Chad sat there staring at June as she ate her instant cup noodles while a game show buzzed on the television in the background. Her eyes glued to it.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she mumbled, hurrying to swallow the food before the question completely escaped her mouth. "Something wrong?"

He shook his head and attempted to turn away. "Any plans for the weekend?"

June peeled her gaze away from the show to look at him and scooped another forkful of noodles into her mouth. Again with her mouth full, she spoke. "I don't know. I have a job interview for a bit."

Chad nodded, trying to keep his eyes on the telly, but failing. It surprised him that he wasn't getting irritated when she talked with her mouthful. Normally, things like that irritated him to no end. Once, he'd turned around to a man on the train for chewing his food with his mouth open. He had told the guy to go back to 'chewing school'. If there was such a thing, he suspected June might need to go.

"Why do you ask?" She scooped up the last of the noodles, thank God. "You need me to do anything for you?"

He shook his head again, deciding it wasn't the right moment to ask her out on a semi-date to his family barbecue on the weekend. "If you were free and weren't doing anything, then..."

June tipped the cup up, drinking the last of the soup. "What's up, Chad?"

"My family is having a barbecue on Saturday," he started. "You don't have to come but they invited you too when I mentioned I had a new flatmate."

"Oh God," June gasped, gutting Chad before she'd even said, "They don't think we're dating, do they?"

Chad shook his head once more, praying that his face gave nothing of the sort away.

"Oh, thank God, 'cause that would be so weird." She laughed, disappearing into the kitchen with her empty cup. "Can you imagine?" He heard her still laughing as she opened the fridge door. "You want ice cream?"

"Exactly what I was thinking," he managed in pretend amusement. "So, I'll tell them you had work or something."

"Oh no, don't do that." She handed him an ice cream tub of his own and sat back down to watch TV. "I'll pop by if I can. Give me the address."

Chad stared at her profile, engrossed as she was between a game show and her dessert. He forced the ice cream down in small nibbles and rose. "I might get some writing done seeing how I have to start all over again."

She didn't even glance his way. "Good night then."

"Night," he whispered, standing there awfully long, observing the shades of colour in her hair. When the commercials came on, he finally slunk into his office. He may as well write. He needed a distraction, anything but the thoughts of her, June.

'Can you imagine?' Her words echoed in his head, as did her laughter. What was he expecting to happen? He sat down at his desk and brought out the notebook. What were you expecting, Chad? The thought kicked him like a steel-capped boot to the gut, or perhaps it was the ice cream he hadn't wanted to eat. His stomach churned uncomfortably.

He stared at a blank page on the notebook. What was he going to write? June, the thought barged in. Write about June.

"I can't write about her!" he mumbled, more than tempted to sit down, flex his fingers and begin her tale. He wished he hadn't visited his diabolical mother. At least he wouldn't be thinking about June that way. What way exactly? The question berated him and he couldn't think of a comeback. This was unlike him. He was the one man he could usually argue with and win, but not today it seemed. Today, he was pathetic and his inner voice was coming out victorious.

'So why can't you write about her?' the voice took on Terry's and Chad swiftly shivered. He hadn't given Terry a thought when he'd changed the story. He couldn't tell her he was back to the drawing board, back to zero, without something else to offer and appease her.

The memory of his first meeting with June leapt to his mind. The way she had jumped at him, full of bark. Not like the mellow kitten sitting riveted on the couch. It made him smile. He could hear her yell out answers to the quiz show through the door. How far they'd come in a few months. Chad had been a lonely writer nursing a shattered heart, too hurt to come up with the next epic romance, and June was at her lowest, living on the streets cursing men who dared wake her from her precarious slumber.

"And what would I write?" he asked himself, unable to shake the heavy, purposeful feeling that often came with shitty ideas he felt compelled to write. "I don't have a story."

He stared at the closed door to the study, almost able to picture June in the lounge room. Her knees pulled up underneath her chin, her occasional frustrated yelps at the screen, and the rapid-fire flicker of light illuminating her face as she changed channels to avoid ad breaks.

He poised his pen over the paper absently and scribbled a title. The first time he'd ever written a title before knowing what the story was. There was something about the title that sent a wave through his body. He stared at it for a long while and added 'for' before the word he was staring at. What was he doing? What was Chad Gilligan doing? He'd made a promise a long time ago to never base a story on someone from real life, so what was he doing?

Chad ignored the warning bells in his head. The title clung to him like a desperate child who didn't want to let go for fear he would abandon them. Even the door slamming upstairs, followed by an "I'm sorry!" yelled down the stairs, couldn't quite take him out of the moral dilemma he faced. Should he do it? Write about her? 'June'. The title he was staring at, smack in the middle of the white page. It gleamed at him like the smile of the Cheshire cat, there but not there, wanting to be yet too timid to materialise.

