It’s safe to say I don’t feel like explaining all of that to Addison, though, and frankly, it’s none of her business.
Her hot date to the wedding.
Ha.
She should be so lucky.
apartment #15 – isla
Chapter Sixteen
“So this is . . . ”
“Weird?”
“Just a bit. And . . . ”
“Awkward?”
“Absolutely.”
We share a nervous laugh, Danny looking relieved that I’m on the same page as him, and not totally loving every second of being shut up in my apartment with him. He’s not quite as enthusiastic as he was on Sunday when he came back to the apartment after hearing he couldn’t leave; and as much as I’ve been telling myself how great this will be for our relationship, I’m definitely feeling the strain too.
Actually, he’s . . .
He’s kind of getting on my nerves.
Like, a lot.
(Seriously, would it kill him to make the bed after he gets up in the mornings, instead of leaving the sheets in a rumpled pile? And, like, if I can brush my teeth and put on some makeup before he sees me in the mornings, the least he can do is not bite his nails when we’re watching something on TV in the evening.) I must be getting on his nerves, too, though, and that’s exactly why we’re sat at my dining table, using our lunch break to map out our schedules for the week and a chore rota. I didn’t realize I had such a routine until Danny was here interrupting it.
I didn’t realize he was such a pain in the butt either.
(God, seriously? Who takes. Every. Single. Meeting. with their phone on speaker while they pace around? Who gets up with six minutes to spare before they have to log on for their first morning meeting, with barely enough time to use the bathroom and put on a T-shirt? And how, God, how does he manage to use what seems like every pan I own when he cooks dinner?)
It was Danny’s idea to coordinate our schedules a little more.
I think he could see I was getting annoyed with him. I also think it’s because he doesn’t like my 6:00 a.m. alarm. In fact, I know he doesn’t because yesterday, at his request, I turned it off and we slept in; and today, he grumped and grumbled and pulled me back into bed for a cuddle I was not in the mood for.
“Well, like I said the other day, you’re cooking dinner,” I tell him now, picking up the pencil and scribbling his name down in the timetable we’re making. “Since you’re so good at it. I’ll do the dishes.”
“What, every night? ”
“You cook for yourself every night already.”
“Sometimes I split it with the guys,” he says, meaning his housemates. “But that’s not the point.”
I laugh, but it comes out sounding dry and a bit meaner than I intended. “And here I was thinking you’d planned out what we were eating all week when you did the food order. Didn’t we have, like, a whole discussion about making enough pasta one night so we’d both have leftovers for lunch?”
“Well, yeah, but, I mean, obviously, I planned it, but that doesn’t mean I should cook every single night. It’s not fair.”
Danny’s thick, dark eyebrows start to pull together in a scowl. In fairness to him, I probably am being sort of bratty about it. (It’s just the luxury of having a boyfriend who’s such a good cook, and it’s not like he doesn’t enjoy it. He actually counts it as one of his interests.) But he’s got a point, so I say, “Okay. I’ll cook tonight.”
“We could do it together,” he suggests then, smiling and reaching for my hand. He does that thing where he traces light little circles on my palm; he’s done it for as long as we’ve been dating, and I soften a little. It’s probably something he’s done with every girl he’s dated before me, but I can never bring myself to care. There’s something about the way he does it, about Danny himself, that makes me feel like it’s special, just for me.
Still, it’s not quite enough to distract me from the debate of who’s going to cook dinner this week.
Doing it together is a nice compromise, and I appreciate it, but . . .
“Trust me, you don’t want my help in the kitchen.”
I remember on our first date when he cooked us dinner, watching him chop onions so quickly, almost carelessly, that I’d thought he’d cut himself. It would’ve taken me ten minutes to do what he’d done in seconds. He’d been so at ease in the kitchen. Like he belonged there.
If I help him out with cooking, I just know he’s going to get frustrated with me. I’ll only slow him down and get in the way.
Danny sighs, but doesn’t argue.
“Okay. Okay, you wore me down,” he says, chuckling, still tracing little circles on my palm. “I’ll cook, you can clean up after. But—what about this: If I’m going to cook and you’re not going to help out, why don’t you just do your workout then?”
I stare at him, all too aware of the indignant look on my face I can’t seem to get rid of.
“Well, because I do it in the morning before work?”
“It’s just the rest of the week. Couldn’t you switch it up?”
I think I’ve already “switched it up” plenty, with not being able to go for a run, or to the tennis court down the street a couple of evenings a week— and by skipping it yesterday and this morning.
Danny’s only suggesting it because he doesn’t want me to keep waking him up so early and disturbing his (obscenely long) lie-in in the mornings, now he doesn’t have to commute to the office.
Sensing I’m not on board, Danny goes on with a gentle, upbeat tone. “Hear me out. I’m just thinking, I don’t start work until eight o’clock. And you don’t work regular hours anyway. So why would you get up at six in the morning, which wakes me up, too, when you could do your workout at the end of the day, when I’m cooking dinner?”
I hate how much sense that makes.
I also hate how this is making me realize how stubborn I am; I never thought of myself as stubborn before. I’m not sure I like this part of myself.
But, hey, he compromised on agreeing to stick to my usual plan of doing a little housework each day, rather than doing it all in one go once a week, and he’s going to do most of the cooking, so . . .
And, you know, I really don’t want to get into a fight over it.
I refuse to be the reason our relationship crumbles: because I wouldn’t change my exercise routine.
“Okay,” I mumble, scribbling out the lines that say 6:00 a.m.–
7:00 a.m.: Isla Workout. “And for the record, I work flexible hours.
It’s not like I work after lunch and late into the evening every day, or something.”
It looks like I’m also going to be working reduced hours soon, too, with the company already making plans to have everyone work from home if this whole “situation” gets worse. (I’ve been trying to ignore the news alerts because they’re just making me feel so despondent; Danny is obsessed with watching them, though I can’t for the life of me understand why.)
Management are talking about furloughing people, or reducing hours to avoid that, and preparing to close the offices and have everyone work from home full time. Lots of people—like my colleague Kaylie, and our boss—are already at home. Kaylie’s having to isolate with her kids because there were cases at their school, and our boss has some chronic illness I don’t really understand because I always feel too awkward to ask her to explain it to me, so she’s been advised to stay home too. It should probably be comforting that other people are in the same boat as me, but it just fills me with dread.