all mine | ft. michael clifford

thirty-one;

"Oh, yeah," I managed, shaking my head. "Sorry, I tuned out; this way."

I led him down the mega short hallway to where my lime-walled bedroom was. My new space was bigger than my room in LA and the windows let in streams of light that my LA room didn't offer. It had an inbuilt wardrobe with a mirrored door and I was happy that the carpet was black and in turn, stainless.

"Just dump it wherever, I'll put it together later," I told the removalist guy.

I stood just inside my bedroom and he stopped at the doorway.

He raised a brow. "I can help you put it together now, it'll only take a minute."

I liked the tannedness of his skin. But couldn't stop myself from wishing he was paler. And didn't have brown hair.

"What's your name?" I blurted out, rushing into something in order to pull my thoughts away from Michael.

He seemed confused but his mouth pulled up in a half-grin that I'm sure was undeniably attractive to nearly every other girl on the planet. "James."

James. Simple and un-complicated. Ordinary guy James. Removalist guy James. Charming smile, charming body, charming energy. Charismatic. Confident. James.

I wanted to introduce myself to him but knew it would have been on his paperwork when he'd come to do my job today. My job – right, he was my removalist. What the hell was I doing?

"Um no, it's okay, I can put it together later," I said quickly, offering what I hoped seemed like a lazy smile but probably looked more like I was on drugs.

He took a couple steps inside and placed the head frame on the floor, leaning it against one of the walls.

"I'm going to get the other parts and we're going to get it done now," he told me, already walking away down the hall and calling back to me. "Not taking 'no' for an answer."

I opened my mouth to protest but realised that it might actually nice to have someone's company other than my parents and bitchy co-workers. Not to mention he was probably better at assembling a bed than I was. Let's be honest, I was hopeless with that kind of thing.

I wondered where my friends were. I wondered what they were doing. I wondered if they missed me. And then I reminded myself not to think about them because they were gone.

James returned, the other two pieces of my bed hanging off his shoulder, his hand holding them to his body. He wore a loose white singlet and I could imagine Melissa dying.

"So, you liked green so much that you bought a frog-coloured apartment?" James asked, both of us already kneeling on the carpet.

I held the frame up in a standing position while he used a screwdriver of his to screw the parts together. He made it look easy and I was grateful after all that he'd offered his help.

I smiled. "I don't mind the green," I told him. "I guess I didn't really think about the colours too much when choosing this place."

He looked at me for a split second, his ocean eyes dancing with amusement. "I'm surprised; aren't girls usually really into interior design and shit like that?"

I mean, I guess I did care about the interior of the place but I was really just searching for something that screamed 'home'. Something that screamed 'Mali'.

He probably didn't want to hear that long story.

So I shrugged. "I really wanted to move out and this place just came up."

We chatted and he told me about his own apartment. He lived near the city and worked his own hours. His dad ran the removalist company that he worked for and the jobs he got called to were relaxed, him being able to pretty much choose his own shifts. I told him my parents were business people and I was a loose end with no real plans. He told me he had a dog; golden retriever called Daze. I asked if I could meet Daze and he said yes. I told him that I'd recently come home from LA. He wanted to hear about it. I told him maybe some other time.