Late night conversation

‘Only two weeks till I come down,’
I said at nearly 11pm to my soon to be flatmate.
‘Yeah, it’s pretty soon. I’m gonna finish work early that day so I can meet you at home and let you in. How much stuff are you bringing?’
‘Four bags. Linen, clothes, books.’
‘You’re bringing books?’
Why is that weird? I thought.
I said
‘yeah. Is that OK?’
‘Yep.’
He paused.
He’d rung surprisingly late and I wanted to sleep,
but there was something in that pause.
‘I’ve got a question’ he said.
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah, it’s not dodgy or anything.’
‘OK, you can ask.’
‘How much are you going to be earning?’
WHAT THE HELL? I thought.
I said
‘forty five thousand.’
‘OK. Cool.’
Another silence with something in it.
‘You can ask me what I earn.’
‘No, it’s OK, I don’t need to know.’
‘Seriously, you can ask me.’
‘No, I really don’t need to know. I’m not the sort of person who thinks I have to know something about someone just cos they know it about me.’
‘Well, I’ll tell you.’
‘You really don’t have to.’
‘No, I will.’
‘OK, if you want to.’
He couldn’t have wanted to more.
‘Sixty five thousand, and I might be getting a pay rise which’ll take me up to the seventies.’
‘OK.’
‘That’s a whole twenty thousand more than you.’
‘Yes.’
He then spent 45 minutes telling me about a girl he’d become obsessed with who turned out to be bisexual and emotionally unavailable.
Apparently she didn’t share enough with him.
He’d told her he loved her,
supposedly to scare her off.
Shit.
I bet she didn’t even get a word in edgewise.