Sunshine After the Rain: a feel good, laugh-out-loud romance

She let herself in the main entrance, depositing puddles instead of footprints on the chequerboard flooring, and trudged up the stairs. As she paused on the landing outside her front door, her heart swooped down to her toes. The heavy beat of a rock music anthem met her ears and she groaned.

Why was Dylan home so early?

She just couldn’t face him, couldn’t bear to regurgitate the fiasco of that night’s events for his benefit. However, despite Dylan’s continuous efforts to make the flat feel more ‘relaxed’ by sabotaging her obsession with orderliness, this was still her home and she had nowhere else to go. All she wanted to do at that moment was sink into a scorching-hot bath and soak away the pain.

‘Dylan, I wasn’t expecting you to …’

She stopped in her tracks, her hand still clutching the door handle. She couldn’t process what her eyes were telling her. Her living room was unrecognizable. A silvery-blue haze of smoke hung over a scene that looked like a gang of marauding baboons had been let loose from their confinement at the zoo, had indulged in a frenzy of illicit alcohol and junk food, and then rolled over to sleep off the after-effects.

The cushions and padded seats from her sofa were scattered around the room, one spewing its feather innards onto the rug. Every available space was covered with discarded beer cans, takeaway cartons, and various musical instruments. Her collection of spirits had been moved to the coffee table and their contents drained – even the disgusting banana liqueur her Aunt Margaret had brought back from Tenerife. The kitchen cupboards had been opened and boxes of cereal and pasta were strewn along the units.

But all this was nothing compared to the comatose bodies dotted around her living room and the rancid stench of leftover curry, cigarette smoke, and another unidentifiable aroma that permeated the air. A curl of nausea circled her stomach.

She scanned the room in search of someone she recognized. Her eyes landed on Noah and Frankie, two of Dylan’s fellow band members, sprawled out on the floor, self-rolled cigarettes jutting from their lips, playing cards as their heads rocked to the blaring music. They hadn’t heard her come in. Neither had the two scantily clad girls sharing her favourite tartan-covered armchair, their heads lolling against each other’s as they slept. A third man was asleep next to the window, his feet wrapped up in her silk curtains.

There was no sign of Dylan.

She inhaled a deep breath, fighting the urge to cough as the smoke hit her lungs, and stepped further into the room. Her emotions, which had previously been swirling out of control, had become surprisingly, dangerously, calm.

‘What’s going on? Where’s Dylan?’

‘Oh, hi, Evie,’ exclaimed Noah, pushing himself upright with difficulty before emitting a loud belch and scratching his straggly beard. His heavy-lidded eyes shot towards the bathroom door and his forehead creased in confusion. ‘Weren’t expecting you back until later. Thought you were at some famous guy’s painting show?’

The bathroom door opened and she wished she had a camera to record the look of horror on Dylan’s face.

‘Evie? What are you doing here?’

‘I live here! This is my flat! And in case you need reminding, I also pay all the bills. What exactly is going on, Dylan? You promised me you wouldn’t throw another house party after what went on last time. What happened to the pub gig you told me about?’

‘Got cancelled at the last minute so I asked the guys and a couple of pals back here to drown our sorrows. Why is that so much of a problem?’

Evie glanced around her usually pristine flat and for the first time she saw clearly what her life had become.

Dylan slouched in front of her, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his scruffy, torn jeans, his lifeless brown hair a little too long to be trendy, a look of defiance on his pale, pinched face. Every single penny he earned from the infrequent gigs his band played was spent on beer, cigarettes, and music and he used the flat like a hotel with its own live-in maid – her.

Her thoughts flew back to the last time he had held an impromptu party without her knowledge. He had accused her of being a killjoy when she had complained about his friends emptying her drinks cabinet and fridge, but the loss of her grandmother’s silver watch had been the final straw and an almighty row had ensued, culminating in her refusing to countenance any more parties.

This was a light bulb moment. Clearly tonight Dylan had stuck two fingers up at her request when he knew she wouldn’t be around to witness his breach of her trust. She wondered if there had even been a ‘gig’. She blamed herself though. Despite her residual feelings of loyalty for their relationship, it wasn’t fair on either of them to let it limp on like a bedraggled dog. She had fallen out of love with him.

‘I want you to leave, Dylan.’ She felt no stab of loss, just an overwhelming sense of calm and relief to have said the words, and an absolute certainty that what she was doing was right.

‘What?’

‘I want you to pack your rucksack – now – and go. And take your friends with you.’

