‘Laura, stop.’
She placed a hand on my back as I held up a packet of co-codamol, wondering how inappropriate it was to give your potential future brother-in-law prescription medication.
‘You slept with Callum?’
‘Yes,’ I confirmed. ‘And it was very good. I came twice last night and twice again this morning, he went down on me without asking and what else do you want to know?’
‘You know I have a full checklist of questions but we’ll get to that later,’ she replied, looking relatively impressed. ‘All I need to know right now is, are you OK?’
‘OK?’ I repeated. ‘Do you mean am I sore? Because yes, a little bit, but obviously I peed afterwards. Even though did you know there’s no real evidence to connect UTIs with using the toilet after sex? I looked it up. It’s good practice, flush out any potentially harmful bacteria but—’
‘Again, good information to have but not what I was getting at,’ Desi said, pulling a face. ‘I meant, are you all right? Emotionally? Like, what does this mean? Is the whole Caroline thing cancelled now? Are you goingto tell his parents the truth? Are you two dating? Was it more of a one-off thing?’
A one-off thing. The idea of it stopped me in my tracks.
‘We haven’t really discussed it.’
Her brown eyes widened until I could see the whites all the way around her irises.
‘You haven’t really thought about it?’ she said. ‘You, Laura Pearce, had multiple orgasms with a man and didn’t think to have a quick chat about whether or not you might do it again?’
‘I cannot keep up with what you want from me,’ I replied, lowering my voice to an undetectable hiss. ‘Don’t overthink things, do overthink things. Do date, don’t date. I like him, he likes me, the sex was great, whatever happens next, it’s not a big deal.’
It sounded hollow, even to my ears. We both knew I was lying.
‘When you agreed to this, you said it was OK because you had nothing to lose,’ my friend said gently. ‘I don’t think that’s true any more.’
‘What could I possibly have to lose?’ I asked, clutching the co-codamol very tightly. ‘I’ve known Callum for six days. How much impact could someone have on my life in six days?’
Neither of us said anything because neither of us wanted to admit the answer.
‘Come on, let’s get these presents sorted out,’ Desi sighed before gesturing for me to follow her back to her room. ‘And you are going to owe me. Big time.’
Looping my arms around her neck, I kissed her on the cheek.
‘Thank you, thank you, thank you.’
‘Saving the day as always,’ she grumbled. ‘Again, what would you do without me?’
It honestly didn’t bear thinking about.
‘Caroline, you shouldn’t have.’
Derek stared at the bag of shortbread I’d just presented him with and it was very obvious he wasn’t just saying it. From the look on his face, I really shouldn’t have.
‘It’s salted caramel,’ I said enthusiastically. ‘Try it.’
‘It’s an abomination,’ he muttered, scrunching the wrapping paper-slash-torn-out pages ofGraziamagazine into the fire. Turning the box over in his hands, he squinted at the tiny print on the back then looked away in disgust. ‘Made in England. Shoot me now.’
I hadn’t asked Callum what they’d discussed the night before. His argument with his dad wasn’t exactly top of my to-do list when he showed up in my room, but I could see now that whatever had been said hadn’t gone far to resolve the tensions between them. Derek could hardly stand to look at his son and when Callum gave him his gifts, including a very nice replacement for the Dalmore we’d drank on the train, he barely murmured a word.
‘Interesting wrapping solution,’ Rory said as he shook a tube of Kiehl’s men’s moisturiser out of a red and green striped sock.
‘It’s environmentally friendly,’ I explained, choosing to ignore the bad vibes between father and son for now. ‘Most wrapping paper can’t be recycled. This is what they do in Japan.’
‘Why does that look like my sock?’ Joel asked, wrapping the new scarf he’d received from Lizzie around his neck.
‘Because it is your sock,’ I replied quietly through a big fake smile. ‘And your Kiehl’s, please don’t act out, I’ll replace it.’
