It Started With A Tweet(63)

‘Oh, sorry.’ I continue walking into the kitchen allowing Rupert to follow me. ‘This is Rosie’s husband, Rupert. Rupert, this is Alexis .?.?.’ I know that Rosie had a problem with him knowing we have a male help-ex worker living with us, and things are so rocky between them at the moment, and I don’t want to be the one who makes things worse. ‘Alexis is my boyfriend.’

I curse myself. Why couldn’t I have come up with something better than that?

Alexis narrows his eyes in that way that he does when he can’t understand a word we’ve used.

‘That’s exciting,’ says Rupert, going over and slapping Alexis on the back and shaking his hand. ‘So how did you two meet, then?’

He perches up against a sideboard and helps himself to some crisps out of a large packet that’s open on the side. He’s grinning at us, and waiting for us to elaborate as if he’s tuned into his favourite show to watch.

‘Well, um .?.?.’

‘I answered the ad,’ says Alexis.

‘The ad? Oh, online. I guess that’s how it’s all done these days. Very good, very good.’

‘It was very easy,’ replies Alexis. ‘I fit the criteria of what she wanted.’

‘That’s brilliant. Criteria, right, that’s the key to curing your fussiness.’

Alexis looks momentarily lost.

‘I’m not that fussy,’ I say through gritted teeth, in a low voice.

‘Ha, ha, good one,’ he says whispering back.

Mum and Rosie are always saying that the problem with me and my love life is that I’m too picky. Is it so wrong that I want to actually like the person I date? I mean, why would I settle with someone like Dickhead Dominic just to have a boyfriend? I shudder at the thought.

‘So you’re from France, is it?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Excellent, excellent. So you speak the language of lurve.’

Alexis looks at me, as if he’s wondering what Rupert is on about, and I pin an inane grin on my face.

‘We certainly do,’ I say, slipping my arm around Alexis’s back and giving him a squeeze. ‘Don’t we, mon chéri?’ I raise an eyebrow, which, in my head, telepathically says play along.

Luckily for me, he seems to speak the international language of eyebrows and responds to my laughing by giving me an enthusiastic slap on the bottom. Easy there, Tiger.

He gives me a cheeky smile and a wink, and for a second he’s convinced me, as well as Rupert, that we are actually love’s young dream.

‘Fantastic. Rosie will be pleased. She worries about you being lonely, you know. I think she thinks you’ll end up an old maid.’

‘Does she now?’ I feel slightly touched that she at least worried about me, even if she did think I was going to die a spinster.

‘Yes, but you have Alexis now,’ he says in a mock French accent.

Alexis seems to be getting right into this whole boyfriend thing, as he’s rubbing my arm for good measure, and it’s actually a little too nice for my liking.

‘You’re looking a bit pale,’ I say, turning to my fake boyfriend. ‘Did you want to go and lie down for a bit?’

‘With you?’ he says, a little hopefully.

My brother-in-law gives us a wink. ‘Don’t let me being here stop you. I can wait for Rosie in the living room.’

‘Ha, ha, ha,’ I say, a little too enthusiastically, and wanting to get him out of the kitchen before Rupert has us consummating our relationship right here, right now. ‘No, no. Alexis looks like he needs to sleep off his hangover. I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

‘You are sure?’ says Alexis, raising an eyebrow of his own.

‘Quite. Off you go,’ I say dismissing him.

Alexis slinks off upstairs, but he doesn’t miss an opportunity to plant a kiss on my lips as he goes.

I can’t help blushing, probably adding to the appearance that we’re in those early honeymoon days.

‘So, by you coming here, does that mean you’ve forgiven Rosie?’ I ask, desperate to steer the conversation away from my fake boyfriend.

‘I’m pretty cross at what she did,’ he says, sitting down as I put the kettle on. ‘Mostly as it feels as if she went behind my back.’

‘Wasn’t she trying to surprise you?’

‘She wanted me to quit my job to move up here. I would have liked a discussion about it first. Can you imagine if I’d have come home one day when she was working and said, “Hi, honey, just to say I’ve got us a job down South so you’ll have to quit your job and come”? I’m pretty sure there’d be outrage.’

When he puts it like that.

‘I know she was only doing it for us, but something this big, and this life changing should have been a joint decision.’

I nod.

‘I’m sure if you sit down and talk about things you’ll get everything out in the open. Rosie shouldn’t be too much longer.’

‘Where is she anyway?’ he asks, picking up some of the leaflets I’d collected from the shop and flicking through them.

The kettle boils and I hunt around the cupboards for the best-looking cups we’ve got, pulling out one with the least ingrained tea stains to impress our guest.