of the duvet and pulled me down on top of him.
‘I’ve got to get in the shower,’ I said, trying to direct my breath away from his face.
‘Ten minutes? Come on, you have ten minutes,’ he insisted, before running his hand down my body. I sucked my stomach in and realized I needed to pee. But Rory was kissing down my neck and along my shoulder and I didn’t want to fight him. His hand pushed open my legs and I sighed through the corner of my mouth, directing my breath at the wall instead of his face. Nobody would die if they arrived at the bookshop and had to wait ten minutes for the new Stalin biography.
It was only ten minutes. That was all it took for him to make me groan before he shouted ‘Cow-a-bung-aaaaa!’ again in my ear, his body pressing mine down. I gave it a minute or so before sliding out from underneath him and shutting myself in the bathroom.
I really needed the loo now. I could feel my stomach… moving. Those oysters, I remembered, turning on the shower to try and disguise any noises.
I sat on the loo and decided I couldn’t go. Not with his head on the other side of the wall. Too close. So I held it in and climbed over the side of the bath into the shower. Cowabunga, I kept thinking. Quite strange? But he hadn’t mentioned anything afterwards so neither had I.
‘Hey, Rory, the sex is great but can I just ask why you keep shouting like a cartoon character at the end of it?’
I wasn’t bold enough. Maybe it was one of his weird jokes? I liked him. I really liked him. I didn’t want to find a fault with something so small. It wasn’t as if it was an ex-girlfriend’s name. I rinsed my hair and turned the shower off, rough-drying it while standing on the bath mat. I wanted to saunter back into my bedroom like a bikini model, tendrils of damp hanging loose over my shoulders, instead of hair so wet and flattened I looked like Dougal from the Magic Roundabout.
But when I opened the door, he was gone. His clothes had been picked up from the bedroom floor and the bed was made. Not as perfect as I would have liked because the pillows were in the wrong place. But not bad. I went to my bedroom door and listened. From the kitchen, I could hear Mia and Ruby’s voices, so I dressed as if the attic was on fire and rubbed in some tinted moisturizer while taking the stairs down two at a time. Two, four, six, eight, repeat, before rounding the banisters and skidding towards the kitchen.
‘Morning, all,’ I said, panting. ‘This is Rory. Rory, this is Mia and Ruby.’ I put a hand on the kitchen table and leant on it to try and steady my breathing.
‘You all right?’ asked Rory.
‘Yes, all good. Just, er, a very hot shower.’ I glanced at Ruby, sitting beside the sink in her dressing gown. ‘You’re up early?’
‘I heard Mia chatting to Rory and I couldn’t miss that, could I?’
‘We’ve just been chatting about his job,’ added Mia, ‘and it sounds very interesting.’
She said this with a sly smile, which made my heart speed up. She mustn’t mention the list. On no account could Rory find out about the list. There was no sensible way of explaining that, shortly before meeting him, I’d visited a witch doctor on Harley Street and asked the universe to find me a boyfriend.
‘And all that adventurous travelling he does!’ said Ruby. ‘Plus, you probably have a lot of time for reading, Rory, with all that time on a plane?’
Rory looked from one sister to the other, momentarily confused. ‘Er, yes, yes, I have to say I do. That’s how I met Florence, did she tell you? I was in the bookshop.’
‘She did. It seems quite the coincidence.’ Ruby’s eyes, alight with mischief, danced from him to me and then back.
‘Mmm, anyway, Rory, do you want a coffee?’ I said, reaching for the kettle.
‘No, no, I’d best be off.’
‘To the office and your interesting job?’ asked Mia.
Rory laughed. ‘Yes, exactly.’ He stepped forward to kiss me on the cheek. ‘But thank you for a magnificent evening.’
I nodded up at him, briefly awed that there was a handsome man in the kitchen because of me and not one of my sisters.
‘Wonderful to meet you both,’ he said, waving a hand