mid-morning, Trevor wanders into the kitchen, and I’m so pleased to see him. I stop wiping down the countertops. “You survived,” I say, with a smile. This is only my first proper day here but I’m already missing human interaction.
Trevor holds up his hand with his fingers crossed. “It’s early on. Anything could happen. He’s hard work.”
I nod in agreement. “Are you in a hurry to leave?” I’m about to have a break and it would be good if Trevor could spare me a few moments.
“I’m not in any hurry.”
“Good. Have something to eat.” I set out Ward’s bowl of fruit and a bowl of yoghurt and get out two small bowls. “I’m taking a break.”
Trevor sniffs his t-shirt. “I’m smelly.”
“I’m not going to smell you. I could do with some company, that’s all.”
We sit and talk, getting to know one another. He tells me about his job, and how much he loves it, how he doesn’t consider it to be a job because he is a fitness fanatic anyway and could live in the gym twenty-four seven. I tell him about my job and how I got laid off so suddenly and how this job was a lifeline. He’s sympathetic about my woes and is a great listener. I don’t delve into any of the other problems, and keep it all about this sudden change in my life with this new job.
“This must be a complete turnaround from your normal life? Going from being a manager to this.”
“It’s a complete change. It’s temporary, that’s what I tell myself. It won’t be forever and the money is good. I need all the help I can get right now.”
“Sounds like a lucky break to me.”
I look around the kitchen. “From eviction to this, all within the same week. That’s one way of looking at it.”
He smirks. “It beats being homeless, right?” He lifts a spoon to his mouth.
“I was staying with my friend, and I was supposed to take a few days to find a place to live, but Rob seemed pretty desperate for me to start. This wasn’t meant to be a live in position.”
“You’d have to be pretty desperate to put up with living here. With him,” he whispers.
I dip my spoon into the creamy yoghurt mixing the berries in slowly. “It’s weird.”
“How was your first night?”
“I slept, so I count that as a good thing but ask me how I feel next week.” We grin at one another. “I was listening out for sounds of discord,” I confess. “Especially after yesterday, but things were relatively quiet.”
He laughs as he scrapes his bowl clean. “That’s because that tub of lard was on the floor struggling to give me ten push ups.”
“Shhhh.” I hold a finger to my lips, lightly shocked to find Trevor referring to Ward like that.
“Don’t worry. He’s probably still recovering in the gym.”
“He’s a writer,” I say. “Like, he’s really famous. He wrote The Attic.”
“I know. I got an autograph from him,” he says proudly.
I certainly won’t be asking for such a thing. “You asked him to do ten push ups?”
He grunts. “I asked him to do a set of various reps. He struggled to do five push ups, then almost killed himself to prove he could do ten.”
I wince. “Ouch.” I glance at the door, worried that Ward might be lurking around.
Trevor snorts. “It was like watching a baby elephant on the floor, you should have seen him.”
I press my lips together, as a visual pops up in my head. “He probably hasn’t worked out in a while. Rob said he’s hit a wall.” I’d be depressed, if my mom had passed away, so I can understand Ward’s head not being in the right place. He must have been close to his mom, for him to be so devastated that his agent has had to take such drastic measures to get him to finish his book.
“One thing’s for certain, I’ll have to go real slow with him. I put him on the treadmill afterwards and he sweated like a pig.” Trevor chortles as he takes a blueberry from the bowl and pops it into his mouth.
“I think he’s going through a tough time right now.”
“Have you seen what he eats? Pure junk.”
I dip my spoon into my yoghurt. “I offered him this for breakfast, but he turned it down.”
“I’m not surprised his belly is the size it is. You should have seen the way it was hanging when he was doing his press—”
“Get. Out.”
My head