kissed, lips and noses pressed up against one another’s faces so hard you wondered if they could breathe. And yet here I was, in the same situation, and all I could think was: is it too greedy if I have the cinnamon roll as well as the pain au chocolat?
‘Thank you,’ I said eventually, ‘I’m honoured.’
Rory leant back in his chair. ‘You’re honoured? Is that all I’m getting?’
I winced. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just a lot to take in this morning and I don’t want to be flippant about this. I want to say it when it’s right. Not when I’m…’ I gestured at my dressing gown, flecked with croissant flakes.
He nodded but looked so crestfallen I felt guilt pluck at my heart. ‘I love this though,’ I said, running my hand back over the bag, as if loving his present would make up for it.
‘Do you really?’ he said, looking more hopeful.
I nodded but I actually didn’t. A crocodile-patterned bag was the sort of thing Patricia would like. I couldn’t carry my cheese and tomato sandwich to work in this monstrosity. What if the pips leaked on the suede?
‘Can we go upstairs?’ he asked.
‘Really? Now? Like this?’ I said with a laugh, relieved to be off the topic of both love and handbags.
‘Absolutely like that. I think it’s the pinkness and the fluffiness of the dressing gown that’s doing it for me.’
‘But what about Harry? I can’t leave him here, on his own.’
‘He can’t join in, sorry.’
In the end, I put Harry back into his box, on his new bed, and carried it upstairs. But I put the box in the bathroom because I didn’t think Harry needed to see what we were about to do and I was still haunted by the memory of Marmalade’s tail on my feet. I brushed my teeth – mindful that I hadn’t since Mia and Ruby threw me into bed last night – and pulled the bathroom door almost closed behind me.
Rory was already lying on my bed. I climbed in next to him and laid my head on his shoulder, before he slid his hand underneath my chin and ran his thumb over my lips, parting them a fraction. ‘I love you,’ he said, before kissing me. I still didn’t feel that chipper. My stomach was rolling like a battleship and the coffee had doubled my heart rate, but it’s funny how sex can make you forget a hangover.
Or it would have been funny, if, at the exact moment that I started feeling a tingling in my feet, the heat spreading up my legs, I didn’t imagine Zach’s hand between my legs, instead of Rory’s.
‘Oh fuck,’ I said, as the wave of heat continued to flood upwards.
‘That’s it, my darling,’ whispered Rory, ‘that’s it. I’ve missed this.’
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ I repeated. It was partly a response to the hot sense of release that I could feel growing as his finger pressed harder. But it was mostly the shock of seeing Zach in my head at that very critical moment.
What was he doing in there?
I was still feeling wobbly about this hallucination when I went for my final appointment with Gwendolyn that week.
Unfortunately, she now seemed to think we were such good friends that I deserved a hug. ‘Florence darling, welcome!’ she said, pressing my face to her chest so hard it was as if she was trying to take an imprint of it.
I mumbled ‘hello’ into her nipples. She was wearing a red mohair jersey tucked into a tulle skirt with purple tights and her green Crocs – she looked like a large child who’d got up that morning and ignored her wardrobe in favour of the fancy-dress box.
She released me and we sat.
‘How are we? Is the relationship progressing?’
I nodded and answered cautiously, ‘Yeah, I think so. He said that he loved me.’
She kicked her Crocs in the air and clapped at the same time. ‘Ah, I’m so pleased!’ Then she cocked her head. ‘But why so glum, Florence poppet? You look like you’ve just swallowed a snake.’
I paused and pressed my lips together before answering. ‘I’m not sure I love him back. How do I know? How do I work that out?’
‘Ah, here we come to one of life’s great questions,’ she replied, settling back in her armchair. ‘Almost everyone I see in here is trying to work that out. Whether they love someone, how much they love them, if they love them enough, if they can love them again,