Read Falling for Free Online Page B

Sundays are for never getting out of bed. Except I haven’t got a bed right now… Oskar is in it. He crashed out almost as soon as he’d wolfed down the food I made last night, and he’s still sleeping.
    I’ve been brooding at the kitchen table since dawn. I didn’t sleep well on the couch—it’s comfortable, but I couldn’t stop the stupid chatter in my head. I still can’t.
    How can I leave a stranger alone in my flat while I go to work? How did I end up with a stranger sleeping in my flat in the first place?
    I still haven’t been down to see Eleanor.
    I take one last gulp of coffee, then grab my keys and make my way downstairs.
    Although I always bring it with me, I never use my spare key to open Eleanor’s door in the morning. It just seems rude somehow, so instead I knock softly.
    I’m not surprised when it’s Angus who opens the door.
    “Hey,” he says, doing the smile-look-down-blush thing that makes me want to reach out and tilt his head up so I can see the beautiful gray of his eyes. “How’s Oskar this morning?”
    “Sleeping,” I say wryly, feeling a lot less than wry about it.
    “Aren’t you working in a bit?”
    I sigh. “Yeah. Maybe he’ll sleep all day.”
    But I know how unlikely that is and how far more likely it is he’ll go poking round my flat. Maybe he’ll work out I have nothing valuable to steal and hobble off to wherever he came from. Here’s hoping.
    Eleanor is sitting at the table, her hands wrapped round a mug of steaming coffee. She looks up as I walk in, but her blue eyes are a little unfocused, and she doesn’t seem quite herself.
    Angus stands behind her head and mouths, “ Temazepam .”
    Right.
    She grips my hand as I sit down. The gesture reminds me of my nan when she was dying and scared she wouldn’t ever see any of us again. But Eleanor is not an old lady.
    “They’re going to come back,” Eleanor says quietly, her nails digging into my skin. “We’ve got to be ready. Angus is going to get the bars for the windows put on today.” I look over at Angus perched on the arm of the couch, fiddling with the threaded leather bracelet wrapped round his wrist. Beneath the collar of his loose gray T-shirt, I can now see the faint bruise-colored mark on his neck. I wonder if Eleanor has noticed. I can’t stop staring at it.
    “Why don’t you wait until I get home after work, and I’ll have a look at the windows, and we’ll see how you feel about it then,” I say, using all my willpower to bring my focus back to Eleanor, where it should be.
    Bars on the windows will make this flat into even more of a prison.
    “I see their shadows outside my window. They’re going to come back. We’ve got to be ready. Help me get ready, Josh,” she pleads.
    I can see why Angus gave her the temazepam. I know if he hadn’t, she wouldn’t just be sitting here pleading, she would be ceaselessly checking the windows were still locked, the doors bolted. The curtains would be opened, then closed in a restless cycle of desperate paranoia.
    Angus gets up and comes over to hold her other hand. Like a kid seeking comfort, he rests his head on her shoulder and presses her hand into his hair. I want to tell him what she can’t—that he doesn’t have to be scared—but anxiety is like a disease, infecting everyone around it. I make a decision to talk to him later about calling the doctor out again. At least then we can be prepared for the worst.
     
     
    T ODAY IT ’ S just me and Emma at the shop. Soren isn’t working. I don’t normally work with Emma as she only works on a Sunday, but the other Sunday girl, Lindsay, is on holiday and Soren and I are alternating the holiday cover. Already I know far more than I want to about Emma’s student lifestyle, as unfortunately Sundays are quiet and Emma is talkative.
    “I have such a hangover. Make me a cup of tea, Josh,” she pleads, coming to stand so close behind me for a moment, I can feel her not insignificant breasts touching my