Chapter 10

I was awoken a few hours later when Naomi kicked the door open as she carried in a breakfast tray.

“Morning sleepyhead,” she said as I rubbed my eyes, “what time did you finish working?”

“It was after 2, I tried not to wake you as I walked past your room.”

“We were dead to the world by then, we didn’t stay up late anyway, I was really tired, not used to working hard like we did yesterday. Who knew you’d work up a sweat working a library, those book trolleys are really heavy.”

I sat up in bed and Naomi placed the tray over my legs, I thought it smelt good, a properly strong black coffee to wake me up, and scrambled eggs on toast with brown sauce.

“I hope I’ve not overcooked the eggs, you do the best scrambled eggs, and I tried to copy what you do.”

“They look absolutely perfect honey.”

Naomi sat on the chair by the window, she looked serious all of a sudden.

“Can I talk to you for a minute, before Helen comes back?”

“Of course you can, what’s the matter?”

“You know how we were talking about relationships the other day, and you warned about making things complicated with too many partners?”

“Mmmm” I answered through a mouthful of scrambled egg.

“I might have done it already, you see I really like Helen, like, really like her, she’s cool, she’s funny, she knows how to do stuff.”

Naomi paused as I swallowed a mouthful of hot coffee, “ok, I could see that from how you acted on Sunday.”

“Well, I also like Pixie, with the potential to really like her, she’s really pretty, we like a lot of the same stuff, she’s really clever, she’s pretty, I already said that, she’s got a fantastic figure, she’s just so perfect Tom, and I don’t know what to do.”

I swallowed the last of my eggs and drank the last of the coffee.

“Well, don’t we have a full-on dilemma already. I spoke to Helen yesterday afternoon, she really likes you, but she’s also fully aware that you’re half her age and are far more suited to Pixie than her.”

“But...”

“But nothing honey. You fell for Helen, she responded and together you have some wonderful experiences, but she knows you won’t be together forever, that you’ll fall for someone else, and fall harder, and you have. You’ve had an awakening sweetheart, we had sex, and oh my it was amazing, truly wonderful and lifechanging, and that’s opened your mind to what you’ve been missing, and then Helen came along, you tried to shock her and it didn’t work, you weren’t to know Helen’s bisexual, and the inevitable happened, now you’ve found Pixie.”

“But what do I do?”

“Now you’ve found Pixie, and Pixie appears to be exactly what you’re looking for right now, and you seem to be exactly what Pixie is looking for. You would be a fool to let this opportunity go to waste.”

“But what about Helen?”

“Helen expects nothing more than what you’re willing to give her, if that’s an occasional night of fun, then so be it. Helen has been single for a long time, she’s content to be on her own with the odd one-night stand. I don’t think she’s that interested in long term relationships.”