style="font-size:15px;"> ‘Or we might get someone obsessed with cleaning,’ suggested Phoebe. She looked ruefully around the kitchen. ‘That wouldn’t be too bad. She’d have plenty to keep her busy, anyway.’
‘I shared with a girl like that once.’ Bella shuddered at the memory. ‘She was completely neurotic about cleaning. There were Post-its all over the flat with instructions about taking out the rubbish or reminders about the dusting rota, and the moment you made yourself a mug of tea she would whip out a coaster and follow you around until you put it down.’
She grimaced. ‘It was seriously spooky! I think we’d be better off with a serial killer or a country dancer.’
‘I think I’d rather sell the house,’ sighed Phoebe.
‘What about that guy Josh was talking about?’ asked Kate suddenly. ‘Did he mention him to you, Phoebe?’
‘Briefly.’ Phoebe drained her mug. ‘What did he say his name was again?’
Kate tipped her head back and contemplated the ceiling while she searched her erratic memory. ‘Gus?’
‘Gib,’ Bella corrected her.
‘That was it.’ Phoebe remembered her conversation with Josh as she helped herself to another biscuit. ‘Doesn’t he only want somewhere temporary, though? We need to find someone permanent.’
‘Yes, but if he was here for a while it would give us time to find someone we really like,’ said Kate.
Phoebe munched doubtfully. ‘We don’t really know anything about him, though,’ she pointed out.
‘We know he’s a friend of Josh’s.’
‘But why does he only want to be here for a few weeks?’ she asked Bella, who as Josh’s best friend could be presumed to know more than the rest of them.
‘I’m not sure. Josh was a bit vague about that. I know he lives in California, but that’s about all. I got the impression he might be in a bit of financial difficulty, which is why he wants somewhere relatively cheap.’
Phoebe looked dubious. ‘If he’s that short of cash, why fly all the way from the States to London?’
‘Maybe he just wants to get away from home for a bit,’ suggested Kate, brightening perceptively at the idea of someone else to take under her wing. ‘Perhaps his heart has been broken, and he needs some time and space to lick his wounds?’
‘Oh, yes, that’s so likely!’ said Phoebe, rolling her eyes. ‘There you are in California, with all that sunshine and spectacular scenery, and you think, “I need to cheer myself up, what can I do? I know, I’ll go and spend six weeks in Tooting!” I mean, nothing against Tooting—I know we like it—but you’ve to admit that a suburb in south-west London isn’t top of everybody’s top ten tourist destinations.’
‘It doesn’t matter why he’s coming, does it?’ said Bella practically. ‘Josh wouldn’t have recommended him if he hadn’t been able to pay the rent, and he can’t be too awful if he’s a friend of his. Why not think about it, Phoebe? Quite apart from anything else, it would be fun to have a man around the house again!’
Kate sat up straighter. ‘And maybe Seb will hear about it and be jealous,’ she added hopefully.
Privately, Phoebe thought it extremely unlikely that Kate’s on-off, but more usually off, boyfriend, known to the rest of the world as Slimy Seb, would care one way or the other, but she knew that Kate lived in daily hope of hearing from him again. She was the only person Phoebe knew who actually believed that if you kept kissing a frog you’d eventually end up with a prince.
‘You never know,’ she said, avoiding Bella’s eye. ‘All right then, we’ll give this Gib a go!’
Gib’s mouth pulled down at the corners as he looked up at his home for the next six weeks. It was part of a terrace of identically narrow, faintly shabby Victorian houses that lined the street, and in the dank drizzle of that April evening even the tub of flowering bulbs at the front door failed to relieve the atmosphere of gloom.
Gib couldn’t help thinking about his home on the Pacific coast, with its huge, light, open rooms and its view of the ocean, and he sighed. He was beginning to wonder if he might regret taking up the challenge Josh had thrown him.
Behind him, the taxi driver cleared his throat meaningfully, and Gib stepped up to the door and pushed the bell, his most charming smile at the ready. A bet was a bet, and it was too late to change his mind now.
He hadn’t heard the bell ring inside, and pushed it again just as the door jerked open and he found himself looking at a tall, slender girl with the fiercest green eyes he had ever seen. She had a swing of straight dark hair, straight dark brows and a generous mouth that belied the severity of her expression.
Gib’s smile blinked off in surprise. Had he got the right address? He distinctly remembered Josh saying that all three girls were very ordinary. They’re just nice, friendly girls, he had said.
This girl didn’t look at all ordinary to Gib, and she didn’t look very friendly either.
‘Yes?’ she snapped.
‘I’m John Gibson.’ Gib put his smile back on, but it bounced right off her. ‘Gib to my friends. And you must be Phoebe, Bella or Kate?’
‘I’m Phoebe,’ she acknowledged reluctantly, and frowned. ‘We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow was the original plan, but I was all ready and an earlier flight came up, so I thought I might as well just come on over and turn up.’
He had the bluest eyes Phoebe had ever seen, and they danced in a way that instantly made her feel boring and repressed for not being the kind of spontaneous person that changed arrangements at a whim and breezed across the Atlantic with about as much fuss as she would make popping down to the shop on the corner.
Less, probably.
Phoebe had had a bad day. Her boss, Celia, had been in a vile mood, nitpicking and throwing tantrums with an even greater regularity than normal. Escaping at last, she had spent more than forty minutes waiting for a bus which turned out to be only going as far as Clapham Junction anyway. Too fed up to hang around in the rain, she had set off to walk the rest of the way, without thinking about the fact that it would take her nearly an hour and that she was carrying two heavy folders and wearing quite unsuitable shoes, and when she finally hobbled into the kitchen she had discovered that the pilot light on the boiler had gone out, so there was no hot water for a bath.
And now there was this Gib on her doorstep.
Sod’s law, thought Phoebe morosely. Be at your best with your hair perfectly in place and your lipstick perfectly applied, and you could be sure that when the doorbell went unexpectedly it would be someone doing market surveys or that man who kept trying to get them to change their electricity supplier.
Look and feel like a limp rag, however, and you could guarantee that the most attractive man you had ever seen in the flesh would turn up on the doorstep!
When she looked at him properly, she could see that he wasn’t actually that handsome—his features were too irregular for classic good looks—but
