The way Jahseh withers away at the feet of her flat, jaw set in stone and knees locked in place, you'd think there's some real heat waiting for him beyond that grayscale door. In reality, it's only Eve. And as his tongue skirts over his upper row of teeth, dubious and such, he's vain to even attempt to find any sort of comfort in the fact. There is to simply put it nothing at all only Eve about Eve. It's Eve and lots of Eve, a consuming, refreshing wealth of Eve.
Rather than his typical Saturday anticsâthe taxing chore of halfheartedly dallying about his own home while a pair of locally sourced Slovakian women scrub every inch of the place rawâJahseh finds himself yet again in the heart of Southmere on an errand Sullivan had delegated to him, one he'd quickly rose to.
Jahseh raps his knuckles against the door, and throats out a raspy, "It's Jahseh!" He waits patiently as a faff and a fumble blur from the confines of the flat, before the door swings open. On the other side of it, Eve shoulders a Gucci purse, with a buttoned cardigan and a pair of platformed Gucci slides to match on her feetâJahseh can't tell whether she's just coming in or about ready to step out. Either way, he allows her a shameless once over.
"Hi," she greets, with a sideward shuffle. A second ticks by before Jahseh ventures into her flat. "I'm just in time for you."
"You was going somewhere?"
"I just got back. Can I get you anything? I have some lemon water in the fridge," Eve offers. Jahseh fights the urge to pry, but curtly shakes his head instead.
"I'm alright."
The pair waver in the core of the living room now, with a searing tension between them much like the prelude to a tennis match. Weighted eye contact, unyielding body language, an earache's worth of upper-crust jargon to background as Made In Chelsea prattles on from Eve's TV.
"Thanks for coming. I tried to tell Morgs and Sullivan that there's no rush but they insisted. It's all in my room."
Jahseh quietly potters after her as she leads the way to her bedroom. Her flat follows Sullivan's floor plan down to its each and every corner, only mirrored. That, and where his brother's decor is dark and brooding, Eve's is entirely the opposite. Even in all its swank, Jahseh can't let it take away from the fact it's still in the belly of Abbey Woodâthe shithole of all shitholes.
Five minutes later, Jahseh looms over a spread of screws, bolts and what suddenly feels like a million parts too many for one wardrobe. Like an IKEA catalogue had chosen Eve's fleeced rug to vomit all over. Meanwhile, she's throned herself in the middle of her bed, legs tucked beside her thighs.
"You know what you're doing, right?" She's slow to call out, in fear of coming across a lot less grateful than she truly is.
Jahseh chuckles quietly, "Don't insult me." And yet, he doesn't blame her. He stares at the labour-to-be as if he has no clue what to do with it. Really, he's reminded that in his quickness to agree to come here and do her a favour, he'd forgotten its demanded effort.
Seven steps in, an agonising fifteen minutes of turning a blind eye to Eve's blatant ogling, Jahseh finds himself humoured at the thought of Eve having to do all this by herself, had she never met Morgan, Sullivan or himself.
"You really know no one from these sides?" He questions. It takes Eve a moment to realise he'd actually said something to her, before she responds.
"No one at all."
"Why would you move here and you don't know no one? No family, nah?"
Eve's smile does nothing to prepare him for the morbid turn their conversation is about to take, yet she can barely stomach her amusement at the seeming sight of his intrigue, dare she say friendliness.
"I have no family. It's just me."
Jahseh raises a brow, as if he doesn't believe her. "Your parentsâ"
"Died."
She's almost too composed as she says it, to the point where Jahseh can admit it unsettles him. He didn't take Eve for the type to be so at peace with something like that, or expect an upbeat aura like her own to house such a threshold for pain. "You're an only child?"
"I have a brother."
"So yâ"
"But he died, too."
"Fuckin' hell," Jahseh grumbles. He balances a hex key between his two fingers like a zoot, forearm resting on his angled leg, pausing to glance her way. "And you moved here? For what?"
"Work."
Bullshit. Jahseh takes her lousy dishonesty as an SOS, and instead reroutes the conversation. "How's that?"
"Hard, and only getting harder."
"Hm."
By this, he has no intention of urging the topic any further, but he can tell as Eve unravels across the face of her bed, swallowed whole by the jaws of her endless pillows, that she either doesn't notice or doesn't at all care.
"It's getting busier," she hums. "I feel like all these kids, they trust me but I can only relate to them so much, you know? I come from a somewhat privileged background. Not always, but for the most part. Even at my darkest, it never got as dark as it is for some of these kids and they're just kids. Like, it gets dark. Teen mums and broken households and my goodness, the violence? London has a real gang problem."
Jahseh is taken aback at her rambling, at her comfort to do so. He never quite gave people the space for it, he's been repeatedly told as much, but Eve doesn't seem to mind the lack of capacity in all his bleakness.
"You're a proper open book."
Eve winces through her smile, "Does that bother you?"
"No."
"You can tell me if I bother you. I know I talk too much sometimes."
Jahseh glances towards her while she stargazes right through the ceiling, beyond London's blurry skies. In the weeks since they'd last seen each other, he'd from time to time catch himself drafting her life story from the scraps of her she'd teased him with. He'd fill in the gaps of their friendshipâif thatâwith guessed truths, and foolishly boil it down to boredom, maybe even intrigue. Admittedly, never in acceptance that he has a crush on her. No, because that would cross a line.
He only sits and wonders about her instead.
"Do I seem bothered by you?"
Eve smiles, "You act like I annoy you." You do, he thinks to himself, and yet in the same breath wants to tell her to keep talking. For once, he doesn't find himself burning for the relief of silence, but rather for Eve to fill it. He thinks he could listen to her go on about anything.
"You're alright, Eve."
Eve rolls her eyes, but a smile penetrates that stilted glare, "You're alright, Jahseh." They hold each other captive with spellbinding eye contact a few agonising moments longer. Jahseh is almost certain she'll coil back into her muted shell. His shortness doesn't offer much, after all.
Eve only kindles the silence half a second more, before she kicks one ankle over the other and to his masked delight spends the next hour prating on about every last highlight of her day, with Jahseh's hummed ad-libs to match.
Hey... Hear me out! LOL.
I had the maddest writer's block everrr, it was so bad! I had like half the chapter written for months and I'd come back all the time trying to finish and literally nothing would come to mind. Literally last night I deleted it all, wrote this instead and boom. Just like that.
Next chapter, the plot will finally thicken. I think.
Thoughts and feeeeels, let me know. This wasn't much really, forgive me lol.
Fingers crossed for a Favourite Crime update, that one's been playing in my face SO BAD!
See ya reeeeal soon!