Mr and Mrs Nemesis✔️

Bonus Chapter #4

I pull my hands away and grip the countertop. My lips roll thin. Elijah cringes with a grimace. "Firstly, thank you for putting the washing on. Secondly, when I talk to you, I expect you to listen to everything I've got to say, and not tune out after the first few words like you always do."

"Lottie, I listen -" he starts.

"No, Eli! Clearly you don't! I asked you to separate the whites. Did you? Of course not. So now we have several grey trainer socks, an off white bath towel, and the dress that I bought last week looks like it's been drenched by tea bags!" I snap, bunching up the fabric to toss at him. There is some satisfaction that comes from the wet slap as it hits him in the face.

"It's really not that bad." He tries to console, and honestly, no it's not. It's still white and still wearable, but it's not as white as it should be, and it's less than a week old, and I went to such lengths to avoid spilling Bolognese down the front when we went out for our date night that this situation pisses me off more than it should.

"Elijah that's actually not the point I'm trying to make here. The point is that you don't fucking listen and trying to get you to help around the flat is about as easy as getting Mason to stop calling everyone a ballsack!" His lips pull then, fighting a smile. I can admit that the fact that his cousin has recently gotten into the habit of calling everyone a ballsack thanks to me telling Elijah to stop scratching his in front of the 6 year old is amusing, but it's not the time for jokes. "In fact, do you know what? I'm going on strike!"

His smile drops. "Strike? What do you mean?"

"It means I'm done. I'm done cleaning your mess up after you, I'm done washing the dishes when we've both eaten, and I'm done ironing your clothes for when you have work. You're about to realise how much of a sweet ride you've had Elijah Hendrix, and you're going to come grovelling for my forgiveness with a new dress, puppy dog eyes, and the page 45 square cut one and a half caret engagement ring on the Tiffanys website." He stumbles when I barge past him, and his eyes flash with fear when I point at him. "And no sex either. I'm on strike with that too."

His weak pleas of mercy follow after me as I go to our bedroom.

~

"I give him two days. Max." Nat says through a mouthful of crisps as she proceeds to shake the crumbs of what's left in her packet over the carpet. My eye actually twitches as I watch her, hands balled to refrain from hurrying to clean it up.

I am slightly anal when it comes to keeping the flat tidy. When I lived with my parents, it was a little different. My bedroom often had piles of clothes abandoned on my dresser chair, but the flat is ours. People come here, and I want it to be perfect, because I'm proud of it. It's a reflection of how far Elijah and I have come, and I'm proud of us too. I like the pictures to sit straight on the walls, I like all the surfaces to be wiped daily, and the floors to be freshly vacuumed when we have company. I like the cushions to be plush and the washing up piled in the sink to be washed and away. I'm avid in presentation, and after I told the girls what I had said to Lijah, Natalie was exceptionally keen to make my striking as painful for him as possible. Only, it's making it kind of painful for me too.

Alena grimaces when she notices my discomfort, and proceeds to slyly move her glass on to a coaster. Thankfully, there's no water ring on the coffee table. That would've sent me over the edge.

"I don't know," she begins, placing her own crisp packet strategically to look as though it has been tossed carelessly aside. As opposed to Nat, she's not trying to send me into cardiac arrest. "It's already been twenty-four hours, and he hasn't said a peep, no?"

"Other than grumbling when I banished him to the spare room after he tried to feel me up and induce sex, he hasn't said shit." Nat pauses and looks at me with concern.