Sweetly Isolated (The Swallow Barn Cottage Series, Book 1)

All Better in the Morning

She got up, wiped her face with the sleeve of her shirt, and opened the door.

"Could I have my tea here, please?" she called to him. Her voice was still croaky. "I just had this idea, and I want to work on it a bit."

He stepped into the hall with a mug in his hand.

"Are you sure? How's your back?" He was back to his considerate calm self.

"It still hurts, but I won't be long."

Her nonchalant tone sounded a tad fake, but it would have to do. She needed to try to write!

He nodded and went back to the kitchen. Tina sat at her desk and opened the file. She put on the headphones and started her playlist - mostly the Clash and the Sex Pistols. She opened the articles from the medical journals on the bleeding rates of different gun wounds, when he came in. He put the mug on her desk, and she nodded to him without looking away from the screen. She looked up two seconds later and saw that he was gone and the door was closed.

She tried for an hour. It wasn't that she couldn't write... She could. The word count was actually higher than normal. It's just that everything she'd written was shite! She kept slipping in some sort of sentimental, didactic, patronising tone, and ended up with rubbish! She felt sorry for herself, and so did her characters! And she just couldn't shake it off!

She'd had writer's blocks before! She'd had characters not listening before! She'd never had them act out of character! It's like it wasn't Evelyn Cox fiction anymore! It's like she was a poor copycat of Olivia Dane and was writing overly emotional, preachy tosh!

Tina dropped her head on the desk and groaned.

Alright, don't panic. Don't panic. Don't. Panic!!!

Maybe, it wasn't about Holyoake. Maybe, the painkillers were arsing up her writing. Maybe, she was tired. Or dehydrated. Maybe, her Moon was ruled by Capricorn today, or something. Anything was possible!

She just needed to give it a break. She'd have her tea - it was now almost cold now - and then she'd go to bed. She'd sleep, wake up as good as new the next day - and come down to her study and kill a couple of likeable characters. It was all going to be alright.

She stepped out of the bedroom, and found him on the sofa, in the same good old pose.

"Hiya," she said.

He lifted his face and gave her a polite smile.

"I'm done," she said. "For today, I mean. I should go back to working on it tomorrow morning. But I'll just take a quick shower, and... go to bed."

"Alright," he said in an even tone.

"Right," she said.

Awwwww-kward.

"Do you need my help with the shower?" he asked.

That definitely wasn't an attempt to get into her pyjama bottoms. Look! No smirk, no raised eyebrow. Instead, there was a crinkle between his eyebrows, and his lips were set in a stern line.

"No, I'm alright," she mumbled. "I'll keep the door unlocked though, just in case I– slip like an idiot again."

"Sure," he said.

Well, that's not nice. Isn't he supposed to reassure her she's not an idiot? Not with your personal history of moronic injuries, Tina.

After the shower, she crawled under the duvet and turned off her bedside light. To think of it, they hadn't discussed whether he was supposed to come up as well. She lay for a few minutes, just staring at his pillow. It was his pillow at this stage.