‘That is it, Michael!’ Courtenay screamed, throwing open the front door to their
house and storming onto the front lawn. ‘I’ve had enough. More than enough! You could fill books with just how much I’ve had!’
‘Okay, baby,’ Michael said, inching out of the house after her and nervously eyeing the neighbouring houses. ‘Let’s just come back inside and we can talk about—’
‘About what? Talk about what, exactly?’ she seethed at him, her voice bouncing around the quiet Melbournian cul-de-sac. ‘About all the messages you’ve been getting in the middle of the night? About the meetings you slink off to in the middle of the work day? About how you’re clearly cheating on me?’
‘I’m not—’
‘You deny it then?’ she cut him off, not even sparing him the oxygen. ‘I thought you were better than that!’
Michael put his hands on his hips, lips pressed thinly together like they wanted to burst open, but he was keeping them at bay.
‘Oh, go on,’ Courtenay huffed. ‘Just say whatever it is you so desperately want to get off your chest. Tell me how I’m a terrible person and girlfriend and you can’t stand to be with me anymore—’
‘I was looking for a buyer’s agent in Malvern East. To help buy a house,’ he said with a frown. Courtenay blinked at him a few times, interrupted in her ranting.
‘A what now?’
‘A buyer’s agent,’ Michael repeated. ‘I was going to surprise you with a couple of listings that I know you would have loved and then we could have started looking together.’
‘So that’s who…’ she frowned. ‘You’ve been… so that means that…’
‘Yes,’ he fumed, annoyed that he’d had to spoil his big surprise. ‘So, unless looking for information about buyer’s advocacy in Melbourne counts as cheating, could we please move this conversation inside?’
Courtenay narrowed her eyes at him and folded her arms. He looked at her, surprised.
‘What?’
‘You were going to buy a house without asking me?!’
‘Oh god,’ he groaned, bringing his palm up to his face.