She stood in front of him and watched his previous nonchalance morph into panic. But she knew it was merely a reaction to losing the cushy number he had been enjoying for the last two years, not because he had any residual feelings for her. Why hadn’t she seen that before? Was love that blind?

‘Come on, Evie. The band just needed to …’

‘It’s over. You and me. Us. It has been for a while. I suspect you’ve known that too, Dylan, but were just too lazy to look for somewhere else to stay.’

Dylan held her gaze for a split second and then looked away as his cheeks coloured.

‘Catch you later, Dyl,’ muttered Noah, dragging the two sleeping girls from their armchair and guiding them towards the door, their confusion at being awoken from their drunken slumber producing minimal objection.

Frankie offered Evie an apologetic smile as he went to follow in their wake. ‘Sorry about the mess, Evie,’ he murmured, going over to nudge Curtain Guy with his toe. The man rolled over, groaning a vehement protestation, and she recognized him as the band’s drummer, Mitch, whom she had never seen sober.

Dylan watched his friends leave and waited until the door slammed behind them.

‘Evie, I’m sorry, okay. I thought you were …’

‘I mean it, Dylan. I want you to go. Tonight.’

Before he could wriggle his way out of his predicament, Evie strode into her bedroom and grabbed a scruffy rucksack from the top of her wardrobe. She began slinging in Dylan’s clothes, most of which were stored on the floor where he had stepped out of them. Next, she went to the bathroom and emptied the cabinet of his expensive skincare products and toiletries.

She surveyed her living room. Nothing belonged to Dylan. He had made no contribution to its furnishings whatsoever. Everything he owned could be stored in his rucksack. She didn’t feel guilty. One of a plethora of musician friends would offer him a sofa and, if all else failed, his grandparents owned a large Victorian terrace house in Pimlico, which had a spare room permanently made up for him to use – except their hospitality came with house rules that didn’t match Dylan’s ‘laid-back’ lifestyle. He wouldn’t be homeless, or even penniless.

‘Goodbye, Dylan.’ She held open the door, her heart thumping out a concerto on her ribcage.

‘Hey, okay, I get it. We’ve had a blast though, haven’t we? I’ll send you a bunch of tickets when we get our gig at the O2, shall I?’

‘Forgive me if I don’t hold my breath, Dylan. Success doesn’t just fall into your lap, you know. You have to work for it, hard.’

‘Sure.’

Dylan slung his rucksack and guitar over his shoulder and sauntered out of her life without so much as a backward glance. She locked the door behind him and slumped down onto her sofa, dislodging a couple of beer cans, which she slung to the floor to join their cousins. She dropped her face into her palms and succumbed to the deluge of tears that had been threatening to surface since the arrival of Jaxx Benson at the gallery.

Now her world had completely imploded.

Chapter Five (#ulink_4f7abff2-aafe-522c-a9ed-89eac5fd7f67)

An insistent buzzing sliced into her consciousness. She peeled open her eyelids and for a brief moment experienced a faint feeling of disorientation. Then the whole Jaxx Benson nightmare came rushing back at her with a vengeance. A heavy lethargy grabbed at her limbs. She felt as though overnight she had been transplanted into someone else’s body, and life as she knew it had vanished from beneath her feet like quicksand. With difficulty, she pushed herself up to a sitting position and squinted at the kitchen clock.

Who on earth was ringing so insistently on her doorbell at seven-thirty on a Saturday morning?

She swung her legs to the carpet and stood up but immediately collapsed back onto her sofa. Random pinpricks of light danced across her eyes and her stomach reminded her that not only had she forgone breakfast the previous day in her anxiety to arrive at the gallery, but also lunch and dinner. All that had passed her lips in the last twenty-four hours were a few canapés and a couple of sips of Laurent-Perrier.

‘Ouch!’ Her foot had landed on a cracked beer can and she watched in misery as a globule of blood oozed from her big toe.

The intercom buzzed again, this time for a full ten seconds.

‘Okay, okay, I’m coming!’

As she hobbled to her front door, the new day sent beams of weak ivory light through the gap in the curtains, spotlighting the mess Dylan’s friends had abandoned the previous night. A swift pang of regret snaked through her chest, but when she thought of the way he had changed since they had moved to London, the feeling vanished. She was relieved that Dylan’s reign of auditory chaos had ended; grateful that she would never again have to put up with the broken promises to find a job and the discordant strains of his bass guitar and what he, and his fellow band members, labelled as cutting-edge music.

If this was Dylan at the door, ready to display a few seconds of well-practised contrition, she had no intention of letting him in.

She reached the intercom and pressed the button.