Chapter 1

“Right…keys are here, feel free to eat anything you find in the kitchen, but my clothes are off limits—and don’t think I won’t know if you borrow them.” The low, graveled voice ceased its heady rumble through my intoxicated ears, and Bill folded his arms, trying to look stern. I wasn’t falling for it. He’s six foot four of solid marshmallow masquerading (rather well, it must be said) as beefcake.

“Sweetie…” I gave it my best Mae West drawl. “The only reason I’d borrow any of your clothes is if I needed something to camp out in for the weekend. Or perhaps a sail for that yacht I’ll own one day.” I’m only two inches shorter, but around a hundred pounds lighter, for my sins. Which are neither so many nor so varied as I’d like them to be. And so very few of them involving Bill, more’s the pity.

“Fair point. Oh, and if the weirdo upstairs asks you in for a drink, for God’s sake don’t say yes.”

“Ooh, is he likely to murder me and bury me under the floorboards?” I pantomimed a shiver

“Worse—first he’ll ramble on about the future like Nostradamus’s grandson, then he’ll either cackle insanely or burst into tears, and thenhe’ll pass out on the sofa. Been there, done that.”

There was a sudden nip in the air. I arched an eyebrow. “Literally?” I looked away, before my eyes could flash so green even Bill, bless his little cotton brain, would notice. Not that he’s dim, my Bill—there just tends to be something of a satellite delay between eyes and intelligence.

“Uh, no. I do have some standards, thanks.”

“Oh? That’s news to me, dearie.” I was notbeing unkind—that is simply the only possible response when you’re fed a line like that.

He took it in good humor. “True, true—I did you, didn’t I?”

Ouch. I’d have preferred the bad humor. “But only the once.” I pouted exaggeratedly. If you make a joke of these things, people never, ever, see the ravaged, bleeding remnants they’ve left of your poor, battered little heart.

Bill smiled. “But we’ve stayed friends, and that’s the important thing, isn’t it? Trust me, when looking for a casual shag, sanity is top of my list of desirable qualities. Right. I’ve got to be off. Don’t break anything, and remember, the fish will be fine just as long as you follow my instructions to the letter.” Stern-look again.

“Jawohl, mein Kommandant!” I gave him a snappy salute, standing to attention. I even clicked my heels together, although the effect may have been more Dorothy than military. “Don’t worry; your finny friends are safe in my hands.” Oh, the things of Bill’s I’d like to be safe in my hands. I willed him to read the supplication in my eyes.

But he just laughed, and hugged me, and said goodbye. My Bill: a total illiterate in the language of hopeless, unrequited love. “Marty, you’re a star,” he told me as he left me. Couldn’t he see my light had dimmed, sucked into the black hole of his indifference?

“Don’t worry,” I told the fish, placing one hand against the warm side of their tank. They tried their best to nibble my fingers through the glass, but it was a poor substitute for nibbles from Bill. “Daddy’s only going away for a week. Daddy has to do some nasty work, yes he does, but he loves you very very much and he’ll be back soon.”

They flitted through the tank, blue-and-orange shivers of agitation. I leaned in closer to reassure them with my presence, and lowered my voice to a comforting whisper. “We’ll look after each other while he’s gone. We won’t worry about him being away at the conference with that tartfrom the office, no we won’t.” Iridescent tails flicked doubt at my words, and I sighed. “Et tu, fishies?”

And then I hoovered the whole flat to within an inch of its eighty-percent wool shag pile life, because nothing heals a broken heart like housework.

* * * *

One might suppose that Bill and I had a particularly close friendship, given that he’d asked me to babysit his fish while he swanned around at some conference in Hawaii, every hussy on the island shaking her grass-skirted booty in his face. One would, alas, suppose wrong. I am everyone’s house-sitter of choice; something to do with being a clean-freak, I’m told. People have been known to go away solely to get me to blitz their house for them. At least, that’s what Bill told me, right before he cautioned me not to let people take advantage, then in the same breath asked me if I’d do him a teensy little favor.