Could It Be I'm Falling In Love?

by Eleanor Prescott

Genres: General Fiction; Contemporary Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

"Roxy is a TV presenter, and OK, so things haven't been going so well recently, but her big break is just around the corner. Enter Woody, one-time pop star and Roxy's ultimate dream date, now working as her window cleaner. He's the answer to her prayers - "

Release date: January 31, 2013

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 448

Sample

In the blue-lit nightclub toilet, Roxy peered into the mirror. Several Roxys squinted back. She was a mojito or two drunker than she’d thought. The checklist was going to be tricky tonight. She closed one eye to blot out the extra Roxys. She needed to concentrate – this was important stuff …

HAIR. Hah! She didn’t need twenty-twenty to know her hair rocked; it was blonder than vanilla ice cream! She clumsily teased the ends with her fingers – missed – and ended up teasing an earring.

MAKE-UP. Tricky – but she could definitely spot some lippy in there. That was one of the benefits of scarlet: maximum beer-goggle visibility. She leant closer to spot anything else.

‘Bollocks!’

Her nose bounced painfully off the glass.

Blinking back the pain, she rooted in her handbag for her eyeliner and expertly applied an extra layer. ‘Ifinn doubt …’ she advised the empty loos. She was proud she’d worn makeup every day since she was eleven. She might be too drunk to walk in a straight line, but she wasn’t too drunk to draw one.

TEETH. She bared them. Dazzling – just as her dentist had promised.

TAN. She was loving this new Winter Clementine! Although – was it her imagination, or was the blue light tingeing her ever so slightly green?

TITS. Well, she could see two, so she wasn’t that drunk! She delved into her dress, rummaged for a grip and then hoisted her breasts upwards. She plumped them up like St Tropez cushions.

‘An’ last but not leasss …’ She bent over and looked up her own skirt. This was always the trickiest bit of the checklist, particularly in heels with a skinful. Many a time she’d wobbled, headbutted porcelain and given her forehead a shiner. But, it was worth it. The mags were desperate for cellulite. The newsstands were crammed with pictures of knickers wedged into celebrity bottoms. Last week’s Heat had had four pages on celebrity waxing under the headline ‘Private Stars Go Pubic’, and the week before they’d done a montage of famous buttocks, complete with pimples arrowed in pink. It was all very funny, but it had turned getting in and out of a taxi into a minefield. Photographers used to be grateful if you stopped and smiled … now they lay on the pavement to get a shot of your arse. Roxy had no problem with her arse being in the papers – but only with apricot airbrushing. A pap-shot definitely didn’t qualify.

At last, the checklist was over. Dizzily, Roxy straightened up. She grinned. She looked hot. Hotter than hot – she was Viagra in a mini-dress! She could see her work diary filling itself up already.

She grabbed her iPhone, squinted at the screen, and started tapping.

2.09am @foxyroxy

Fuckme – I ROCKK!! New dresss seriusly fierce. #ROXYSAYS: mustn passany mirrors or I might try2pull me mysellf!

She slung her phone back in her bag, pushed through the door of the ladies and strutted unsteadily towards the front door of the club. This would be child’s play. OK, so the world had partied itself stupid last night, but the smart girl-about-town partied cleverer. Today was 1st January – officially the deadest night in the celebrity calendar. And if you wanted to shine, you had to make sure you wouldn’t be eclipsed. Only amateurs partied large on a Saturday; the big guns waited for Sundays and Bank Holidays.

Just before she stepped outside, she quickly slapped on her sunglasses. She never went anywhere without shades – especially at night. Everyone knew wearing shades out of a nightclub was imperative. In the dark, the flash of the cameras was blinding. It was impossible to breeze past the banks of paparazzi with your cool intact. Instead, the imprint of their flashes seared your retinas so you couldn’t see straight, let alone walk straight. Even if you’d stuck to water all night – which, admittedly, in all her years of clubbing, Roxy never had, so this bit of her theory was untested – the paps’ flashes still made you look like a bleary-eyed alky. Roxy was a rock ‘n’ roll kind of gal, but she fancied herself more as a young Debbie Harry than a wasted Courtney Love. Sexy rebellion was employable. One-drink-from-wipeout was not.

‘Evening, lads!’ She greeted the waiting paparazzi, and paused dramatically in the doorway for their shots. A collection of miserable-looking blokes, clasping Burger King coffee cups, were chain-smoking in the cold night. They all wore dark-coloured puffa jackets, their cameras on stand-by around their necks.

