” I say over my shoulder as I get up to answer the door. Ellen is hot on my tail grabbing her purse by the front door to offer me money. “I’ll have none of that, today is my welcome to my home present,” I declare. She fights me a bit, but then concedes with a promise that she will pay next time.

We settle back into the lounge with the coffee table covered in Chinese food boxes. I grabbed us each a plate from the kitchen to serve ourselves a selection of what we ordered and turned the movie back on. Soon we are both laughing hard watching the antics of King Arther and Sir Lancelot, as only can be done by Monty Python.

Once the movie is over, I start cleaning up the remaining Chinese containers with Ellen following along helping. See this is why I was looking for a female flatmate. The blokes I lived with previously would have just left the mess. As we make our way into the kitchen, Ellen is still laughing a bit at the movie. “I haven’t laughed that hard in a very long time,” she exclaims.

“Feels good, huh,” I say glancing down at her.

“It really does,” she says shaking her head as if to clear her thoughts. “You know, I hadn’t realized how boring Jacob and I had become.”

We get to the kitchen and I hear her gasp behind me. I get that reaction a lot, I refurbished this building right after I bought it. I wanted to keep the integrity of the building without giving up on any of the modern conveniences. I think I have done a brilliant job of it, if I do say so myself.

“Wow, this space is amazing. I swear I have a kitchen that looks just like this on my Pinterest board,” she says with a giggle.

“I’m pretty proud of how it turned out,” I say puffing out my chest a bit.

Her head snaps in my direction. “You did all this?”

“Yep, I love refurbishing old buildings. It’s kind of what I do, although this one I made my own,” I explain. She walks around the room, running her fingers over the surfaces. Her face relaxed and her eyes are darting everywhere, taking it all in.

The room has black lower cabinets with a soft sage color for the uppers. Lots of open shelving with the dishes neatly stacked. I went with a more American type kitchen, as I like the full size appliances, but the style is classic English.

She pauses at the herb garden in the bay window where the kitchen table it tucked in, and I can see her inhale the fragrances. As her chest rises while inhaling the herbs, it is doing all sort of things to my c*ck. I swear she is the sexiest woman I have ever laid eyes on. I have to carefully position myself behind the counter so I don’t scare the poor thing. Not only is she recovering from her divorce, but I get the feeling she is a bit innocent. She seems like she has been with him for far too long, maybe he is all she knows. She definitely doesn’t need to know about the effect she has on me. Then I would be the creepy flatmate I promised her I wasn’t, I chuckle to myself in my head.

I shake my head of those thoughts. “I don’t know how you want to deal with groceries. With my past flatmates we had designated shelves in the refrigerator that were ours, but in all honestly it never worked. None had any respect and just seemed to use whatever they saw no matter if it was their’s or not,” I said while shaking my head.

Her face scrunches up at that. “I’m okay with whatever,” she says. “I honestly have never done this before…a flatmate and all,” she goes on to explain.

“No?”

“No, I mean I lived at my childhood home while attending university. I met Jacob there and after he proposed we got a place together….” She trails off and a darkness takes over her face.

“How about this. We can label things we don’t want to share and the rest is free to be used when needed. Maybe, we can rotate shopping weeks or something,” I suggest, rubbing the back of my neck, as I always do when I’m unsure of myself.

“That sounds good. I mean I don’t know how all this works so if I do anything that bothers you please just let me know. I would hate to do something inadvertently that bothered or made you uncomfortable. At my old job people were always going on about this or that rather than letting the actual person they were upset with know what bothered them,” she explains.

I nod my head agreeing with her and turn the kettle on at the same time. “Fancy a cup of tea before bed?” I ask as I pull a tea cup down for myself.

“Sure, that sounds nice.”

We chat a bit as we share tea and I am realizing just how much we have in common. I think I may have finally found a flatmate I can get along with, I just have to remember she is JUST a flatmate. Something my c*ck doesn’t seem to understand.