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said Laura, her heart beating fast.

      ‘Not just for me,’ said Dan, looking intently at her. ‘For…for Amy as well, you know?’

      ‘Yes, of course,’ Laura said, less urgently. ‘Amy.’ She picked up a slice of toast and bit into it. ‘Mm.’

      Dan smiled, and picked up another piece. ‘So, I’m pretty much free today now. Do you want to…you know. Spend the day together? I know it’s last-minute, but we might as well make the most of it.’ He leant forward and kissed her.

      ‘Er…’ Laura said, swallowing fast. She had lunch with Paddy and Simon, but she supposed she could cancel. And instead she and Dan could go to Kenwood House. Muffled up in scarves and hats. Drink hot chocolate and walk through the grounds hand in hand. Kiss in the lanes of yew trees that led away to the Heath. Her eyes sparkled. She’d cancel Paddy and Simon – they were boys, they didn’t mind about that sort of thing. Although – gah. Simon, more a graduate of the love ’em and leave ’em school, was always taking the piss out of her about her love life. Saying she was a romance addict, that she’d ditch her own brother at the last minute if there was a chance of a red rose heading her way. And she’d done it a couple of weeks ago to him as well…the cinema, shit. She bit her lip. He was going away soon. She was a bad sister.

      ‘Don’t cancel anything special for me,’ Dan said, as if reading her mind. ‘It was just a suggestion.’ He stroked her knee. ‘God, it’s so nice to be here, sweetheart.’

      ‘I think I was supposed to be having lunch, but it’s quite a vague thing,’ said Laura, trying not to choke on her toast. ‘I’d…of course I’d prefer it if…’ His hand was lying on the duvet. She hooked her little finger around his, and said, ‘Yes, I’d love to spend the day with you. We should talk, anyway.’

      Laura was always trying to do this, stage moments where she and Dan ‘talked’. But it never seemed to work. She desperately wanted there to be some kind of agenda to their relationship, instead of Dan turning up when he could, secretive texting or emailing, hurried, passionate, mind-blowing sex at one in the morning when he would drop by unannounced on the way back from the pub, wake her up, shag her senseless and then go back home – to what, Laura didn’t know. Every time they tried to talk, something else would get in the way. Dan would tell her a funny story, or kiss her neck, or have to leave because Amy was calling. They’d tried not seeing each other, but the truth was it was so easy to have this relationship, it was so full of pleasure and excitement that, two months after they’d first got together, nothing had really changed. Dan was still with Amy, trying to sort it out or break it off gently. And Laura – Laura was so wildly happy with the whole thing she would no more have irrevocably ended it than she would have moved south of the river.

      When she looked at the facts of the relationship, the bare facts, only then did she get depressed. He was still with his girlfriend. And whilst he and Laura got on really well, she also had to admit that what they spent most of their time doing was not having a laugh and enjoying each other’s company but – having sex. And god, the sex was great, that was part of the problem – it had obscured the actual facts of the relationship, or whatever it was, for some time now.

      On New Year’s Eve, Laura and Paddy had gone round to the newly married couple’s house for a party, along with lots of other people, but Dan wasn’t there. He was on holiday with Amy, in Prague. Laura had stood on Jo and Chris’s balcony along with Paddy and watched the fireworks over London. It was a clear night, sharp and cold, and for once the fireworks from the Thames were visible. They fizzed in the distance, tiny and indistinct, and around them, across the rest of London, streets and parks and houses were lit up by similar flashes and bangs, stretching as far as they could see. Simon had been there next to her, and as he hugged her tightly, he asked,

      ‘So, sis. What’s your New Year’s resolution, then? Tell me.’

      ‘Ha,’ said Laura despairingly. She gave him a squeeze back. ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’

      ‘Oh, really,’ said Simon, not actually listening as his eye had fallen upon an attractive brunette in the corner of the room. ‘Love life?’

      ‘Yes,’ said Laura honestly.

      Simon looked at her briefly. ‘Who is it this time, then?’ he asked.

      Laura resented the tone in his voice. ‘It’s – not like that.’

      ‘Oh,’ said Simon, not believing her for a second. ‘Right,’ he added vaguely. ‘You should do something about it.’

      ‘Thanks,’ said Laura. ‘I am.’

      Simon smiled, ‘Really?’

      She nodded.

      ‘Well, good luck then,’ he said. ‘Who is it this time? Someone at work? Ken Livingstone?’

      ‘Go away,’ said Laura. ‘You’re no help.’

      ‘Well, don’t just stand there,’ Simon said. ‘I mean it. Do something about it,’ and he shrugged his shoulders apologetically, as if admitting this wasn’t helpful, and moved across the room in search of his prey.

      Laura watched him go. He was right, though, wasn’t he? She’d been searching for true love for as long as she could remember. This year, it was going to happen. She just had to make it happen.

      So, shivering on that cold balcony on New Year’s Eve, as Jo and Chris kissed each other, and Paddy danced crazily and inappropriately with a scared-looking cousin of Chris’s, and Simon charmed the pants – literally – off the brunette, Laura clenched her fist, and went to bed that night with a new iron resolve. Three weeks after her ‘thing’ with Dan had begun, but months after she had realised that he was the one for her, she had to do something about it. Even now, nearly two months later, she remembered it clearly. It kept coming back into her head like a drumbeat.

      She had to know, she had to sort this thing out, because somewhere in her lovesick, crazy brain was a small voice telling her that this wasn’t how normal people behaved, fell in love and that small voice had been getting louder and louder since before Christmas until now, two months afterwards, it was like a foghorn in her ear. She and Dan had to take the next step. Well, Dan had to take the next step and finish with Amy, then Laura and Dan had to take the step after that, which was to work out if they could be together.

      So they would go to Kenwood House on this cold February Saturday, with the hot chocolate/gloves/yew trees, and during that time they would talk, and Laura would explain, calmly and clearly, that Dan had to sort his situation out, otherwise they couldn’t be together any more.

      ‘Talk,’ Dan said. ‘Yes, talk.’ He looked at her, their fingers still entwined. Laura smiled at him, took the toast out of his mouth, put the tray down on the floor, reached for him, and they crawled back under the duvet, muffling their laughter, and then, a while later, their moans as they came together again and any further discussion was put aside for the moment.

      An hour later, Laura emerged from her room, carrying the teapot, and padded into the kitchen in her bare feet. Paddy was sitting at the little table by the French window, gazing out at the view. Their flat was in a slightly cramped, dodgy Victorian mansion block, and had interesting design features – the French window, for example, opened not onto a charming balcony with pots of geraniums and basil, but a sheer drop down four floors. The boiler was in Paddy’s bedroom, and the sitting room had three electricity sockets, but all right next to each other, by the door, nowhere helpful like underneath the bay window where the television was. It was Paddy’s flat, bought for him with some help from his elderly parents, since he was a teacher at a school nearby and earned in a year what most bankers earn in a month. He and Laura were very happy there, though the water frequently turned itself off, the windows rattled, and the lino was curling because they had laid it themselves. Added to which Paddy had a mania for collecting interesting things from around the world, and so the flat was stuffed with a) painted gypsy floral watering cans, buckets, etc., b) elephants made of wicker he’d picked up travelling through Africa,

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