Cowardice

Chelsea sees nothing of her apparent new neighbour for a week. There's barely a noise from them either. No sound of the kettle whistling on the stove, or an accidental slam of a door. No muffled conversation or a rogue cough. Chelsea even resorts to pressing her ear against the cold stone wall to see if she can anything from him. She'd settled for demonic chanting at this point, as long as it's not silence.

It's one evening, as she's stood at the bottom of the back garden, looking out to the surrounding fields as the trailing walkers make their way back into town before it starts to get really dark, when he emerges again.

There's a muttered curse of 'shit' that has her head whipping around to face their conjoined houses, and the scraggly looking guy is shaking his hand as if he'd hurt it, cigarette pressed tightly between his lips which are turned down in disapproval.

She wonders if he's been doing this everyday; coming out to smoke. If it's the case, she wishes she'd ventured out into the slightly overgrown land earlier, to ease her mind that this guy wasn't a total lunatic.

He's not paying her much attention as he huddles against the brick wall, flicking his lighter repeatedly to try and ignite it.

He glances up all of a sudden, just as Chelsea is peering back for another look, and she startles, feels the heat rising to her cheeks as he notices her inherently nosey behaviour.

"Oh hi." His voice is surprisingly high, for the rough look he's sporting, walking up his side of the fence so he's almost equal to her, "Keep meaning to pop over and introduce myself. S'Louis."

"Um, Chelsea. Nice to meet you."

"Same. Same. Didn't realise anyone would be living next door til' I got here. Landlord said it belonged some old codger who wouldn't sell up."

Chelsea lets out a bubble of shocked laughter, having to cover her mouth to stop the sudden guffaw halfway through, "That uh, 'old codger', was it? S'pose he meant my Nan."

Louis' eyes go comically wide and he coughs on his drag of the cigarette, choking into his hand as the smoke dissipates around him, "Course. Course it's ya' Nan." He groans, throwing his hands in the air, "Sorry. Made a proper fool outta' myself now."

Chelsea finds his Yorkshire accent a smidge on the grating side, what with his half formed words and sentences. Never mind the smoke he was managing to blow her way.

"You didn't know. Sorry your solitary holiday has been ruined."

"I'd bet you're here for the same reason. Promise I don't have a mini-bus full of rowdy lads on their way down. Just need a bit of quiet time to me'self."

"We'll get along alright then."

Chelsea considers adding in a jibe about not creepily sitting in his car in the pitch black again, but Louis starts meandering down the paved path towards his own cottage before she can think of a witty enough way to word it.

Another time then.

+++

Chelsea is still mulling over the same crossword she's been trying to beat since she woke up that morning, pen tapping repeatedly against the bottom of her lip as she searches her brain for a nine letter word for content. With only two vowels already been filled in and no chance of her going much further without, she's considering cheating and pulling up Google for a helping hand.

The sudden knock on the front door has her knee jerking into the hard wood of the dining table and her heart lurching into her throat.

Visitors have been non-existent for the three weeks she's been here, which was not at all surprising considering the only people who knew where she'd run off too were her Mother, Grandmother and best friend - all who had other things to be worrying about above her quarter life crisis.
She'd even refrained from telling anyone in local village whereabouts she was staying, always vaguely gesturing the wrong way down the main road in the centre as she made her excuses to move on.

In her hesitance, the person knocks again, a little more firmly, the deep sound of the old door echoing around the house and Chelsea gulps as she stands to answer it.

It's Louis on the other side, looking a little sheepish.

"Uhm, morning." He gives a little wave before returning his hand back to pocket in his jacket, "I was just popping to the shop, thought I might be able to save you a trip?"

"Eh?" Is Chelsea's intelligent response, furrowing her brow and cocking her head to the side, "Sorry, I was somewhere else then."

"Can I get you anything from the shop?"

This was neighbourly behaviour she was not accustomed too, "Oh, I'm OK, thank you. Pretty stocked up."

"Ah, good." He nods slowly a couple of times, before backing up at a snails pace, "I'll maybe see you another time then."

With that he turns on his heel and marches away, past his car and up the lane towards Skelwith, head down and hunched in on himself.
It's possibly the most random encounter she's had with another human, and she often used to take the early bus to work with people still drunk from the night before. Louis had no real reason to check in on her - she clearly had a car, the ability to walk and enough sense about her to buy food when she needed it.

A half hour later, when Scarlett has managed to figure that the word she was looking for was 'gratified', she definitely doesn't feel as such. The odd interaction with her new neighbour has left her watching closely for his return, wondering what had crossed his mind to ask a total stranger if he could buy them some bloody milk and bread.

In the two minutes it takes her to make a fresh cup of tea, the door goes again.

Chelsea barely has the door open before Louis, who is on the other side once more, is rambling on again.

"...Right so, I had an ulterior motive for offering to do you a favour-."

"No shit." Chelsea can't help but butt in mid-sentence, and then blushes. She's really got to get a hand on her automatically snappy responses, "Sorry. Go on."

"I need to use your Wi-Fi. It's passworded, otherwise I'd have just nicked it." He deadpans, "I've got no bloody signal at all."

Chelsea's laughing again, or it's more of a giggle, "Can't fault your honesty, can I? Come in."

"Know it's a bit cheeky, s'why I was gonna get you some stuff."

"I don't need to be bribed with food." She quirks her eyebrows, and leads Louis to where the router is sat, flashing happily to itself, "Uh, the passwords on there somewhere. The guy who came to install it set everything up for me."

"I can't get anyone to come out. Or come fix the downstairs sink." He looks up every now again as he flicks between reading the mix of letters and numbers and typing it into his phone.

"You're landlord sounds like a dream. He didn't sort this before you came down here?" Chelsea tries to act casual, leaning up against the door frame.

"He took my money, gave me the keys and winked when he drove off. Should've figured something was dodgy."

"Don't you have people who sort this kind of thing out for you? Like a minder?"

He looks shocked, blue eyes blinking rapidly as his brow furrows, "So you know who I am?"

"I'd have had to have been living under a rock for the past five years, not to."

"Oh bloody hell. You haven't told anyone, have ya'? Like where I am?"

Chelsea can feel her face screw up, nose scrunching at the almost accusation, "No, why would I?"

"Bit of extra cash? Could sell some bullshit story that I'm using your internet to torrent porn and you'd get a decent wad."

"You've got a very twisted view on how people work." She scoffs, "I didn't figure out it was you until you introduced yourself the other day and I've got better things to be worried about than an out of work popstar living next door."

Chelsea feels out of breath as she finishes chastising him, sucking in shallow breaths as she waits for him to stop frowning at her and do something.

"I-."

"Can you go now? You've got the bloody password and I've got stuff to do."

"Right, yeah." He at least as the decency to look a little apologetic, "I'll um, return the favour if you ever need anything. Eye for an eye, sorta' thing."

"Don't think I'll need anything from someone as distrusting as you."

The door may slam as she shuts it behind him but she can't decide if it's on purpose or not. She can always blame the slight breeze that's coming in from the open kitchen window.