Photographers always looked grumpy. Must come with spending your life hanging out on street corners, waiting for the beautiful people to finish having fun, Roxy reckoned. She liked to be one of the lads with the paps. It wasn’t good to be untouchable. Nobody liked a celeb who was stuck up their own arse.

‘Slow night?’ She sashayed towards them. ‘Cheer up! This’ll help pay the mortgage!’

She thought she heard someone snigger, but ignored it. It was tougher than it looked – smiling seductively whilst simultaneously rolling your hips, thrusting back your shoulders, dangling your arms three inches from your body and sucking in your tummy with more force than the Hadron Collider. Roxy ignored the freezing cold (good for the nipples) and worked it for the cameras. This was what she’d come out for. She vamped everything up to eleven and channelled maximum cool sexy fun.

Damn, these glasses are good, she thought as she strutted past the final photographer. They were so dark she could hardly see the flashes at all!

And then her stilettos scraped to a halt as it hit her.

She couldn’t see any flashes because there were no flashes.

She quickly span around. No one was looking. All she could see was a row of backs-of-heads as the photographers kept up their surveillance of the club door. There should have been a throng of activity behind her as everyone rushed to their laptops to edit her photos and wire them out to the picture desks. But the night was oddly silent.

Roxy stared in disbelief. She’d just worked the pavement like a stripper, in a dress short enough for the top shelf!

‘Anyone got any sweeteners?’ one of the photographers asked. ‘The wife reckons I need to lose a few pounds.’

‘Here.’ Someone tossed him a packet of Canderel.

‘Cheers, mate.’

He took one and slowly stirred it into his coffee. And then there was silence. Roxy was incredulous. Had they even seen her? Should she go back and do her exit again?

‘Who was the wino in the glasses?’ she suddenly heard someone ask. She quickly scanned the group to see who it was, and whether he was important. He was spotty and looked about sixteen; an apprentice, Roxy thought with horror.

‘Her? Oh, just Roxy Squires,’ somebody answered gruffly.

‘Who?’

‘Before your time, mate. She used to be a TV presenter, years back. Not worth firing a few rounds for now, though. She’ll only clog up your hard drive when you’re trying to send through shots of a real celeb.’

The apprentice nodded sagely. He thought for a moment.

‘What a muppet, wearing sunglasses at night!’ he sniggered. ‘Desperate, innit?’

Silently, Roxy slipped off her shades. Suddenly she felt ridiculous in her tiny pink dress. And very, very cold. A gust of wind whipped a discarded burger wrapper against her ankle. What was she doing? she thought with a lucidity that sliced through the fug of the mojitos. She was coatless and freezing at two in the morning, on a scuzzy London street in sub-zero temperatures, seventy-four miles and a ninety-quid cab ride away from her bed. She had an overwhelming longing for her PJs. Luckily, she spotted a cab and hastily staggered towards it.

As she threw herself into the car, a roar went up and the steps to the nightclub burst into illuminated life. Photographers darted backwards and forwards and the night was filled with the echo of a woman’s name as they all shouted for her attention. The street lit up with a hundred flashes, casting long, eerie shadows over buildings. A ‘real celeb’ was leaving the club.

On the dark side of the street, Roxy shivered.

It was time for a new strategy.



The water hit the window with a splat.

Up his ladder, Woody hunched against the elements and rubbed his sponge against the pane, pushing soapy suds into each of the corners. The glass squeaked as he cleaned. He pulled his wiper from his tool belt and swept the suds away. And then he saw her.

She was a classic: satin robe and fluffy, high-heeled slippers; robe held fully open. No underwear, just an immaculately trimmed Brazilian and the best breasts money could buy.

His wiper squeaked to a halt.

She eyeballed him defiantly.

Behind the tenuous security of the windowpane, Woody held his breath and concentrated on keeping his eyes locked on hers. But, even through the blur of peripheral vision, he still couldn’t help noticing how her nipples stood aggressively to attention, how her yoga-honed body was sculpture-perfect and how her StairMastered thighs were strong enough to crack walnuts – or any other kind of nut she fancied cracking.

The problem was, she fancied cracking his.

A gust of wind blew a leaf on to Woody’s cheek with a slap. But he couldn’t move. He knew the drill.

Slowly, her eyes fixed on his, she dropped her robe to the floor and rotated, making sure he got the full three-sixty. A framed photo of her husband and kids on the bedside table swam into view over her shoulder.

