Page 17 of The Love of My Afterlife
His eyebrows shoot up. “My house is darkened because it’s thirty-three degrees outside and this is an old building with thick walls. And I don’t use Twitter.” He fake smiles and movesto close his door, but I put my foot in the doorway before he can.
“Hold up…Can I come in?”
“No.”
“I…I need some help as soon as possible,” I say—a sentence I’ve only ever said twice in my life: once to a cashier when I couldn’t find the ripe-and-ready avocados in the corner shop, and the other time when I saw a pigeon and a rat having a fight outside Ladbroke Grove tube station.
I can see that Cooper really doesn’t want to let me in, but posh-boy politeness gets the better of him and he steps back, opening the door with a barely concealed grumble.
I step into his flat and notice that it’s much bigger than mine. In fact, it’s even bigger than Mr. Yoon’s. I take a look around. It looks like the home of someone much warmer and more interesting than Cooper. The walls are crammed with bookcases and art and framed pictures of vintage paperback covers. The sofa is a stripy cream fabric, covered with plump velvet scatter cushions in a dense Prussian blue. I gasp as I spot an original fireplace, the black cast iron almost pewter with age.
“Lucky!” I breathe. “Does it work?”
“I think so.”
“You think so? If I had a fireplace like that, it would be lit the whole time.”
“Even in a heat wave?”
“I’d have a cold bath first and not get dressed so that I could feel the benefits.”
His eyebrow quirks upwards a smidge.
Above the fireplace, there’s a large black-framed line drawing hanging in pride of place. It’s an ink drawing of a naked woman, posing with her back turned. It’s beautiful and moreerotic than I would expect to be hanging in the living room of someone like sour-faced Cooper. I stand in front of the picture and admire it for a little longer.
“Is there something I can help you with, or did you come by to inspect my belongings?”
I spin around and point at the desk to the left of the fireplace, the one with three computer screens lighting the room with a neon glow. These computers are lit up every time I come to collect a parcel from Cooper’s flat. “You’re a computer guy, right?”
“I…yes, I suppose I am these days. Are you having trouble with your laptop? There’s a repair shop over on Queensway.”
“No…” I wander over to the computer and squint at the biggest screen in the middle. It’s covered in rows of numbers and symbols I don’t understand. “I’m here about the man I’m looking for…The…”
“The gentleman with whom you hooked up all over this town?”
I flush red. “Yes, him. I’ve been reading through the books I got from the library. The first one said that I should do a public directory search. But there were so many Jonahs in London that I got overwhelmed and didn’t know where to begin. So I wondered if you, with your computer whizzery, knew how I could hurry up the process?”
Cooper shakes his head. “I’m afraid now is not a good time. I’m busy. Perhaps in a day or two I can have a look.”
“Why did you let me in if you weren’t going to help me?”
“I didn’t know the nature of the request. Now I do.”
“I don’t have time to wait a day or two!”
Cooper folds his arms, his shirt straining across unreasonably large shoulders. “Why?”
“Um, well. I think with, uh, chlamydia, time is of the essence. I mean, I, of course, was treated immediately and am now—“
“Clean as a whistle. You mentioned.”
God. “Yes, but Jonah…He doesn’t know. And he should definitely know. It’s theresponsiblething to do. I mean, you would hate it if Little Cooper was in peril and you had zero clue!”
I clamp my mouth shut, the wordsLittle Cooperhanging horrifyingly in the air.
“Great.” Big Cooper narrows his eyes for a moment. “Okay. I think perhaps you should go. I’m sorry, Delphie, but I really do have work to do.”
He strides over to the front door and opens it.
