Joss Wood - Your Bed or Mine?

‘I don’t care if—’

‘You should,’ Matt interrupted. ‘You should care what the people who love you think.’

Tori tightened the sash of her dressing gown and pushed her messy hair away from her face. Her chin lifted as she gave him a look that was meant to eviscerate all his internal organs. ‘You’ll regret this.’

Matt scrubbed his face with his hands and then placed them on his hips. He watched as Tori stalked over to the bedroom door, yanked it open and slammed it so hard that the entire building shook. Well, if their flatmates weren’t awake yet they would be now…

Matt crossed over to the window, yanked the sash window up, placed his hands on the sill and breathed in the chilly morning air. It was a good substitute for a cold shower and he felt himself shrink to everyday proportions. He’d done the right thing, he assured himself. He didn’t need any complications in his life—and Tori had complications graffitied all over her in DayGlo spray paint—and sleeping with his brand-new flatmate would cause complications he didn’t need.

He especially didn’t need the protective Alex beating the snot out of him for taking advantage of her.

Okay, so…interesting start to his month in London.

She wasn’t his type? Seriously?

His words reverberated around her brain as Tori sat at the kitchen table later that morning, scowling into the mug of coffee cradled in her hands. How could he say that when she had the proof that she was exactly his type pressed hot and flush and throbbing against her, begging to slide on in?

Not her type? She was old enough to know that men thought that any naked woman floated their boat.

As God was her witness he was so going to regret those words. It was the second time she’d been verbally, emotionally slapped by a man in two days and she was sick of it. She was Tori Phillips, the life and soul of any party, champion flirt; she made people laugh and people liked her, dammit. Men loved her…

And he would too. Tori narrowed her bright blue eyes, deep in thought. Her pride demanded that she take some sort of action to bring him down a peg or two—or sixty thousand—and she was just the girl to show him the error of his ways. She tapped her French-manicured nail against her coffee mug; she could unleash the full power of her charm on him and when she had him at her feet and begging, she’d watch him squirm as she walked away.

Poppy might be smart, Iz ambitious but, by God, she was the most charming and, undoubtedly, the most stubborn and…and…and unforgiving of the bunch.

And, also the most screwed up of all of them. Why couldn’t she just shrug off his words and let it go? Was she that insecure, that crazy? Yeah, she was. She wasn’t book smart like Poppy, who was her stable rock, calm and in control. She wasn’t like Iz, ambitious and driven. Iz had recently given up her high-flying career to work as a fund-raiser for charities, she had found Harry and was deliciously happy, but she knew what she wanted and how to get it.

No, Tori was the clown of the group, the emotional firecracker, the one they worried about, talked about and tried to keep grounded. She was capricious—she worked in PR, could anything be more flighty than that?—and she was emotional and high-maintenance. Or so they kept telling her.

Her friends loved her, dearly, but she knew they despaired of her. She knew that they desperately wanted to say ‘I told you so’ about Mark. Poppy, the mother hen, wanted to scoop her up and wrap her in cotton wool.

She would be fine…She’d pick herself up and dust herself down.

Tori smelt Poppy’s scent before she even heard her and sighed with pleasure when Poppy’s slim arms wrapped around her chest from behind. Poppy rested her temple against hers while Tori held her arms. Her best friend, her oldest friend. It was so good to be home…

‘You okay, Toz?’

‘I’m fine,’ Tori replied as Poppy let her go. She looked up into Poppy’s doubtful face. ‘I’m fine, Popsicle. I promise. I’m bruised, not heartbroken. I’m considering sending Mark a thank you note…something along the lines of “thanks for waiting until I’d spent so much time with you and done so much with you to show me that you are, actually, a sex-addict sociopath”.’

Poppy smiled. ‘We knew that already.’

‘Thanks for the warning,’ Tori grumbled.

‘You wouldn’t have listened to it,’ Poppy replied.

Tori waved her hand in the air. ‘It doesn’t matter—all men suck.’

Poppy put the kettle on the gas and shook her head. ‘When are you going to start making better choices when it comes to men, Tori?’

‘I have no idea,’ Tori replied honestly.

Poppy shoved a tea bag into her mug and poured water on top. She prodded the bag with her finger and Tori winced, resisting the urge to hand her a spoon. Poppy lifted her amazing eyes and Tori saw that they were filled with worry…again. ‘Something has got to change, Tori.’

‘I know. I’m sorry.’ Tori pushed her cup away. ‘I should’ve listened to you…’

‘Will you listen to me now?’ Poppy leaned against the counter and sipped her tea while she waited for her response.

‘Maybe.’ She wished she could say yes but she didn’t want to promise Poppy anything she couldn’t deliver. She took her promises seriously.

‘Take some time before you hurtle into the next crazy relationship. Stop confusing sex with love…Have sex if you have to but stop looking for love and investing in the man too soon. And you have to start choosing men who aren’t complete idiots, Toz. You can’t shake the asshat tree and expect a good man to fall out.’

Did she do that? Did she fall too hard and too fast, getting all her hopes up on something she deep down knew wouldn’t last? Did she deliberately choose men who she knew were going to disappoint her? Hurt her? Was she a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Tori dredged up a smile. ‘I hereby hand over my right to pick my own boyfriend because I obviously don’t know what I am doing.’

‘I’d do a happy dance if I actually believed that,’ Poppy retorted. ‘I just wish your heart would learn that it doesn’t have to get involved in every situation. Its job is to pump blood, that’s it.’

Tori, thinking that they’d spent far too much time talking about her obviously ridiculous love life, nodded at Poppy’s white coat. ‘Are you working today?’

Poppy grimaced. ‘Yeah, sorry. How was your night in the boxroom?’

Interesting. Tori wrinkled her nose. ‘Horrible. I want my room back!’

‘I know and I’m sorry. But hang in there—Lara and Alex have been talking about taking a holiday soon, they want some sun…and some alone time, I suspect. When they go you can temporarily move back into your, their, room. And Isaac is away, by the way.’

Yeah, well, she’d found that out the hard way! Tori heard the twitch in Poppy’s voice and her antennae picked up. She might be the one who was always in a crisis of one sort or the other and she did have a…ahem, colourful romantic history but she was emotionally intuitive and had always wondered why Poppy was so anti-relationships. They could talk about everything and did, except Poppy’s personal life, which was a no-go, never-discuss area. Poppy, fun and self-effacing, was so universally adored that it was sometimes hard to remember that she hadn’t ever—that Tori could remember—brought a man home…

But whenever Isaac’s name was mentioned, whenever Isaac was around, Poppy vibrated with an energy that was weird and, if she wasn’t mistaken, sexual. Isaac pushed Poppy’s buttons and Tori was just glad that someone did.

‘Oh, and Isaac offered his room for the month to Matt Cross, an old friend of his.’ Poppy glanced at her watch. ‘I’ve got to go; introduce yourself to Matt when you see him.’