"My mums coming to stay." Max mentioned quietly as they were half asleep and tucked up in bed. Immediately Zoe found herself wide awake and yet she remained quiet for a moment, trying to calm the storm of butterflies in her stomach.
"When?" Zoe asked, trying to sound calm while her whole body had gone into panic.
"Tomorrow, she'll be staying until the end of the week." Max replied, sitting up as he felt his partner tense in his arms.
"And you didn't think to tell me?" Zoe asked, trying to use frustration to mask her fear.
"Well I didn't have much of a say in the matter, she rang me earlier and told me she'd be here tomorrow. It seems that she's been talking to Robyn and now she knows that we've got a flat together and so now that it sounds serious, she wants to meet you." Zoe had forgotten all about Robyn, Max and Zoe had spoken about meeting parents before but had always decided to do it when they felt ready and at this point, Zoe certainly did not. "Zo', stop worrying, she'll love you baby, almost as much as I do."
"Somehow I doubt that." Zoe sat for a moment, her mind wandered to all the possible reasons Max's mum could have to hate her. "Does she know there's an age gap?"
"Not unless Robyn's told her, it seriously won't matter though."
"What does she know about me? And why wouldn't it matter?" Zoe asked, unable to keep calm anymore.
"She knows that you're a consultant, she knows that I love you and she knows how wonderful you are because I tell her every time I speak to her."
"So she's going to come here expecting someone who's perfect, you're very biased Max."
"I may be, but it's true." He replied, leaning over to kiss her after he spoke. "She won't care about the age gap because my dad was a lot older than her when they had me." Zoe eased a little, it was a little weight off her mind.
"She won't be expecting grandchildren will she?" Zoe asked, finally addressing her big concern.
"No, she doesn't really like children so I doubt we have anything to worry about. Now settle down and go to sleep Zo, you're on an early shift tomorrow." Max reminded her and moved so that they were both lying flat again.
"One last thing, what time is she coming?"
"Lunchtime, I've got the day off tomorrow so I'll be here. She'll be here before you come home so I'll cook and you can bring home a bottle."
"Do you want me to see if I can take the rest of the week off?" Zoe asked as she ran through the state of the flat in her mind.
"No of course not, I have the rest of the week off and you already have Thursday off, we'll do something then."
"Okay." She lay her head back down on Max's chest and waited until she felt his breathing slow down a bit. Once she was sure he was asleep, she set about untangling herself from him and then left the bedroom.
She looked around their flat, and saw the mess that it was in. It was just after 1 am and she started her shift at 9, if she worked quickly then she could get it all tidied and still have a little sleep before she had to go to work. Well that was the idea anyway, in reality she had no idea on how to clean, usually she hired a cleaner but she hadn't got round to getting one for the flat yet. After looking round for a second she decided that it was probably best to start with the kitchen, after all they rarely cooked so it'd just be sorting out takeaway and ready meal packaging.
After a couple of hours she had done the kitchen and had cleaned and put bedding on the bed in the spare room, ready for Max's mum to stay. Zoe moved back towards the living room and fell back on to the sofa, it hardly surprised her to find her shoes lying about everywhere, various clothes discarded across the floor from hours before and empty bottles of wine or beer decorating the floor. They'd only been in the flat for a few weeks and already it looked like a bomb had hit it, she knew that she only had to sort the living room out and then try and tidy the bedroom slightly without waking Max and then she could make her way back to bed, and leave Max just to do up morning dishes and go shopping.
The bang and the sound of Zoe shouting various swear words awoke Max from his sleep, and for a second he thought he'd been dreaming, only then he realised that Zoe was not beside him. He quickly moved out of the bedroom and towards a nearing spotless flat.
"Zoe!" Max groaned, "I'd have done all of this in the morning."
"You've got lots of other stuff to do in the morning, now will you help me up?" Zoe asked from her position on the floor, from where she'd fallen over.
"Are you okay?" Max asked, putting his hand out to help Zoe up. "I told you those shoes were a death trap." He commented, as he saw the shoes laying on the floor that his partner had just tripped over.
"I'm fine and whatever. Just help me take them through to the bedroom." Zoe replied, now content with the majority of the flat.
"Fine, but then it's back to bed. How long have you even been up?" Max asked her, taking the shoes that Zoe had been holding from her and walking back through towards their bed.
"What time is it now?"
"10 to 5."
"4 hours."
"You get up at 7 Zo', you need to go back to sleep now."
"Just let me do our bedroom and then I will." Zoe said as stifled a yawn.
"No, you hate cleaning anyway. Is this about my mum?" Max asked, the importance of tomorrow dawning on him.
"I want her to like me Max, and the flat needed a clean anyway. Now the longer we stand doing nothing, the more time I'm wasting that I could be asleep." Zoe reasoned.
"Fine, if you're going to do this now then let me help."
"Okay."
It only took them an hour to get their bedroom cleaned and to get it looking somewhat like it did when they moved in. They both lay back in bed now, it was 10 to 6 and just over an hour until Zoe had to get up to get ready for work. This time it was Max who snuck out of bed while Zoe lay fast asleep, she'd gone to the effort of making everything nice for his mum, now she deserved a nice breakfast in bed.
