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“I was hungry, all right,” she said. “Stress meant I forgot to eat for ten hours.”
“And I think you’ll find there’s two problems with that: one, you better be fucking joking about not eating for ten hours; we are going to have a serious talk if that’s true, and two, when you are half starved you insert the foodintoyour mouth, Mabel. You do not spray it all over your flat to such a degree that I am now almost beside myself with the need to get out the vacuum cleaner.”
“But I don’thavea vacuum cleaner,” she said.
And oh god, the look on his face. It was like she’d told him a dog had become prime minister. He seemed both absolutely furious and completely astonished. As if he could take all the rest—but this? This was a step too far.
He couldn’t even speak about it for a second.
Then he did, and good fuckingLord.
“Right, that’s it. I’m calling the police,” he said.
And somehow it just happened again. She laughed.
She laughed loud, and long, and helplessly. To the point where he did it, too. He let out a little sound that probably could have passed for a laugh in the right light. Even though it immediately broke the deadpan affect he’d attempted with his joke. It made it not serious. It madehimbriefly not serious.
And apparently, he didn’t mind at all.
He was obviously starting to enjoy that he could do that with her.
Or even that he could use it to break any tension or dispel stress.
“Are you calm enough to tell me what’s happening now?” heasked once they were through nigh on giggling. And she nodded, even though she had caveats.
“I am. But you’re not going to like it. In fact, it’s going to make you mad.”
“Nothing is going to make me more mad than the news that you do not own a vac. You’ve already hit the peak with that on its own. So you may as well just tell me. There’s no harm in it now.”
“All right. Here is a picture of your last girlfriend.”
She turned the laptop she had open on her dining table, and he dutifully peered at her googled selection of images. Before raising an eyebrow. “Thinkgirlfriendis putting it a bit strongly there, mate.”
“So how would you put it, then?”
“She pretended to like me for a bit.”
He spread his hands, likewhat are you gonna do.
So then she had to try to not look like she’d been stabbed.
Act like it’s not a big deal, she told herself.
But the best she could do was say this:
“Goodness, that’s rough.”
While not looking directly at him.
It was fine, however. His focus was elsewhere.
“Probably not as rough as what you’re about to say.”
“What I’m going to say isn’t rough at all. It’s just the truth.”
“I highly doubt that. But come on, then. Let’s have it out of you.”
She looked at the pictures after he’d said it.
