Small Cottage

A minute or two later, Elroy joined her, taking the single chair. His eyes locked on a smaller copy of some famous painting framed on the wall. "Was that here before?"

Serenity had just finished enchanting the plates to wash themselves, when she turned a little pink. "Um.. Yes? No."

"Looks somewhat out of place."

"I like it! I spent a lot of money on it, Elroy!"

"How much?" Elroy looked at Serenity. He'd been considering taking her out for dinner that night, but...

Serenity looked guilty, and turned around, avoiding his eyes. "It.. It wasn't really that much. You shouldn't, uh, worry yourself."

"Serenity."

"Yes?" Serenity asked, trying her best to look innocent. Maybe she should just return it..

"How much?" he repeated.

"Well... It was about a thousand pounds." Serenity said, sniffling a bit.

Elroy stared at her.

Serenity stared back, looking distraught. "But, it's pretty, isn't it? And it was on sale!"

"Take it back."

"I like it. Why.. Why are you being so short with me? Why are you doing this?! I haven't done anything to deserve you being mean all the time!" Serenity had started screaming.

It was around six, or maybe seven, about the time Elroy was due to get off work, and Serenity had been out since about then, at a nice club in London.. But, one thing had led to another, and yet again, she found herself acting really whore-ish. Was it in her blood? No, dad had been the one who had cheated on Mom. Maybe it was just her. Maybe she couldn't help it.
But, if it was her blood, or just her personality, there was still a good-looking guy pinning her against the wall, making out with her. They had just broken the painting that had been the cause of so much conflict, and Serenity wasn't even really paying attention to the guy- she was more worried about not being able to take the painting back.

Meanwhile, Elroy was at an office party that was due to end any minute now. His boss was just giving the final speech. For whatever reason, Elroy was eager to get home; in spite of it being rather late, and even though she'd gone and blown half of that month's savings on that hideous painting of a clown, he had decided to take Serenity back to that one steak restaurant on the mainland that she'd forced him to waste however much it was on some potatoes he couldn't pronounce that one time right before they'd... yeah.

So, he wasn't going to be home for another ten minutes or so. But, of course, Serenity couldn't know that.

"Do you want to do it?" The guy said roughly.
Serenity felt like she was going to throw up. "Umm.. No. Not right now. But, uh, don't leave. We could have dinner.." She failed to mention she burned everything she touched.
"Um, no.. No thank you."
Serenity sighed. "Okay, maybe later? But.. Maybe we could just talk. Like what most people do on dates."
"I don't really feel like talking."
"We could.. uh.. Play Yahtzee."
"Okay, we either keep making out or I leave."
"Fine." Serenity grumbled, and they continued, cracking a rather expensive vase in the process. Serenity was getting rather exasperated with this idiot- couldn't he stay still?! The random guy started to take off her skirt, and Serenity really didn't try to stop him, she just felt rather fed up.

Elroy's boss decided to keep on talking well beyond the time he was expected. El was beginning to grow impatient; that place would be closing by the time he managed to get out of there...

[*Convenientlyskipsoversexscene*]

Serenity stared up the ceiling, sighing. Only an hour and a half- absolutely pitiful. "Can you leave now?!"

Which, about twenty minutes into said sex scene, Elroy finally got home. "Nice," he'd said, before leaving again.

Serenity felt absolutely horrible. But why should she? She was only living with Elroy. It wasn't like she was betraying him. In fact, he should be happy for her. Ecstatic.
She had gotten some clothes on, and was watching some crappy soap opera on television, having kicked out the guy without even giving him her phone number. Now, all she could do was hope Elroy would come back sometime, because she was hungry, and she wasn't going to eat burned eggs again.

Elroy returned midway through the second episode. "Evening," he grumbled, dropping his suitcase by the door.

"Good evening. Nice to see you're home." Serenity said, quite sarcastically. "What kept you so late? I got bored.."

"There was a game on. Football. Had to see what happened." He walked across the living room to the kitchen where he then proceeded to raid the fridge.

"Well... Well then!" Serenity said, feeling awkward. "I'm really sorry about that, um, that guy. I didn't think you'd be home."