The Flatshare

Leon is surprised at how quickly time is moving now that he and Tiffy are friends and Gerty is helping Richie. Tiffy and Gerty both leave Post-its for Leon now, and they’re easy to differentiate: Tiffy’s are long, silly, and a little flirty, and Gerty’s are direct, demanding, and sometimes rude. Leon doesn’t mind, though, because Richie’s appeal is only a month away. 

He visits another Johnny White and, after a long conversation about gangrene, determines that he’s not the right one. He’s a little worried about Mr. Prior, who is not doing well, and he still hasn’t found the right Johnny White.

When Leon gets home, Tiffy has left a note saying that the boiler is broken and he will have to shower in cold water, but afterward, he can curl up on her beanbag chair with a blanket and cup of tea. Leon does just that and decides that Tiffy’s colorful blanket, which he used to think was hideous, isn’t so bad after all.

Mo suggests that Tiffy start to see someone other than Mo—meaning another, impartial, counselor—and she does. This counselor’s name is Lucie, and she listens to Tiffy in a way that helps her see for herself how controlling and manipulative Justin was. 

The head of editorial calls Tiffy into his office and praises her for the work she’s done with Katherin’s book and gives her a promotion. 

When Tiffy gets home, Leon has made her dinner and left a note congratulating her on her promotion. She leaves him one asking if he wants to celebrate with her by going out for a drink that weekend.

She has to wait for a while for him to write a response, but when he does, he asks her if she’d like to come to the seaside town of Brighton with him to meet the next Johnny White, and she eagerly accepts. Leon says it’s a “date” and tells her where and when to meet him.

Leon waits anxiously for Tiffy to meet him at Victoria Station for their adventure. He is nervous about seeing her again, and they are a bit awkward at first but soon fall into a comfortable conversation. 

On the train, Tiffy explains that she had slept late the morning of the shower incident because she had drunk nearly a bottle of gin after seeing Justin at the book party. 

Leon is concerned when Tiffy tells him more about Justin. The way he has shown up at various events that she’s attending and sent flowers to the flat when she hadn’t given him her address reminds him of men his mother had been involved with. These men made her feel like she was paranoid or crazy whenever she suspected something was odd about them, while being right all along. 

Tiffy apologizes for sharing so many details from her life during their first real in-person conversation, but Leon points out that it feels like they’ve known each other for a long time, which is especially interesting to him because he doesn’t feel comfortable talking to many people.

Tiffy doesn’t know why she shared so much about Justin with Leon right away, but she does feel very comfortable with him. On the train to Brighton, she teases him for avoiding her at the hospice crochet event, and he tells her he was a little afraid because it felt like “looking forward to a book so much you can’t actually start it” (171).

When they arrive in Brighton, Tiffy is thrilled by the charm of the town, and they head off to the pier, where Leon has arranged to meet the sixth Johnny White.

Leon and Tiffy find Johnny White sitting on the edge of the pier with his legs dangling over. He is a warm and friendly man and greets them cheerfully. 

Leon mentions his friend Robert Prior and Johnny’s face falls a bit, and he asks if they can avoid that topic. He suggests they go swimming, and he and Tiffy tear off their clothes and jump in the water in their underwear; Leon follows reluctantly behind them.

Tiffy has a blast running into the sea with Johnny. She is soaking in the beautiful day and coaxing Leon to come in as well, when suddenly she feels a sharp pain and goes underwater. 

Everything happens so quickly that she doesn’t understand what happened, but soon Leon has pulled her out of the water and is carrying her to the shore. She sprained her ankle and swallowed a lot of water. Johnny tells Leon to take her to the nearby Bunny Hop Inn, where she can rest and recover. 

Once Leon has Tiffy settled on a bed, he tries to assess how badly she’s injured. He asks her a few questions and calls a doctor he works with to see how to perform an ankle exam. 

Babs, the owner of the inn, brings them hot chocolate and looks after Tiffy while Leon goes to change out of his wet clothes.

Leon goes to the bathroom to take a shower and change, and when he comes back to the bedroom, Tiffy looks like she feels better. Johnny White and Babs come back to check on them, and Babs insists that they stay there for free for the night. 

After everyone leaves, Tiffy decides she needs to call her friends to let them know what happened. Leon leaves her alone while he goes to get them lunch.

