Right so I was going to keep this one in the house. That lasted until Sophie dropped a voice note in the group chat that I will take to my grave, and Mia replied with a poll. The poll had two options. Both were rude. Both won.
They have given him a nickname. I am not writing it here. It is accurate in the way a well thrown dart is accurate. If you have ever had a man who thinks he is a secret while leaving the same coat on the same chair, you can probably guess the flavour of it.
He still thinks he is mysterious. That is the part I keep turning over in my head when I am doing my lipstick in the toaster reflection like a person with standards and a problem.
He was supposed to be a one off
That is what I said out loud the first morning, which in this flat is the same as publishing a press release. Sophie was already in the kitchen with tea and an expression that said she had heard the door at twenty past one. Mia had not surfaced yet. She surfaced later, saw a second pair of trainers, and went, “oh we are doing themes now.”
He did not do anything dramatic. That is how it starts. No speech about timing. No “what are we.” He just made the quiet face men make when they want you to believe they are difficult to pin down, then asked if I had toothpaste. I did. He used it. He put it back. I should have ended it there on competence alone.
Second time was a Thursday because midweek in London is where good judgement goes to lie down. Third time I did not even pretend it was spontaneous. I texted first. He replied with a location and a time window, like he was a pop up. I went. Of course I went. I like attention and I like sex and I like coming home with a story more than I like the story of staying in with a face mask and my own thoughts.
By visit four the house had decided. I walked in from the shop and they were both looking at me with that soft menace only flatmates can do. Sophie said they needed a shorthand because “your friend” was getting embarrassing. Mia said they already had one. Then she said it. Then Sophie repeated it. Then it became law.
The chat is a small and vicious newspaper
Our WhatsApp used to be bins, parcels, and who finished the milk. Now it is a diary I did not consent to but keep opening anyway.
Sophie logs arrivals. Not every time. Enough times that the pattern is undeniable. “Hall light 1:19.” “Shower 8:03.” “Same mug in the sink, the grey one.” Mia sends photos that are always slightly out of focus, which she thinks makes them artistic. They make them look like evidence from a very boring crime.
I tell them to pack it in. They tell me I brought a recurring character into a three woman sitcom and I do not get to complain about the writers room. Which is annoying, because it is funny, and I hate when they are funny at my expense before I have had coffee.
There is a points system. I did not build it. I am not on the judging panel. He gets points for putting the loo seat down and loses them for doing the whisper voice in a flat with thin walls and two witnesses. Last week he made tea for me and not for them. Sophie called it “selective hospitality.” Mia called it something I also will not print. The nickname has cousins now. The family is growing.
I muted the chat for an hour on Sunday and unmuted to find they had given his coat a personality. According to Mia the coat is more emotionally available than he is. I hated how hard I laughed. I laughed with the tap running so he would not hear it from the bedroom, which is a sentence I cannot believe I just lived.
The mystery routine
He leaves gaps on purpose. That is the act. No surname in the Uber. No “see you tomorrow.” He says “I should disappear” as if he is in a film and the film is about a man with a complicated job rather than a man who works in something involving decks and “aligning stakeholders.” I asked once what that meant. He smiled like I had asked for his pin number.
He will not hold my hand on the street near the station. He will hold my hips like he is trying to leave a fingerprint. He checks the hallway before he walks into it. He thinks that looks cool. It looks like a man who has watched too many shows about people having affairs and decided the aesthetic was the point.
I have not told him we named him. I have not told him Sophie can identify his knock. I have not told him Mia does a voice impression that is unkind and perfect. I let him have the fantasy that this is low profile. It feels generous. It also feels like keeping a good punchline in my pocket.
The sex is the bit he cannot brand. When he stops doing the quiet spy thing he is actually present, which I like more than I planned to. I am not going to pretend I keep opening the door for his lore. I keep opening the door because it is good and convenient and I do not have to perform a future I do not want. In the morning I put my face back on and he puts the mystery back on and we both pretend those are the same kind of maintenance.
Kitchen politics
There are rules now, unofficial and therefore sacred.
