“Come in,” I said.
To his credit, he didn’t comment on the fact I was sitting morosely on the toilet lid, looking damp and uncomfortable. “I’ve fed Spud and taken him outside.”
“Did you make a note of it in the Log Log?”
“I did,” replied Oliver, without blinking. “As should you, the next time he goes.”
“I will.”
“Will you?”
Damn, he knew me too well. “At this moment in time, I fully intend to.”
Stepping into the still-misty bathroom, Oliver dropped a kiss on my forehead. “I’m not expecting miracles. I’ll see you this evening.”
Frankly, Oliver’s willingness not to expect miracles was probably a large part of the reason we were still together. As was the fact that he was an excellent judge of when I was sitting on a toilet wrapped in a towel in a way that was actually aproblemor in a way that meant it was fine for him to go to work.
This was a fine-for-him-to-go-to-work towel-wrapped toilet sit. So when Oliver left to do exactly that, I didn’t collapse into a pile of goo on the floor. Well, I mostly didn’t collapse into a pile of goo on the floor. Iwasstill pretty knackered on account of my dog-related moral crisis, meaning I was up way earlier than I would normally be.
I left my towel on the bathroom floor, then went back to put it neatly on the towel rack, and then dove into the soft, faintly me-and-Oliver-and-fabric-conditioner-scented cloud of duvets and pillows. My eyes closed blissfully. My back began to unkink itself. All my cares and worries began to float off like balloons at a child’s birthday. My dog began barking downstairs.
Shit. I had a dog.
I peeled myself back out of bed and lurched onto the landing. Spud was sitting at the foot of the stairs, behind the dog-proof gate we’d—Oliver’d—installed, and staring up at me in a way that made me really understand where the phrasepuppy dog eyescame from.
“I’m here,” I said.
Spud’s tail thumped the floor behind him.
“I just need to—” I suddenly realised I was completely naked in front of Spud. And I suppose, technically, Spud was completely naked in front of me as well, but it still felt weird. “I’m going to put some clothes on,” I explained. “Don’t worry and don’t poo anywhere.”
“Ruff,” promised Spud.
And, you know what? I took him at his word.
* * *
As far as I could tell, our house had so far remained a dog-shit-free zone. Unfortunately, between playing with Spud, getting breakfast, and being a lazy arse, I’d managed to stay in the pants-and-T-shirt stage of getting ready until about two minutes before my meeting. Panicked, I ran upstairs and realised that literally every single one ofmy shirts was in the wash. Or more precisely in a wet knot inside the washing machine, where they’d been sitting ever since I’d promised I’d unload it two days ago. I was in no way too proud to just pull a worn one out of the laundry, but sadly the whole reason that it had been my job to unload the washing machine was that it had been Oliver’s job to load it. Which meantthatjob had been done in a timely fashion, and the laundry basket was now sitting accusingly empty.
Fortunately—well, fortunately-ish—I wasalsonot too proud to steal clothes from my more organised, more sensibly dressed boyfriend. So I raided Oliver’s closet for one of his impeccably chosen, immaculately ironed shirts that he always remembered to put away properly. It was a tasteful pink herringbone, too tight in the chest and too short in the arms for me, but fuck it. Any shirt in a storm.
I threw a jacket over it to cover the arms part of the problem and genuinely spent a good two to three seconds debating whether I needed to put trousers on before deciding…nah. I didn’t have the excuse of the pandemic anymore, but being able to go to meetings in your underwear was a universally recognised working-from-home perk.
By five minutes past nine, I was at my desk, with my computer booted up, my camera on, and my ring light in place, with Spud frolicking around behind me, very confident in his not-being-abandoned-ness. I wasn’t even the last person to show up. That was Rhys Jones Bowen. It was always Rhys Jones Bowen.
“Okay, Alex,” I said, figuring I’d fill the time while we were waiting. “Try this one. Doctor, Doctor—”
My screen suddenly filled up with Dr. Fairclough’s face. “Yes?”
“Um, no. I’m doing a Doctor, Doctor joke for Alex.”
“If you need to see a doctor,” said Alex, “I know an excellent one in Harley Street.”
I squinted at him. He seemed to be sitting in an actual thronein front of a vast marble fireplace. This, on its own, wasn’t unusual because that was what working from home looked like for Alex. But he was also wearing a green velvet frock coat and a cravat. “Why are you dressed like Mr. Darcy?”
“Oh.” Alex looked down at himself in mild surprise. “Forgot about the clobber. Fearfully funny story. Turns out they’re shooting one of those costume thingies in the second ballroom, and I’m helping out by being extra.”
There was nothing about that I couldn’t believe. “Doctor, Doctor,” I repeated.