Tiffy calls Gerty and Mo to tell them about her accident, and while Mo is concerned about her injury, Gerty is more focused on her relationship with Leon. Tiffy had never told them about their encounter in the bathroom, and now she is hurt and vulnerable and they are sharing a hotel room. Gerty is worried that Leon is manipulating her the same way Justin did, but Tiffy insists that Leon wouldn’t do that. 

Tiffy’s next phone call is to Rachel, who points out that Tiffy’s only encounters with Leon have involved her being in just her underwear. Tiffy cuts the call short when she hears Leon knocking on the door. 

Leon brings Tiffy fish and chips and red velvet cupcakes. They eat, and Tiffy decides to take a nap. When she wakes up, Leon is sitting in a chair in the room reading Twilight. She teases him about his book choice, and they get ready to go downstairs to eat dinner.

At dinner, Tiffy lounges with both legs stretched out across a second chair as they drink whiskey. Leon reminds himself not to get too drunk. Tiffy is more animated now and tells him stories about her parents. The waiter offers them dessert, saying their whole dinner is free, so they get sticky toffee pudding and more whiskey and talk late into the night.

At dinner with Leon, Tiffy listens to him tell stories about the traps he and Richie would set up for their mom’s boyfriends that they didn’t like. He tells her about how his dad left when he was two. 

At the end of the night, Leon asks their waiter which room he is supposed to take; Babs said they could stay the night, but she assumed they were a couple, so she thought they’d both stay in the room she gave Tiffy. 

Leon says he’ll sleep on the floor, but Tiffy says they can share it. They start to go upstairs, but Tiffy’s ankle hurts, so Leon scoops her up, carries her up the stairs, and lays her down on the bed. There is a moment where Tiffy thinks Leon will kiss her, but it passes, and he settles into his side of the bed. There is still tension between them, but they try to push it aside and go to sleep.

Leon is still awake as Tiffy falls asleep next to him. He did want to kiss her when he laid her on the bed, but he also wants to be careful and respectful; he doesn’t want to take advantage of the situation because she’s hurt, they’re sharing a bed, and they have both been drinking. 

He looks over at Tiffy, who rolls over a few times, pulling the duvet with her until Leon is completely uncovered. He yanks it back firmly, and she wakes up. She tells him that next time, he can just wake her up. Leon smiles about her saying “next time.”

When Tiffy wakes up the next morning, she is confused about where she is and sees that Leon is gone. He has gone to find them breakfast. Tiffy checks her phone and sees that she has 27 missed calls and a voicemail from a number she does not recognize. She listens to the voicemail, which is from Justin. He saw Rachel’s post about her accident on Facebook and was worried. She texts him back, saying that she is fine but he should not call her anymore. He replies that it seems like she can’t get along without him and that he’ll talk to her in October. She blocks his number and then gets up and showers. 

When Leon returns, he is wearing clothes with “Brighton” emblazoned on them, courtesy of Babs, and carrying pastries. He asks if she was able to shower with her injured ankle, and she says she did it “flamingo style,” balanced on one leg. She tells him that the bathroom door doesn’t close all the way and she thought he might walk in on her; she flusters him by reminding him that they’ve seen each other nearly naked already.

When Leon and Tiffy return to their flat, Leon finds it hard to go back to the way their relationship was and doesn’t know what to say in his Post-it notes anymore. Tiffy is as charming and flirty as ever, but his mind goes blank when trying to reply. 

The following weekend, he musters up the courage to ask what her plans are that weekend. She asks if he wants to come over and make her mushroom stroganoff, her favorite dish that he’s left for her. 

He agrees and is nervous about their plan, which feels like a real date. Leon talks to Richie on the phone and Richie is encouraging, saying that he really likes Tiffy for him and she is definitely into Leon, so he can relax. Leon explains that Tiffy’s ex was terrible and emotionally abusive, similar to the men their mother had been with, so he feels the need to be careful. 

Leon arrives at their flat while Tiffy is still out, and he starts dinner. When she comes in, Leon wants to kiss her but restrains himself, and Tiffy hands him an envelope that was in the mailbox—an invitation to Holly’s birthday party. Holly begs Leon to bring Tiffy, and he says she doesn’t have to go, but Tiffy is thrilled and accepts immediately.

Tiffy and Leon sit on the couch eating rocky road and watching TV after eating the dinner that Leon made. Tiffy feels the sexual tension between them, and it’s just a matter of time before one of them makes the first move. 

