“Sixty-one.”
“’Bout three hundred.”
Harry nods, impressed with his choice no doubt, and passes me the bottle. It’s not too bad, even if I don’t much like red.
“I see you’re still a massive slag,” Harry says, nodding his head towards my perfume collection. “How many guys since me? One hundred? Two hundred? You averaging two per night, or what? Eiffel Towers all round, yeah?”
“Have you broken into my house just to throw insults at me?”
“I didn’t break in. All the doors were wide open. Don’t rich people ever lock up their shit?” He moves to drop himself into the armchair next to me, but I wedge my foot against it and push it away from him. His butt hovers midair before he straightens up again.
“That’s not for you,” I say in a singsong voice. “You don’t get to sit your plebeian behind and your cheap suit on my furniture.”
Harry rakes his hands through his hair. He’s not wearing his jacket any more so it must be in my bedroom. I’m surprised he hasn’t removed more of his clothing. “God, you are exactly the same!”
“I could say the same about you,” I bite back, and take another swig. “You’re even wearing the perfume I gave you.”
It’s like someone turned up the colour on Harry’s face. His cheeks blaze pink. He doesn’t respond, and I feel a dopamine rush from knocking him down a few pegs.
Eventually he snatches the wine from my hand, whirls the other armchair around to face me, and sits down. “I had to buy another bottle because I used the last one up. It’s so fucking pricey.”
I don’t say anything because even though two hundred and fifty pounds doesn’t seem expensive to me, I know others—especially Harry, who can’t even smell—don’t feel the same. I also don’t ask him why he didn’t opt for a cheaper brand or a celebrity fragrance, why he felt it was necessary to replenish the bottle I’d gifted him.
I don’t ask him mostly because I’m convinced I don’t want to know the answer.
Instead, I choose to be vulnerable. “Daisy’s leaving me. Moving to fucking Scotland. And I have a job now. Urgh!” I let my head drop against the back of the chair.
“Shit,” Harry says after a few moments. The bottle swishes, swishes again, and he gulps. “Karma’s a bitch.”
I lift my head and for the first time tonight—no, scrap that, the first time in weeks—I’m fighting a smile. “You’re such a cunt.”
Harry sucks his cheeks inwards, making a fishlike face, battling his own mirth. “Takes one to know one—” he says, not that he can finish his sentence since we’ve both exploded with laughter.
I miss this.
Those words echo around in my head, and I sober up quickly enough.
“This is the part where you tell me how shitty your life has been without me to make me feel better about my catastrophic existence.”
Harry doesn’t say anything, he just chews his bottom lip, and my stomach churns.
“Jesus, you’re gonna say you’re happy, aren’t you? As if this day couldn’t get any worse.” I lean forward, grab the bottle, and drain what little remains.
“God, no. No, I’m not happy,” he says.
“Oh, thank fuck.”
We both laugh.
“Do you think a happy person breaks into someone’s bedroom and changes all their likes on Netflix?”
“You absolute bastard!” I say, but with no malice. I point to the dressing table behind him, to the ice bucket—now a pail of room-temp water, I expect—and to the bottle of champagne sitting untouched inside it. “Glasses are on the side. Chop chop.”
Harry rolls his eyes but gets to his feet. “Why are there three glasses?”
“I was expecting guests this morning. They never turned up.”
“Male guests?”