Woody knew her type; his round was littered with them. She was the kind of woman who saw shopping as a hunter-gatherer contest, and hired legal teams to get her kids into the right school. She probably hadn’t heard the word ‘no’ in a decade.

Her slow pirouette completed, she locked her eyes back on Woody, daring him to take her; defying him not to.

It always made Woody feel weird when clients did this. He’d never been sure of the etiquette. There wasn’t exactly a handbook he could refer to. Was it more polite not to look, or to look? Was it rude to pretend he hadn’t noticed? Was it wrong to give a thumbs-up? After all, with a body like that, she’d gone to a lot of effort.

When he’d first moved to Lavender Heath and started window cleaning, hoping for a quiet, simple life, Barry – whose round he’d taken over – had warned him about flashing clients.

‘Bold as brass they are, and bloody lovely. They spend all their time in the gym and the hairdresser’s, making themselves look perfect, but hubby’s too busy at the office to notice. Bored, they are. Not enough appreciation. There’s not much good stuff about being a window cleaner: no pension or paid holidays. But at least you get the odd glimpse of muff. Not often, mind; a couple of times a year, if you’re lucky. And if you’re really lucky, they’ll follow through on it too. Ask ‘em if they want you to clean on the inside. If they say yes, you’re on for a full sponge and shammy … Mind, I expect you had a lot of that in your old job!’

‘Sorry?’

‘Tits out; pussy on a plate.’

‘Er … I suppose so.’

Barry had nodded sagely. ‘Clever boy. Well, play your cards right and window cleaning’ll keep you in pretty views and extra-marital for life. Although it’ll mostly give you chapped hands.’

Woody figured he’d given her long enough.

He snapped back into action. He beamed his best vintage smile, wiped away the last smudge of soap and slowly backed down the ladder, whistling loudly. He’d take his time cleaning the ground-floor windows. That’d give her the chance to get the message and put her clothes back on before he knocked on the front door (definitely not the back) for his money and a chat. It was best to talk, he’d learnt. Otherwise embarrassment set in. Or resentment.

Far from being flashed at once or twice a year, as Barry had promised, Woody was confronted by open robes and geometrically precise bikini lines every month. He always respectfully declined. Some women got angry when he didn’t bounce off his ladder and on to their Egyptian-cotton sheets. Some were actually offended – despite the fact that Woody could look down from his ladder on to their top-of-the-range family four-by-fours, or that their nannies were just returning from the school run. But most were just mortified to be turned down. Many couldn’t look him in the eye once they’d wriggled back into their clothes and would immediately set about removing themselves from his round. He couldn’t have that. He wanted to keep his clients, and he wanted to keep them happy. He just didn’t want to keep them that happy.

A quick chat was what was needed. And within ten minutes of the advance.

Woody finished off the French doors before stowing away his wiper and knocking on the front door.

She took a full two minutes to answer; fully dressed, arms folded, eyes locked firmly into the middle distance.

‘I’ll get your money,’ she said frostily, turning away from the door. She returned, and thrust a twenty-pound note in his direction. The servant-master relationship restored, Woody thanked her and let her push the door to.

Just before it closed he said, ‘Mrs Barrington-Stanley, I’m deeply flattered, you know … And more than a little bit tempted.’

The door froze, neither open nor closed. She was completely shielded behind it.

Woody spoke into the gap. ‘It’s just that … well, I can’t. I’ve given that kind of thing up.’

There was a pause.

‘What do you mean?’ the door asked uncertainly. ‘Are you saying you’ve given up sex?’

‘Yep; gone cold turkey – I’ve given up women. Well, the extra women, I mean.’

‘But you can’t. You’re Woody; you’re The Woodeniser! The papers said …’ the door wobbled. ‘Oh my God! You said you’ve given up women. I don’t believe it! You’re … Are you telling me you’re gay?’

Woody rubbed his head. They always seemed to jump to this conclusion.

‘But what about all those girlfriends?’ the door asked. ‘The models? The actresses? Are you telling me they were all … what does my daughter call them …? Beards?’ There was a gasp. ‘Oh my God! Was Petra Klitova a beard?’

Woody laughed. ‘They were all real girlfriends, Mrs Barrington-Stanley. I’m not gay.’

The door opened and she moved into the gap, confused.

‘I don’t get it. If you’re not gay, what’s wrong with me? I thought … I mean … Don’t you go for everyone?’