Tiffy makes Leon tell her what he thought she’d look like, and he admits that he pictured her shorter and dumpier. She confesses that she looked him up on Facebook before she moved in, so she already knew what he looked like. 

Leon realizes that it has gotten late, and he’s missed the last train if he wanted to stay with his mother that night. He says he can sleep on the couch, but Tiffy suggests they share the bed again. With that, they kiss. They begin undressing each other and debate on whether to stay on the couch or move to the bed when Leon scoops her up and carries her to the bed. They kiss again but are interrupted by the doorbell.

Leon and Tiffy freeze, and they try to ignore the doorbell, but it keeps buzzing and increases in frequency. Leon says he will answer the door with a towel around his waist so he can pretend he was in the shower. 

When he opens the door, he is faced with a very angry Justin. Justin demands to know where Tiffy is, and Leon plays dumb, saying he thought she was out of town for the weekend. He asks Justin how he knew where Tiffy lives and how he knew she usually had the flat on weekends, but he doesn’t answer the question. Justin wants to come in and look around the flat, but Leon won’t let him. Justin tries to push his way through; finally, Leon tells him that he has a girl in his bedroom and Justin is not going to come in. He threatens to call the police. This finally gets Justin to leave, but he says that he will come back to see Tiffy. Leon tells him he should call first to see if she wants to see him.

While Leon is handling Justin’s intrusion, Tiffy is in the bedroom, shaking. She knows that this response would not be so disproportionately intense if her relationship to Justin had been healthy. She cries and trembles with fear when Leon knocks and asks if he can come in. He comforts Tiffy and asks if she wants him to call Mo and Gerty, and she asks if he will stay with her; they fall asleep together. 

When she wakes up, he brings her tea and talks to her about the abusive nature of her relationship with Justin. At first, Tiffy resists the use of the word “abuse” because Justin never hit her, but Leon explains that emotional abuse is damaging, as well. He knows because his mother went through those kinds of relationships for years. Tiffy tells him that she has started seeing a counselor. She decides that she’d like to call Mo, and Leon gives her privacy and tells her that she doesn’t need to worry about going to Holly’s birthday party after what she’s been through. Tiffy insists that they will still go together because she doesn’t want Justin to ruin the important and joyful things in her life. 

Leon and Tiffy arrive at Holly’s party and are delighted to find that they hardly recognize her now because her hair has grown back, she’s gained weight, and she has so much more energy. As soon as Tiffy goes to the bathroom, Holly asks Leon if he is dating Tiffy yet. He hints that he is, and Holly then asks if he has told her that he loves her yet. He says it’s too early for that, and she disagrees. Holly tells him he needs to make sure that Tiffy knows how he feels about her because he is not good at verbalizing his feelings. 

Later, he finds Holly talking to Tiffy, telling her that she thinks Leon and Tiffy are both nice and they belong together. Leon is impressed by Holly’s emotional maturity, and he pulls Tiffy close to him while ruffling Holly’s hair.

After Holly’s party, Leon visits his mother, and Tiffy has Mo and Gerty over. She tells them about Justin’s surprise visit over glasses of wine. They are concerned and ask if Tiffy wants to spend the night at their apartment. She declines and is surprised to find out that Gerty and Mo are planning to have brunch with Leon later since Gerty is his lawyer and Mo still hasn’t met him. 

When she gets back from work, Leon has left her a note, from Mo, Gerty, and himself, reminding her that bad things really did happen to her and that she is doing a great job overcoming them. He reminds her that he will never treat her the way Justin did. 

Later that week, at work, Rachel tells Tiffy that she has big news: An illustrator for one of their books has offered the use of his Welsh castle for them to take pictures of Katherin’s designs, and Tasha Chai-Latte will put them all over her social media accounts to promote Katherin’s book. She says that Tiffy, Rachel, and Katherin can all stay overnight in the castle, and Martin won’t be able to do anything about it. Rachel can tell that Tiffy isn’t as excited as she is because she was hoping to spend the weekend with Leon, so Rachel suggests that if Leon is willing to model Katherin’s designs for free, he could come to the castle, too. He thinks about it for a minute and agrees. She warns him that Martin will be extremely irritating, but Leon cheerfully says he can spend the weekend planning Martin’s “downfall,” so it is agreed that they will go to the castle together.