Page 72 of Unapologetic Love Story

It was a losing game, and Raina was no longer playing.

She went back to scrubbing, scraping, shaving and luxuriating.

There was only one writer she was interested in speaking to.

Raina had once done an episode of The Disability Track about neurodivergent femininity. For so long, she’d felt like a bad member of her own club. She loved glittery things, jewellery, high heels, lipstick and fashion. While none of that was exclusive to womanhood, she felt apart from many of her neurodivergent sisters – those who’d happily shrugged off the suffocating gender norms that brought them so much misery.

Raina supported those people. Admired them.

But she had her own likes and tastes.

When she was bullied relentlessly at school, she’d discovered vintage clothes. Glamour. Costume. Rouge. They’d become her weapons of choice; the things that she adorned in order to feel better about the world she was trying to move in, the world that told her she was a bad fit, wherever she went.

Raina looked at herself in the mirror as she put on the red lipstick. The tube he’d given her.

She felt so alive. In control. All of the things she’d once thought impossible.

The doorbell interrupted her thoughts and sent exhilaration through her.

She moved down the stairs to answer it. Barefoot and hair down. A silk dress with no bra. The London summer heat was intrusive but not oppressive. She felt a soft sheen on the back of her neck as she dabbed some perfume drops there.

When she opened the door to him, they looked at one another. Him, standing with a large brown bag of groceries. Her, red-lipped and certain about something that had been uncertain that morning.

Tom’s lips twitched and he slowly looked her up and down. ‘You look unreal.’

‘I’m starving.’

He laughed. ‘Well, good thing I brought all of this.’

‘Come in.’

She stepped aside and he loomed over her for a moment as he moved into the hallway. They glanced at each other silently as the proximity reminded them both of what had happened. What they both wanted to happen.

‘You remember the kitchen?’ Raina couldn’t help saying.

He raised an eyebrow at that, smiling in disbelief. ‘I very much do.’

They moved into said kitchen and he placed the heavy bag of supplies on the counter she’d been pressed against the night before. He began to unpack, and Raina smiled a barely there smile as she picked up on a slight nervousness in him.

‘All right, beautiful,’ he said. ‘Roast chicken with lemon, sage and parsley.’

‘Nice.’

‘With some Italian salad and the expensive bread.’

‘Oh, the expensive bread. Holy fuck.’

‘You’re not the average groundling, Miss Lewis. Only the best for you.’

Raina smirked. ‘Want me to document you trying to find your way around a very specifically organized neurodivergent kitchen?’

‘So you can humiliate me and expose me as a boring neurotypical for your followers?’

‘Look at you, learning the lingo. I have other names for you, Alice.’

‘I’m sure you do.’

She took pity on him after he searched in befuddlement for a salad dish, by pulling out all of the cookware he was going to need. She hoisted herself up onto the island and poured two drinks, sipping her own while she watched him work.