Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

only be combined with his once I had stickered the backs of mine and sorted
them into alphabetical order.
‘Make yourself at home,’ he kept saying, as if I were some kind of guest. We
were nervous, strangely awkward with each other, like two people on a first date.
While I was unpacking, he brought me tea and said, ‘I thought this could be your
mug.’ He showed me where everything lived in the kitchen, then said, several
times, ‘Of course, put stuff where you want. I don’t mind.’
He had cleared two drawers and the wardrobe in the spare room. The other
two drawers were filled with his fitness clothes. I didn’t know there were so
many permutations of Lycra and fleece. My wildly colourful clothes left several
feet of space still empty, the wire hangers jangling mournfully in the closet
space.
‘I’ll have to buy more stuff just to fill it up,’ I said, looking at it.
He laughed nervously. ‘What’s that?’
He looked at my calendar, tacked up on the spare-room wall, with its ideas in
green and its actual planned events in black. When something had worked
(music, wine tasting), I put a smiley face next to it. When it hadn’t (horse racing,
art galleries), it stayed blank. There was little marked in for the next two weeks –
Will had become bored of the places nearby, and as yet I could not persuade him
to venture further afield. I glanced over at Patrick. I could see him eyeing the 12
August date, which was now underlined with exclamation marks in black.
‘Um … it’s just reminding me about my job.’
‘You don’t think they’re going to renew your contract?’
‘I don’t know, Patrick.’
Patrick took the pen from its clip, looked at the next month, and scribbled
under week 28: ‘Time to start job hunting.’
‘That way you’re covered for whatever happens,’ he said. He kissed me and
left me to it.
I laid my creams out carefully in the bathroom, tucked my razors, moisturizer
and tampons neatly into his mirrored cabinet. I put some books in a neat row
along the spare-room floor under the window, including the new titles that Will
had ordered from Amazon for me. Patrick promised to put up some shelves
when he had a spare moment.