She climbed up the stairs to the living room, dragging her bags up the stairs, banging with the most excruciating sound. As she forced herself up the last step, she let out a sigh, rested for a moment then let the bag drop to the floor as she walked over to the sofa that she fell into.



“That’s more like it” she blurted. She finally sat alone, left with and the sound of the rain hitting the windows. It was a very cold, November evening. She rested her hand on her soaking head as her hair dripped onto the sofa. She was tired but the wetness of the rain was annoying her. She headed up and had a shower.

The hot, steamy water was such a relief after having icy water soaking her clothes on the way there. She stood in the shower and leaned against the wall. She couldn’t believe she had done it. One minute she’s in London and the next she’s in some Cornish town by the sea. She also couldn’t believe that she moved onto a the semi-secluded "Lighthouse Island", with two houses to the side of her. She wondered what the neighbours were like. She was so engaged with the flowing, relaxing water and her thoughts that she couldn’t hear what was going on in the next room.





She looked across at the clock; it had already been twenty-five minutes? Grabbing and turning the tap, it made a squeaky noise on top of the noise of an object being dropped. She turned her head to the door, rapidly. “It’s nothing,” she whispered to herself “probably the pipes”. She went to the radiator and grabbed a towel, wrapping it around herself, then going to the bedroom.

As she opened the door, she saw a man going through the drawer of the bedside table and let out a scream and flew back in shock, as did he. “Who the hell are you?” she yelled at him.

His face turned a little embarrassed as he saw the strange woman in the bathroom doorway with nothing but a towel. “Erm, yikes,” he began, “sorry”

She started waving her arms about yelling “Erm, yikes? I bloody live here!”

“Wait, please. I can explain…” he said trying to stop her from yelling any louder.



“My mate, Darren? He lived here before. He left the key for his suitcase in his drawer here. See it? Bit too tiny for anything here, right? He's got the suitcases but he forgot the one thing he needed," He glanced over at the key, trying to point out this tiny object to her, "I don’t expect he can get changed into pajamas when he can’t access them”

He let out a small chuckle and she stared at him with the most controlled anger he had ever seen.

"How the hell did you get into my house?" she snapped.

"I had a key, it was given to me by Darren when he lived here so I could pop in whenever he needed... In fact," he reached in and grabbed the spare key from his pocket then put his hand out for her to have it, "Here you go"

As she grabbed the key and tried to let it all make sense to her, she started to relax. She then grabbed her head while grinding her teeth, “Oh” she finally whispered.

He had to be telling the truth, she met Darren the day she bought the house and he did mention locking all his suitcases before going to make sure that nothing falls out of the dodgy closing ones.

“I’m Lucas,” he announced, “...or Luke. I live next door, 77?”

He looked away as the towel started slipping. She grabbed it as fast as she could, “Sorry, I… erm… just got out the shower. I’ve only just got here but needed one after being out in that”

She pointed towards the window, still being hit with drops of rain pretty heavily. “Oh wow, in that? No wonder you needed a shower…”




Jenna smiled, slightly. “I’m Jenna, here at 78”

He smiled back and put out his hand to shake. “Nice to meet you”

He wasn’t bad for a next door neighbour, pretty good actually. He seemed to have a nice personality... as well as everything else. His face was stunning and she didn’t know what type of aftershave he used but damn it smelt good. She coyly stroked her hair and looked at him. He got increasingly coy and crossed his arms.

“Damn, it’s dark in here,” he examined, “where are all the bulbs?”

She shrugged, “Your mate Darren took them all. He did warn me, but when your local shop had none, you can’t be arsed to go to another shop just for bulbs. I can live in the dark; I have candles, anyway”

“Darren did love his energy saving bulbs, expensive ones too. Not surprised he took them with the price he paid, haha.” He joked, “Seriously, though, if you need any bulbs, I can pop some over tomorrow if need be, save you the trip to the hardware store on the other side of town”.

She grinned. Another chance to see him? Go on then. “You sure?”

“I’m sure”

“Alright then, it’s a date. Not literally, but you know erm. See you tomorrow?”

She gripped her neck and was all shy. He waved, “see ya, it’s been nice to meet you in what were odd circumstances. Bye!”

“Bye” she said, quietly.

Well, he was pretty great, wasn’t he?