Woody smiled gently. ‘There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you, Mrs Barrington-Stanley. You’re a very beautiful woman. But, well, I’ve got a girlfriend, you see, and she’s lovely. I know what you must have read in the papers, but I’ve reformed. Not that it’s been easy, especially when such temptation’s put in my way.’

She visibly softened and leant against the door frame.

‘Has it been terribly hard for you?’ she asked, concerned. ‘Were you one of those sex addicts?’

Woody tried to hide his smile.

‘Every day’s a test,’ he said solemnly. ‘Do you want me to do the conservatory and outbuildings as well next time?’

Woody scooped up his ladder and crunched down the long gravel driveway, relieved to get away. He caught sight of a dumpy, middle-aged figure in a duffle coat, scuttling along the pavement. She was clutching a packet of biscuits and a half-eaten bag of crisps.

‘Hey, Sue!’ he called out.

She jumped, looked up and reddened. She shoved her crisps into her pocket and quickly ran her hand through her hair.

Woody put down his ladder and jogged over.

‘You still up for tonight?’

Her blush deepened but she nodded uncertainly. Little bits of crisp wobbled in her hair.

‘Don’t worry – you’ll be great!’ he reassured her.

‘It’s just that, I haven’t … you know … for so long.’

‘Hey!’ He put a consoling arm around her. ‘You’ll feel great afterwards. Liberated!’ He gave her shoulders an encouraging squeeze. ‘OK?’

She nodded tightly, looking sick.

‘Eight thirty, then – my place?’ He pulled away and jogged back to his ladder. He heard the rustle of a crisp packet as Sue watched him go.



Was she dead?

Roxy forced one eye to crack open. Daylight surged in, stinging like Chanel N° 5. Quickly, she crunched her eye shut, but it was too late; her senses had woken and, right on cue, her head started banging like an East End nightclub.

Roxy pushed her hand out from under the duvet, crabbed it over to her bedside table and groped for her phone. She found it under last night’s knickers. Blearily, she forced out a tweet.

2.30pm @foxyroxy

Bleurgh. Am living proof 2much Veuve=nextday inability to use legs. Head banging. Feet broken. Tongue transplanted while sleeping.

She dropped the phone and groaned. Why hadn’t she left herself a pint of water, like any sane person who’d been out on the lash? She wasn’t dehydrated – she was incinerated. Even her eyelashes were dry! She felt like she’d slept in the tumble dryer. Her blood seemed to have evaporated and she was sure the only stuff left in her veins was forty per cent proof.

Tentatively she placed her hand over her eyes and tried to remember if she had any paracetamol. She resisted the urge to phone for an ambulance (the stomach pumps on Holby made her icky). But the Fire Brigade? If cats up trees were emergencies, then why not booze-poisoned blondes? Half a dozen burly firemen in her bedroom were bound to make her feel better. But she didn’t ring. She knew the help she needed, and it wasn’t from professional beefcake. When faced with adversity, whatever its nature, there was only one thing to do … It was time to consult the golden triangle.

Over the years, Roxy had made it her mission to be at the forefront of every cultural zeitgeist and passing trendy fad. She’d had a boho summer, a Dukan diet month and had even flirted with Kabbalah. But one of her lengthier fads had been yoga. Every week for eighteen months she’d forced herself to a Notting Hill class, enslaved by the promise of biceps like Madonna and the tantalising hope that this might be the week she inadvertently placed her mat next to an off-duty TV producer on the lookout for a hot new face to present their next programme. It hadn’t worked. By the end of it all she was still Roxy-shaped, and hadn’t downward dogged with a single TV exec. All of the standing on one leg had been a complete waste of effort, and if she’d had to endure the instructor urging her one more time to imagine a green triangle, with herself floating in it, weightless, worriless and free, she’d have rolled up her mat and forced him to eat it. The only green triangle she could ever picture was a giant, seductive Quality Street, and her compulsion to leg it out of the studio and into the nearest confectionery counter was almost intolerable. So she’d substituted the instructor’s green triangle for a golden one. And, rather than filling it with herself and her worries, she’d stocked it with a triumvirate of women – three sexy, sassy role models she could call upon whenever she needed help to kick the arse of her problems or bitch-slap away her self-doubt. Sod Charlie’s Angels – these gorgeous ladies were Roxy’s Angels: her oracle of lip-glossed cool.

Summoning every ounce of will in her body, Roxy zoned out her hangover and visualised the golden triangle. Immediately, her throbbing head eased and she was greeted by the pouts of her friends.