It was an entire hour before Terry's voiced coaxed him on, candy-sweet. 'Do it, Chad. This could be the biggest one. I can feel it in my bones!'

And to be honest, Chad could too. Feel it in his bones. If he wrote this story, about a romance he concocted between June and himself, the damsel-in-distress and the hero author, it would be his biggest novel yet. Bigger than, How he loved her, his last one.

Chad, dubious as he was of the voice, and the decision, wrote vigorously nevertheless. He did not know where the story would go, but he knew where it had begun. Thus, he wrote until the neighbour's rooster crowed at the break of dawn. Yet, before he could drag himself to bed, he had an important and perilous email to send. There was no telling how she would react. This could spell murder, his murder... or more likely, a career suicide.

Dear Terry, it began.

I hate to do this to you but I'm letting you know as pathetic as I have been the last few months, I've scraped the previous story. I am no longer writing my memoir. I repeat. I am NO LONGER writing it. In fact, I chucked it in the bin just now, unceremoniously, with the image of my mother laughing at me stuck in my mind.

I can hear you screaming, "Chad Gilligan!" and I wholeheartedly agree. You've been a friend, a confidante, but most of all, you've been honest with me, so I'm being honest with you.

A novel idea has struck me and I'm not sure if it's any good, but I have spent all night writing it so far and have to say I've never felt this way about a story before. So here's what I have so far. Read it after you've cooled down and be honest with me. Shred me to pieces.

Love, Chad

P.S.: I'm going down for my usual nap, so if you decide to turn up at my door, bring pastries along with your sharpened knife.

He scanned the pages he'd written and attached the file to the email before clicking 'send', no longer able to change his mind.

He had a sinking feeling as he watched the message whoosh out of the screen. He hoped Terry would like it. She was the one who had suggested it. He turned off the screen, closed his notebook and left the room, scared that Terry may respond right away, robbing him of the buffer in which he wanted to prep himself mentally for the wrath.

As he climbed the stairs, he surmised he didn't know June's story at all, and it was time to find out for research, of course. It had nothing to do with this fabled 'crush' his mum and Jo hinted at, loudly.

He scribbled a note for June on a piece of paper from the writing pad he kept beside his bed and slipped it under her door. He considered popping a sleeping pill to help his nerves so he could sleep, but he wanted to hear June's reply without being half dead. For that, he needed to shake off sleep easily. He crawled under the duvet with his stomach rumbling nervously and closed his eyes, content. 

The sober hours of the morning would reveal the responses of both women he may or may not have pissed off. Most likely than not, he may have dug himself a giant hole in both instances and it was a scary thought.

A knock sounded on his door in what seemed like five minutes of shut-eye. "Yes?"

"Are you sure about his, Chad?" June's voice filtered through the door. "I mean, it's a family barbecue. Your family might mind."

Chad peeked over the cover, hardly having paid attention to what she said. He slipped out of bed with heavy legs and opened the door. June was ready to leave. "Uni today?"

She shook her head. "I don't have classes on Fridays, remember." Chad nodded. She flapped the note in front of him. "You sure about this?"

"You'd be doing me a big favour." He grabbed a T-shirt from the back of his door and put it on, aware of his naked torso, and her gaze, occasionally fleeting to his once-were-abs. He didn't really have a problem being naked, but he really wasn't in the best of shape. He couldn't quite remember the last time he'd gone to the gym.

"You worked out?" There was a hint of 'when' in her voice.

He didn't blame her for wondering when he had been an adult who could manage life. He chuckled, a little nervously. "You may have the privilege of meeting Setal's gym guy one day and he'll sign you up to this twelve weeks program too." He slipped past her and headed downstairs.

"Who?" She followed.

"Ex's ex, I think." He turned partway down the stairs. "Going somewhere then?" He eyed her dress.

She followed him downstairs. "I applied to that corner café yesterday, and they called me for an interview this morning. I'm a little nervous." She saw the surprise on his face. "It's closer to home so I'm hoping if I get it, I don't have to go to the one tomorrow. Meaning I can go to the barbecue with you."

Coffee sounded wonderful to Chad, as sleep-deprived as he was. "You mean I can get discount croissant whenever I go there if you get the job?" He forced a smile, heading straight for the fridge. He pulled out the tub of yogurt and started digging in. "It shouldn't be more than a couple of hours tomorrow."

June uneasily shuffled. "You won't mention how I came to live here?"

He nearly snorted yoghurt out his nose. "And deal with my mum and sister and all their crazy?"

"You need saving from them?" she asked, pushing him over. She grabbed a spoon and tucked into his tub.

