‘Aren’t you f-freezing?’ I asked incredulously, watching my boyfriend move about the house like we weren’t living in an icy tundra.
‘You’re being very dramatic,’ he rolled his eyes. ‘Slippers, that’s all you need.’
‘I don’t have any slippers!’
He flashed me his slipper-bound feet with a smirk: exactly, he seemed to say.
‘Well,’ I grumbled. ‘I’m having a hot shower.’
‘You’ll regret it!’ he called after me as I abandoned my pile of blankets and headed – very quickly – for the bathroom.
‘No, you’ll regret it,’ I huffed under my breath, quickly reaching for the hot tap of the shower and twisting it to get some steam in the air.
‘Ahhh!’ I screeched, jumping back as a literal (not literal) icicle shot out of the shower head and slammed into my unsuspecting hand.
‘What is it?’ my boyfriend burst into the bathroom.
‘The hot water,’ I sobbed. ‘I don’t think we have any hot water.’
‘Uh oh,’ he frowned. ‘That’s not good.’
‘It’s not great!’
‘Who do you even call for fast hot water repairs for Melbourne commercial businesses?’ he frowned.
‘I don’t know,’ I sighed. ‘Some sort of plumber, I guess.’
‘Right,’ he nodded. ‘Some sort of plumber.’
He pulled out his phone and began to scroll through a list of numbers in his contact list.
‘What, you just have plumbers on speed-dial?’ I frowned at him.
‘No…’ he shook his head, confused. ‘It’s a smart phone. Every number is on speed dial.’
‘And you happen to have the number of professional commercial gas plumber in my area?’
‘Sure do,’ he nodded, flashing me the contact as he got to it.
‘Well then,’ I kept frowning. ‘Will he help us?’
‘Him? Oh, god no.’
‘What?’
‘He’s booked out until April.’
‘What?’
‘Next April.’
‘Can you please just find us a plumber that can be here straight away, I need to have a shower or I’m going to freeze to death.’
‘You’re not gonna freeze to death,’ he laughed, wrapping me up in a hug. ‘Woah,’ he said after a moment. ‘You’re, uh… you’re very cold.’