Gilliflowers Read Online Free

suspicion she would welcome an opportunity to spat with me. I usually come off worst in such encounters because she keeps her temper better than I do, and she swears less. Once dinner was done I washed up and then announced I was having an early night. I was tired. I had a lot to do the next day and I wanted to be fresh.
    I slept heavily and awoke later than I intended next morning feeling anything but fresh. Sunday is generally a sleep in day and I don’t set the alarm. I’d been relying on my inner alarm clock to wake me up and it hadn’t. It was gone half past eight and I had a ton of stuff to do for the party alongside my usual chores.
    My mood didn’t lighten any when I discovered Penny was up ahead of me. I couldn’t believe it. She usually doesn’t surface until ten or thereabouts. She was in the kitchen sitting at the table sipping tea. She glanced up as I walked in, a look of disdain on her face. I felt my hackles rise as she took first strike and dug her claws into me.
    “Don’t you think you should get dressed instead of wandering around half naked when you have guests in the house. It’s uncouth.”
    I was wearing pyjama shorts and a top so I was hardly indecent. It wasn’t like my pole pal was poking through my fly leering at her from its one eye. “I didn’t know you’d be up, Pen,” I abbreviated her name in the way she detested, “and anyway it’s my house I’m entitled to wander around wearing whatever I want.”
    “It is not your house. You have no claim on it whatsoever, though I’m sure you’d like to. It belongs to my brother and his legally recognised partner.”
    Her words hit me like a slap to the face. I felt a surge of anger. “I’m well aware of who the house belongs to, but it’s still my home.” I then rashly imparted a nugget of information that should have remained private. In the aftermath of the CP I’d been made a promise. I would in my turn have legal status. In the event of either Dick or Shane dying I would marry the surviving partner. Penny’s reaction was cold and calmly vicious. She didn’t even raise her voice.
    “Let’s hope you die first then.” She stood up. “Besides,” she looked me up and down as if measuring a pile of shit, “it’s a ridiculous notion. They probably only said it to keep you quiet. Thanks to you my brother and Dick had to have a shabby secret hole in the wall ceremony with no family members present. They’ll come to their senses one of these days and see you for what you are, a leech. Your novelty value will wear off and you’ll end up grating on them as much as you grate on me and then they’ll kick you out of this house. I hope I’m around to see it.” She swept out of the room.
    I sat down at the table, shaken by the encounter. I regretted telling her what I’d told her with all my heart. They were words shared between the three of us and they should have remained private among the three of us. Not only had I dispelled their magic by speaking them, I’d offered my belly and a sharp knife to an enemy. She had gutted me.
    Going upstairs I flopped back into bed and indulged in a bout of what I’m often accused of, childishness. Giving way to tears I announced everyone hated me so I was staying in bed all day. Shane naturally demanded to know why I was ruining his Sunday lie in with a deluge of saline, snot and self-pity. I gave a brief account, basically along the lines of Penny being mean to me. I discovered why.
    When she and Shane had gone to Leo’s house she had spotted the photo he had taken of them on the day of their Civil Partnership. He’d had one framed. It stood on the mantel in his lounge along with other favourite photos of friends, family and his cat and of course she had a nose at them. She asked about it, wanting to know where it had been taken, the large floral arrangement suggesting it was a wedding.
    Leo, the blabbermouth, had told her. Discovering it was Dick and Shane’s CP
    ceremony had shocked