If he is still here when Sophie leaves for work, he has to be dressed. That one came in after the towel incident, which was not even him, but the house has a long memory and a taste for collective punishment. If he uses the last of the nice coffee, he replaces it. He did that once without being asked and Mia said, “dangerous, he is learning the culture.”
I caught myself showing him where the bin bags live. That was the moment I knew the nickname was correct. You do not teach a passing stranger the bin bags. You teach the person who keeps turning up.
Sophie is not jealous. She is territorial about peace. She wants to eat yoghurt in her own kitchen without making small talk with a half dressed man she has not been introduced to. Fair. I have started doing a sharper introduction. “This is my friend.” Friend is doing a lot of heavy lifting. He nods. She nods. Mia offers him a banana like we are hosting a very strange sports day.
The other night he asked if they minded him being around. I said they mind the oat milk situation more. He looked relieved. I nearly told him the truth, that they have turned him into a house mascot with a filthy title, but I liked the way he was looking at me and I liked my own power more than I liked being kind.
The morning it stopped being deniable
Saturday. Rain. Parsons Green looking washed and a bit smug, which is how I like it. He was still in bed. I went out for bits and came back to Sophie and Mia at the table with the group chat open on both phones, which is never a sign of inner peace.
Sophie said, “he is not a secret if he has a schedule.”
Mia said, “he is not a schedule if he thinks he is a rumour.”
I put the bags down harder than I needed to. I said I was allowed a recurring poor decision. Sophie said of course I was, they just reserved naming rights. Then she used the nickname again, casually, like she was talking about the boiler. That is when it properly landed. He had crossed over from my room into household vocabulary.
I went back in. He was on his phone doing the face men do when they want you to think it is work. Maybe it was work. Maybe it was another girl. I did not check. I am messy, not tragic. I sat on the edge of the bed and redid my mouth in the mirror and he watched me like the lipstick was the confidential part.
“Your flatmates are funny,” he said.
“They are nosy,” I said.
He smiled. “They do not know anything.”
I smiled back and did not correct him. Some information is rent I am not ready to split.
Why he is still coming over
Because ending it would require a conversation with a beginning, a middle, and a reason, and I do not have a reason that sounds serious enough for the amount of time I have already spent thinking about his trainer by the radiator. Because the sex is a known quantity and London is full of unknown ones that talk about their founder journey before they have even taken their coat off. Because I like coming home to a house that is already in on the joke.
I am not in love with him. I need that on the record before someone in the comments starts a wellness intervention. I like the pattern. I like that I do not have to invent chemistry from scratch every Friday. I like that he thinks the disappearing is the seduction, when the seduction is actually that he keeps failing to disappear.
Would I take him to a wedding? No. Would I take him to afters at Mia’s friend’s warehouse thing? Already did. He stood near the speaker and looked enigmatic and then later in the taxi he was just a man with cold hands and a good mouth. That version is the one I keep inviting back. The enigmatic version is the one the chat is roasting.
Sophie says I should either make it nothing or make it something. She loves a binary. I told her some people are just Tuesday. She said Tuesday has been repeating for six weeks. I said Tuesdays do that.
If he finds this
Then hello. You found the blog. That is on you. I did not use your name. I did not use the nickname either, which is more restraint than this house usually manages before noon.
You are not as hard to clock as you think. You put the watch on before you leave so it looks like time is dragging you away. You never stay for the full breakfast unless it is already on the table. You think the back stairs are a personality. They are just stairs.
I still want you here later. That is the inconvenient sentence. The girls can keep their title. You can keep your little vanishing act. I will keep the door and the story and the last word, which is the only ranking I actually care about.
If you have a Regular of your own, you already know the sound of the chat pinging while he is still in the bathroom. You already know the exact tone your flatmate uses when she says “your friend” and means “the situation.” You already know you will not kill it tonight, because tonight he is on his way and your mouth is freshly done and the house has already set a place for the joke.
Mine is due in an hour. Or he is not. He likes that uncertainty. We do not. We have already named the fixture. He is just the last person to read the team sheet.