Mossy was there, of course, spanning the triangle’s bottom left corner like the main stage at Glastonbury festival. With her rock ‘n’ roll style and God-given ability to make a hangover look sexy, Mossy’s place within the triangle was assured. After all, she had single-handedly granted women licence to party and not give a stuff if their hair needed washing whilst they did it. If Roxy ever needed an outfit – or inspiration to turn any-old-night into a blinder – Mossy was always on hand.

In the bottom right corner was Debbie Harry – circa 1979, and ‘Heart Of Glass’. This was when Debs was at the peak of her perfection and cooler than any other human alive! She was the ultimate frontwoman, combining sex, attitude and a perpetual expression of ‘so what?’. Roxy might only have been one at the time (although technically she hadn’t been born, her showbiz birth year being fluid), but she was sure there couldn’t have been a person on the planet who didn’t fancy getting dirty with Harry.

And finally – perched at the pinnacle of the triangle – was Hurley.

Some people thought Elizabeth II was the Queen of Great Britain, but Roxy reckoned it was Liz. OK, so she was a bit posh and ‘dad-totty’, but nobody rocked a white jean quite like Liz Hurley! She’d tried her immaculately manicured hand at everything from acting to modelling, from pig-rearing to celebrity best-friending Pamela Anderson – and made a fragrant success of it all. She’d been a constant high-glamour presence on red carpets for – well – ever and, via the power of Estée Lauder alone, had single-handedly halted the aging process. This wasn’t to say that Liz’s life had always been easy (the call girl, the DNA test, the embarrassment of nabbing a bloke called Shane …) but Queen Liz never lost her cool – or her makeup bag – in a crisis.

All this was reason alone for Roxy to love Liz Hurley more than anyone she’d never actually met … but it didn’t even touch upon the main reason why Hurley was the closest thing planet earth had to a goddess: Liz’s undeniable genius for lexicon.

Of all the new words to have been accepted into the Oxford English Dictionary – sexting, jeggings, mankini – Liz’s redefinition of ‘civilian’ trumped them all. Roxy was a call-a-spade-a-spade kind of girl, and political correctness bored her arse off. So when Liz had split the world into ‘celebs’ and ‘civilians’, Roxy had fallen in love. Who cared that the public was outraged … Liz had spoken the truth! Celebrities looked better, dressed better and got paid better than civilians. They ate in better restaurants, never had problems hailing cabs and always shagged the best-looking person at the party. They weren’t ordinary people – they were super people, leading luckier, prettier lives.

‘Civilians’ instantly catapulted Liz to the top of Roxy’s lust list and granted her residency at the peak of the golden triangle. Roxy had always been a lover of mantras, with a catchphrase for every occasion (If at first you don’t succeed … Where there’s a will there’s a way … Fame costs …). But if all her other mantras failed, there was one she could always fall back on – the single most important piece of wisdom to live her life by. When Roxy needed answers, she always asked herself this: What would Liz do?

So, from beneath the heat of her duvet, Roxy pondered:

What would Liz do if she had a hangover so stonking her brain had begun to dribble out of her ears?

And then the answer hit her. It was obvious, really. Liz would hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. And then she’d do a seventy-two hour cabbage-soup detox, ensuring that the blinds were kept down and her public kept waiting, right up until the moment she was restored to full red-carpet fabulousness and ready to face the cameras again.

Well, that was that, then – decided.

Groaning like a woman of one hundred and three, Roxy rolled out of bed and on to all fours. The movement made her head pound and her eyes pulsate in their sockets. She took a deep breath. If she crawled really slowly, she could inch down the stairs, into the kitchen and over to the tap in twenty-five minutes. If only that extra thumping in her head would stop. Speaking of which – why had it just got louder? And why were there more bangs than usual? Had her heart begun to echo? Or was it …? Surely not! Oh, bollocking bollocks – rock off! Someone was knocking on her door! That wasn’t on, that wasn’t on at all. Didn’t they know what bloody time it was?



Keys in hand, Sue scuttled up the driveway and threw herself into her hallway. She slammed her front door behind her and then leant against it, her heart palpitating in her chest.

Why had she said yes to tonight? The very thought made her throat go tight.

It wasn’t Woody’s fault – well, not exactly. He meant well. But would it really make her feel better? That part of her – the sexy part – was gone. Dead. Buried. Kaput. Wrapped up like fish-and-chip paper and thrown in the bin. Dragging it into the light wouldn’t be healing – it would be humiliating!

