In the next several days I quit all of my engagements while she gave her boss a month's notice for a career break. This meant Lilly still had to go to work and I was on my own most days. I don't know if you've had this experience, but if you've worked for a while and you have a partner, and you find yourself without either of those things it can be quite lacklustre. Once I was up, made the bed, ate breakfast there was nothing much to do. One day I got so bored that the urge to clean overtook me. Suddenly the stove was just disgusting. Another hobby I took up was visiting travel sites and looking at different resorts and places we hadn't been, imagining what it would be like and planning. At some point even started making notes. Monte Carlo looked nice. New England and Cape Cod were kind of cool. Miami and Miami south beach. Nothing too surprising there. I had always wanted to go to Dublin and Galway. We had always wanted to go to Japan. The trips in our minds got ever so vivid and interesting as opposed to me sitting in my underwear and a t-shirt looking at pictures in my living room.
You would think that winning the lotto would have an immediate impact on your day -- to -- day routine. In some respects that was true, I did quit work and a lot of the life plans we had changed, but in most others it was remarkably the same. Since we were traveling we didn't really want to buy a new car or house right now, Lilly still had to go to work for a while, neither of us are very materialistic so other than a few clothes, a new laptop and some other stuff we didn't really want to buy much. We did go out for dinner every night since, but both of us liked to cook so that was probably not going to last. After the initial pure ecstasy had worn off the routine kind of set in. Sometimes between my virtual world tour and crazed cleaning I kind of missed work. Honestly I didn't know if that is more sad, fascinating or comedic.
One definite change though: both of us were calmer and happier than usual. Problems which used to bother us in the past seemed funny; people who used to be annoying were now almost charming and quirky. It was a weird and relieving shift to notice. People cutting me off in traffic was fine, long lines in the supermarket were kind of interesting and the sky being blue was that bit nicer.
About two weeks in this fascinating monogamy of colour, around lunchtime on a Monday my aimless walk around town was interrupted by a message from an old friend. He was just checking in, you know "Hey, been a long time! How are you doing?" kind of thing. We first met at uni and got along great. Back then we would break open a bottle of brandy some nights and talk for hours about politics, world affairs, sports and what not. Solved the problems of the world, as his girlfriend at the time liked to call it. In recent years, however, we rarely talked. I got married, he got married, I moved away (partly to get away from my "lovely" family), long story short we hadn't spoken in a three months.
After some catching up and small talk he had to go. "Hey, I have to go now. Need to go to a meeting, but you coming back anytime soon?" he asked. I did consider telling him that I can now come at any point I ever so choose but decided against it. We hadn't told nobody for now and that felt right.
"Haven't thought about it. Why? Wanna meet up?" I replied instead.
"Sure if you are around some weekend Chloe and I would love to meet up and catch up."
I considered, would be nice to see him again, maybe have a drink and reminisce. "How about this weekend? I'll run it by Lilly, but I'm pretty sure she wouldn't mind."
"Sure. Let me know."
I sent Lilly a message to which she replied about 20 minutes later. This weekend was fine.
Two slightly less boring days later we were in our car and on the way to Toulouse. We passed the time chatting, rocking out to tunes (yes I did grow up in the 90s and we did have that saying in France) and laughing at our own antics.
As a rule we were not staying at my parents but we did have to visit to avoid drama so about three hours later I was looking for parking on my parents' street. We arrived just in time for lunch, which was ready and on the table as we walked into the dining room accompanied by my father. My mother had made a few things, nothing fancy but it was good, they had opened a bottle of wine which I refused as I was going to drive. Lilly had a glass and praised it. After we had coffee and talked for about an hour and for once I wasn't sorry we visited. We left in good spirits.
On the way to our place Lilly texted Chloe to make arrangements for tonight. The two girls had started off by "being that guy's girlfriend", but as Chloe got closer to Marc and we hanged out more they got closer. Lilly was more outgoing and took a more philosophical view of life while Chloe was more reserved, but was able to enjoy the moment like few others. As we got closer Chloe started revealing more of a friendly, chatty and playful side of herself, though sometime her sense of humour didn't quite jive with us. The more I got to know her the more I could see how her character complimented Marc's. He could be bookish and stay isolated on his own to an extreme degree sometimes, he had a hard time letting go of ideas, plans or decisions. She was more of an outdoorsy person, though still introverted like him, she was able to live more in the moment and seemed to almost dislike planning. She was open minded and loved trying new things and just brought him along for the ride. I feel like there are two things about Chloe which had not changed for the three years I had known her at the time, her hair colour and her love of fashion. I do think it is the ability of the latter to change and still look good and the challenge of picking the best outfit for an occasion which kept her interest in it.
On a normal day Chloe was definitely better than average looking. She had long black hair, brown eyes and was of slender build, and just about average height. Her face showed her mixed Chinese -- French heritage in an interesting way. Her breasts and ass definitely fit her build, however, were not particularly large or eye catching beyond, well breasts and ass. However, she was always able to plan her outfits and makeup in a way which accentuated all of her features and accented just what she felt like she wanted to on that day. In a professional setting she would wear a more straightforward, cleaned up outfit which focused the attention on her face. On nights out with us she changed and wore more form hugging outfits which showed off her natural curves while remaining classy. Though in the last two days Lilly had shown me some pictures that Chloe had sent her which sent my mind into overdrive. Nothing in underwear or nude, but definitely suggestive. Apparently the two had been messaging and sharing outfit advice for the past two weeks.
The apartment was on the top floor of a six floor building. The landlord wasn't there but he had left a key for us. We entered into a small hallway lit by a single bulb on the ceiling, took our shoes off and made our way through the only door. That took us to a living room/dining room/kitchen with white walls and hard wood floors. The kitchen and dining room portion were adjacent to each other and to the right hand side of the large room. They were furnished with dark brown, wooden kitchen furniture, a solid looking dark brown wooden table and chairs with a white table cloth running through the middle. There was a bowl of fruit on top. The living room section was on the left and consisted of two leather couches, a coffee table and a small treelike plant. The seating was aimed at a flat screen TV mounted on the opposite wall. There was a bookshelf around the TV with various books and movies visible. On the wall behind one of the couches ware several small paintings of notable land marks from various cities arranged in a pattern. To the right of the couches and just after the kitchen was a staircase leading to the second floor which was separated from the kitchen by crossing dark brown metal bars. Overall the first floor was a bit dark considering it was a bright day outside, but looked amazing.
We made our way up the stairs to a small platform with two doors, one in front and one to the right. The former turned out to be a relatively spacious bathroom with a stone shower, white tile floors and walls, a large mirror on the nearby wall and a relatively big hot tub on the far end next to a large window. On that side the apartment was overlooking a park so I doubt anybody could look in so it made sense. The other door led to the master bedroom. This room was smaller than I expected and had little to no furniture or decoration in it. Similarly to the first floor it had light brown hard wood floors and white walls. There was a massive dark brown bed in the middle of the room and a dark brown wooden closet on the near wall. There was nothing else which made it feel a bit empty. It was brighter than the first floor due to a large skylight just above the bed. It was equipped with a remote controlled shade.