He watched her nervously gobble the food. "I have a feeling my dad will be there." He lost his appetite and relinquished the tub. "Come on, let's grab a proper breakfast at your café and maybe after your interview, we can go movies or something. Make a day of it. Forget our woes, as they say."

"Are you asking me out?" she asked, her head thrown back playfully.

"I want to avoid staying home today," he said with a quick shake of his head. "I told Terry this morning I scraped the old idea. And I don't fancy her storming in here, angry when I'm alone," he stammered.

"You postponed it again?" Her jaw dropped, and he nodded. "Do you have another idea to replace it at least?"

He shrugged. He didn't really think this was the best time to tell her he was trying to study her, that she was his next story, maybe.

"So you need an ally today?" She smiled, intuition kicking in.

"Indeed. And who knows, you and I don't really know anything about each other and my family is likely to ask a lot of questions or corner you in case they think we are dating. I think we should have enough in our arsenal to convince them we're just mates."

"Aren't we just mates?" She peeked at him from the bottom of the tub she was scraping clean.

He forced a smile. "Yes, of course, we are just mates."

♡

Chad ignored his vibrating phone in his pocket as he poured four sticks of sugar into his mocha and took a sip. The coffee was still too bitter this morning.

"You don't go to the café in the city anymore." June watched him pour in two more sticks of sugar. "How come?"

It was a question Chad hadn't given a thought to. He hadn't noticed the disruption to his daily morning routine. No wonder he couldn't focus on his writing. "I don't know," he replied. "When's your interview?"

"Soon."

He took one tentative sip, but the bitterness hadn't lessened from the sacks of sugar he'd dumped in it. "Tell them their new grind sucks!"

"Chad."

"What? It does. Don't believe me, try it." He pushed the coffee over.

June pulled the most horrible expression and gagged at the first sip.

"See. Horrible," he added, triumphantly pushing the cup away from both of them.

"Stop shaking the damn table," she muttered, her hand gripping the rattling table. Chad hadn't even realised his leg was nervously bouncing on the floor till she reached over and put a firm hand on his knee. "I'm the one here for an interview, so why are you so nervous?"

"I haven't seen my dad in over a decade." He stopped the shaking and eyed her hand, staring at the one dark freckle on her index finger. It was a great detail he could add.

"I'll see you soon." Her hand disappeared, and by the time he looked up, she was gone. Her iced tea barely touched. He scanned the café and spotted her following a tall blond with his curly wave tied in a loose man-bun.

An image flashed in Chad's mind: the glorious mane seductively dancing in the wind like a lion's. Instantly, he didn't like this guy. Probably a jerk. "And makes terrible coffee." He habitually reached for the coffee only to gag once more.

He took the poison back to the barista. "I can't drink this vile thing," he said, a little louder than intended, annoyed that his manhood was being challenged for no apparent reason this morning. Why was she wearing a comely dress for an interview?

"Would you like me to make you another?"

Chad glared at the guy frothing milk at the machine, not even glancing his way. "Only if you taste that first," he challenged, eyeing the barely sipped cup of coffee he'd placed on the counter.

The barista narrowed his eyes at Chad, who lingered, eyeing the door to the kitchen. "She won't be back for ages. They will do some talking, followed by hours of hot, unbridled sex."

"What?" Chad almost shouted in shock.

The barista glared at him, passed waitress two cups of coffee and took a step towards the counter finally. "I said they'll be about half an hour, so if you'd like another cup of coffee while you wait, it's on the house."

Chad stared at the man, a short, solid man you could imagine playing a sturdy tree in kindergarten plays. He sat down at one of the tall bar stools lining the small timber slab surrounding the coffee machine and nodded.

"How many interviews are you guys doing?" he asked.

"Not exactly a job opening man, if you know what I mean." The barista smiled, glancing once at the kitchen door as another wait staff brought out some lucky man's club sandwich with a steaming pile of hot chips. Chad's stomach growled. "Have you seen the legs on that girl?" And suddenly, to Chad's dismay, the two of them were sharing a bro-moment over June.

"She's my flatmate." He pulled the fresh coffee over, not meaning to sound disheartened as he did.

"Damn, and you haven't hit that yet?"

Chad felt he was fielding balls at a game he was about to lose. "We're friends," he managed. "Mind if I get a club sandwich?"

"One club sandwich coming up," said the barista, but what Chad heard was 'You lost, man. You lost, and you didn't even know you were playing.'

"So, does she have a boyfriend?"

Chad shook his head. She didn't.

"Awesome!" the low whisper still reached him.

He wished he hadn't chosen to sit there waiting for a woman who was possibly and probably falling in love with the King of the café. While he sat there drinking his free coffee, crushed.

She'll never see me that way. He stared  darkly as the giant tempting club sandwich placed in front of him. But he was no longer hungry.

(Image by Free-Photos on Pixabay)