chapter 1

Ned had been searching online for a cheap room to stay in from the moment he found out he was being relocated in only six weeks. At the tender age of twenty-nine, Ned had already made himself indispensable to the engineering firm he worked for. Once they swiped a huge project in the city from a rival company at the last hour, it became pretty clear to everyone that Ned needed to be there full time.

He met Tina briefly, a couple of weeks before, and took the room immediately. Tina had just taken a small apartment after breaking up with her boyfriend, with a small room for Ned on offer for a reasonable rate. About the same age as him, Tina seemed like a nice enough girl, average height, attractive with a pretty face and dirty blonde hair that framed that face perfectly. She worked from home but kept the place tidy and seemed to have a nice laid back personality that Ned could get along with. Did he think she was hot? Yes, definitely; but she barely glanced at him; not that Ned would be there much to appreciate her anyway. He would be out most of the day at work.

Ned had been living there for about a month before he noticed anything strange about Tina. She would date a variety of men of all shapes and sizes on a recurring basis. She seemed to have no 'type' at all when it came to guys. Mostly she met up with them in the day time when Ned was at work and Ned would come home to a very messy kitchen whilst Tina snoozed in her room through the evening. On these days Ned would take himself out for dinner. It wasn't worth the awkwardness of speaking to Tina about the state of the apartment. It wasn't his place after all.

'He was nice', commented Ned as Tina's latest conquest left the apartment. 'I just had a very engaging conversation with him about politics. He seems very smart. I'd hold on to him if I were you' said Ned, raising his eyebrow to see if Tina was taken with him as well.

'Oh yeah?' she asked, disinterested. 'That's cool. I'm not looking for anything serious though. Alex is nice and all, but I don't think we're quite on the same wavelength', Tina finished, rubbing her stomach like she had indigestion.

As far as Ned was concerned, Tina should have been pleased to have a hot guy like Alex going after her. Since Ned had moved in, he'd seen that Tina had put on a bit of weight. Not much, but it was getting noticeable. Her jeans were starting to stick around her hips and her but looked like it fitted awkwardly in them. Also, her face looked fuller than it did when he first met him; although, he wasn't complaining that her breasts looked larger. Ned just didn't understand how Tina could be this laid back. Not that Ned himself had any time for a relationship being so busy at work; Ned just settled for a bit of action after a night out, bringing girls back the apartment, which seemed fine with Tina.

Ned had just had a wild night with a girl named Dianne he had met the evening before. Dianne was a little younger than Ned, tall and slim with a great figure. It was very easy to see how often she worked out. Ned was serving her some coffee in the kitchen. It was about 10am when Tina came through. She was very pleasant, as always, and introduced herself, asking Dianne some polite questions before heading off back to her room.

'So that's your housemate?' asked Dianne, seemingly unimpressed.

'Yeah...' replied Ned, bemused and not understanding why Dianne seemed so off. 'What's the problem?'

'Oh nothing', said Dianne, unconvincingly. 'Just the way you were talking about her last night, saying how cute she was, I was expecting her to be a lot hotter. Not a fatty'.

Ned laughed. 'A fatty? She's not a fatty!' Ned chuckled. Dianne seemed unconvinced. 'Ok, maybe next to you, anyone would look fat', Ned conceded. Dianne was after all, as skinny as the girls came these days.

'You're a chubby chaser!' Dianne laughed jokingly.

'Shut up!' Ned laughed back, kissing Dianne on the lips to end the embarrassing conversation.