for June

6. A Date with the Devil

"11 am it is!" he cried out as soon as the phone connected. "Sorry, phone died. I'll meet you at the café at 11. Ciao."

"Chad..." she started to say, but he disconnected the phone, gulped down the lukewarm watery coffee and dashed upstairs to get changed in a hurry. Minutes later, he was already down, showered and clean, and grabbing his phone and wallet from the benchtop when a knock sounded on the front door.

He eyed the time on his phone. It was nearing eleven. Terry. Fuck! She is here. He knew it. He just knew it.

"You want me to get that?" June put the book down, stirring him into action. He was at the door within seconds to find Terry smiling smugly.

"I thought we were meeting at the café."

She pushed past him, her handbag tucked under one arm, and the other holding a large paper bag that smelled of fresh pastries. "No. You said café without giving me a chance to say I was already there and ordering us breakfast. Am I right in assuming you still have no food in this house?"

She walked in and stopped short of the sofa, eyeing June inquisitively. She forced a smile. "Hi," she chirped when she really wanted to say 'What's this?' to Chad. This is why he was blowing off another meeting, a girl, and so young too?

"Hi," June replied, slightly intimidated by the immaculate goddess eyeing her like a flea.

Terry placed the pastry bag on the table, the smell of which sent June's tummy rumbling. She was starved. There was indeed nothing in Chad's fridge or pantry worth eating without taking a serious bio-hazard risk. There was a half-finished block of blue cheese in the fridge she was sure had started life as a block of cheddar.

Terry turned to Chad. "I thought we could talk better here without all the noise." Her wide eyes kept glancing in June's direction. "I didn't know you had company."

Chad smiled. This was the first time Terry seemed interested in his personal life, or the company. "This is June. June, this is Terry, my boss."

"Excuse the sloppy man, June." Terry shook June's cold hand in her gloved ones. "If I didn't know he had a way with written words, I would have never believed the boy could write, let alone bestsellers." She glanced at the book in June's grasp.

June smiled, though she did not understand what Terry was on about. "Chad writes?" was all she could string together for fear of sounding 'sloppy'.

Terry laughed such a cacophony it shocked June into silence. "Chad writes? Oh dear, you're a charmer." It took her all of a few seconds to compose her demeanour and glance at the book again. It had 'Zachary Eve' written in big letters across the bottom of the cover page. "How's the read?"

June shrugged, stroking the book's spine. "I don't know yet. I only started it this morning."

Terry nodded, nestling her handbag on the other end of the sofa. "Tell me how it is at the end." She then turned to Chad, looking aghast. "Shall we leave June to her lazy Saturday read and take our breakfast, and work, to your study?"

Chad immediately led Terry to the study, his garage-converted-to-office at the back of the house. A garage was wasted on him as he never liked parking in that compact room of doom. He was always afraid he'd take out a supporting pylon or something and bring the entire house down, roof and all.

"Thanks for not outing me!" he whispered, once safely inside the study with the door closed behind.

"She's pretty." Terry shrugged.

"It's not what you think." He pulled a chair out for her to sit. "I'll get us a pot of coffee." And with that, he slipped out of the room, feeling Terry's eyes on the back of his head.