Tea; that was what she needed. A nice cup of ginseng and a biscuit. She hurried into the kitchen.

Some people turn to alcohol in moments of crisis, but Sue had always preferred tea and biscuits. Over the years she’d discovered that there was a flavour of tea and variety of biscuit for every problem in life. Making a perfect tea-biscuit match was like alchemy – a science – and Sue was a dedicated student. For instance, a trip to the supermarket never seemed as daunting after a vitalising pot of Lapsang Souchong and a Garibaldi. The prospect of a phone call to a utility helpdesk was eased by a pre-emptive cup of lavender and a ginger snap. And the trauma of having to scuttle past the photographers who sometimes camped at the end of her driveway, by the gate to that Hollywood actor’s house, could only be soothed by a calming Earl Grey and some shortbread. But tonight …? That required something special: a large pot of ginseng and the most powerful pinnacle of the biscuiting world – a packet of Marks & Spencer’s Extremely Chocolatey Dark Chocolate Rounds.

Still wearing her coat, she flicked on the kettle, opened the biscuit tin and started to power-eat.

As she hastily shoved a second biscuit into her mouth, she remembered that Woody had asked her to bring some old photos. God knew why. It would only add insult to injury, but she couldn’t let him down. She might as well bring her scrapbook, although the idea made her throat close even tighter. She had to swallow really hard to get the biscuit down.

Sue had a strange relationship with her scrapbook. It was like a sore she couldn’t stop scratching. She still looked at it every day. It was her daily dose of self-flagellation: an ongoing self-administered torture to remind her of the embarrassment and shame, and that nasty feeling of something precious being taken from her, which still wouldn’t go away. Over the years the scrapbook had made her feel many negative things, but nowadays, if she was being honest, what it made her feel most was fat.

The kettle came to the boil. She poured the water on to the tea leaves and reached for another biscuit. As she munched, she miserably looked down at her middle, crushed against the kitchen cabinet. Although hidden under loose black layers, she could still feel her tummy splodging over the rim of her knickers like a huge rubber ring of flab. A flashback of her perfectly-proportioned former figure swam before her. Why had she ever thought she needed to lose weight? She must have been mad! She’d lived on a self-imposed diet of black coffee, cigarettes and Ryvita, but there’d been nothing of her. And, as everyone from the milkman to her mother had seen, her curves had been in all the right places.

Sue eyed the remnants of the Extremely Chocolatey Dark Chocolate Rounds, their crumbs spread across her copy of The Times. She couldn’t believe she’d finished the packet so quickly – her tea wasn’t yet brewed!

Tonight was going to be terrible.

It wasn’t just having to reveal all the intimate things she’d spent so many years trying to hide. It was that inevitable moment when Woody would look up from the scrapbook and see her as she was now, and that brief glimmer of marvel would die. She didn’t need to be a psychologist to read his face. There’d be a split second and then he’d force his expression back to normal, and Sue would want to slink home, never to set foot out of her front door again.

And that wasn’t even the worst bit. The worst bit was doing it in front of Cressida.

Sue’s heart beat even faster and her armpits started to prickle. She threw off her coat and flapped at her dress, trying to put air in its folds.

Oh, Woody – why did you have to be so nice? She’d just begun to enjoy their Thursday evenings. But then he’d brought Cressida, with her stiff upper lip. Sue had felt her disapproval and heard her barely-audible tuts, and Thursdays with Woody had never been the same.

And now there was this.

Sue suddenly realised she was pacing her kitchen. She needed to calm down and breathe, otherwise she might not make the meeting at all – and then what would Woody think? She fixed her eyes beyond the biscuit crumbs, to The Times underneath. The crossword was peeking out. She loved crosswords; they were one of the few things she was actually good at. It didn’t matter what you looked like doing crosswords. And if you had your paper delivered, you didn’t even have to leave the house! She exhaled deeply and tried to block out her panic. Twelve across: Noun. Acclivity, incline (8). Something, something, A, something, something, E, something, something.



‘Bloody hell! What are you doing here?’

Roxy clung to her front door, goggle-eyed.

The man on her doorstep laughed, rubbed his head and looked embarrassed.

‘I always come now. Every other Thursday, between one and three. It’s just you’re normally still in bed.’

‘That’s not what I meant, and you know it!’ Roxy took a deep breath. She’d never had a hangover so bad she’d hallucinated! She blinked hard. But when she opened her eyes he wa