“Ah, bet you didn’t eat breakfast either? Do you never learn?”
Apparently not. Illicit wanking aside, even Jodi could remember the countless times the cacophony of pills he needed to take had pickled his empty stomach.
Sophie disappeared, presumably to the bathroom, leaving Jodi to cast a furtive glance around, checking there were no stray signs of his masturbatory meltdown.
“Now what are you doing?”
Jodi glanced up from peering under the bed. “Nothing.”
“Are you looking for something?”
“Um ...” Jodi’s brain malfunctioned, and he blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “My laptop.”
Dickhead.
Sophie came round the bed and peered into the evil drawer, not seeming to notice the condoms and lube that were all Jodi could see. “Here it is. What do you need it for?”
“I don’t know.”
It was an honest answer. Jodi took the computer from Sophie and crawled back under the covers, leaving room for her to slide in beside him with little conscious thought.
She slipped under the covers. “We do still do this, in case you’re wondering.”
“Hmm?”
“Lazing around in bed together, eating shit, and gossiping like a pair of old women. It’s usually my bed, though. Plays havoc with my sex life.”
Jodi processed the sudden influx of new information, absorbed it, and found it fit. Being in bed with Sophie felt normal, though five years ago ithadbeen normal. “Why does it fuck with your sex life?”
“Would you want your, uh, partner, spending the day in bed with their ex?”
Jodi couldn’t think of an answer. Sophie drummed her nails on the laptop. “Are you going to boot this thing up, or what?”
Jodi opened the laptop and tapped in the password, ignoring Sophie’s curious stare. Rupert’s shirtless torso filled the screen once more. Jodi looked away under the pretence of scratching his neck, but his eyes betrayed him, drinking in Rupert’s skin just a split second later. “Is this Rupert’s laptop too?”
“No. I don’t think Rupert knows how to turn one on.”
Jodi had some sympathy for him there. “So it’s just mine? No one else uses it?”
“Unless you count me pinching it to shop on ASOS, no. Why, honey? What’s up?”
Jodi turned the screen to face Sophie, giving her the full Rupert experience. “That’s what’s up. Why the hell do I have this shit as my wallpaper?”
Sophie bit her lip, a sure sign that she was nervous, an emotion that bewildered Jodi’s already fragmented mind. “You live with Rupert. Why wouldn’t you have his picture on your computer? This is from when you took Indie to Cornwall last summer.”
Last summer meant nothing to Jodi. Why would it? And Sophie’s answer made no more sense than the open lube bottle in his bedside drawer. “But—”
“Anyway,” Sophie cut in. “What did you want to do on here? Check your emails or something?”
“My emails?”
“Yeah. I called the clients in your account book when you had your accident, but I might have missed some. Let’s see.” Sophie peered at the screen and drew her finger over the mouse pad. “The mail app isn’t on here. Maybe you have it on the iMac? Or your browser? Can you remember? What’s your email password?”
The barrage of questions made Jodi’s head spin. He tried to catch them all as they jumbled in his brain, but it was no good. His cognition short-circuited and the axe of blackness fell. “Sorry, what?”
Sophie moved the mouse over an icon that was vaguely familiar. “Maybe it’s this ... Oh, no, this isn’t it.”
“What is it, then?”
