Oh.
I remembered now. I was at Verity’s house. I closed the door to the Marie Antoinette Sex Grotto behind me. Ollie had suggested we try that room last night. “What about my room?” I’d said.
“That room gets the sun all day and is boiling,” Ollie answered.
“What about the room you’ve been sleeping in all week?”
“The bed creaks like it’s possessed. I had a wank last night and thought it was going to wake the dead.”
“Why were you wanking?” I’d asked as he dragged me up the stairs.
He gave me a look. “I was thinking what we might have got up to on that kitchen table if you’d let me massage your shoulders.”
Where was Ollie now? I called his name out.
“Down here, babe,” he yelled.
I made my way to the kitchen, where he was standing in his boxers making coffee.
“What time is it?” I asked, wrapping the throw from the bed around me.
“A bit before eight. Coffee? Oh, and your clothes are on the chair.”
My shorts and T-shirt from yesterday were folded nicely beside my laptop. I went to pick them up and realised to put them on I was gonna have to drop trou – well, drop throw – in the middle of the room. Anything else would have Ollie questioning why I’d gone shy suddenly.
A wolf whistle informed me that he was pleased with the view.
“You are a sex pest, you know that?” I muttered. I felt his arms around me the moment I finished pulling on my T-shirt.
“Only for you, love. Only for you.” He leaned in and nuzzled my neck. “Mmm, you smell terrible.”
“Thanks.” God, he felt nice. He felt like home.
“Like sex and sweat and loads of nice things.”
I sniffed his hair. “You smell like coconut shampoo.”
“Correct, I’ve already had a shower.”
“Oh?” At least if he was clean, he might be less likely to want round two. Well, technically, like, round five, but semantics. Anyway, it might help de-complicate the situation if he didn’t try and bend me over the table before breakfast.
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “Things turned to shit yesterday. I have to go straight from here into the office, I’m afraid.”
“Oh.” My voice wavered only slightly.
“It would have been lovely to stay here all day and fuck in increasingly bizarre places around this truly ugly house, but I can’t.”
Without thinking, I told him, “I was planning on leaving today,” in, I hoped, an even tone of voice.
Ollie’s face fell. “I thought you … maybe … might come to London for the weekend? I’ve made some changes to the flat. I wondered if you’d want to see them. I think you’ll like them.”
“That might not be a good idea for Kenny and the cats. I think it best I face the music and head home.”
Ollie sighed and turned me to face him. He pressed his forehead against mine. “Do you regret last night? Please be honest. I need to know if it was anything. Because I can’t build my hopes up if it was nothing.”
“Last night was … perfect,” I said.
“But there is a but isn’t there?”
