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“Yes.”
    “Well…it sort of did get infected. And, um, formed an abscess.” I pushed up my sleeve to show him the nasty red scar on my inner arm. “And, uh…”
    “There’s more?” Luke said, his face like stone.
    “Blood poisoning,” I said in a small voice.
    Okay, but listen. It really wasn’t my fault. Someone attacked me with a hypo that contained a lethal dose of heroin, only the needle broke off and got stuck in my arm. I didn’t even get remotely stoned. But I did get a nasty infection. It turned into a really, hundred-percent disgusting abscess, oozing and stinking and everything. You don’t want to know how bad it looked.
    Or how bad it felt. I was sick as a parrot. Remember when I said I saw him a month after we broke up? Well, he didn’t see me. I was in the passenger seat of Maria’s car, waiting for her to pick up some papers, on the way to the hospital for a check-up. I felt too bad to get out of the car.
    Luke was staring at me and I was starting to wish I’d done this in a more private place. There were only a couple of people in the café, but that was enough.
    “But,” he eventually managed, “Karen said you were fine.”
    “Yes, well.” I shrugged. “That’s because I told her to.”
    Luke stared some more. “Why?” he said, after a lot of thought, looking confused.
    “Because I didn’t want you to know,” I said slowly.
    “Why?” he repeated, looking even more bewildered.
    “Because…” A lot of reasons, most of them too complex even for words. “I knew you’d react this way.”
    “Do you still—I mean, is it—Christ, Sophie, septicemia can kill you…”
    “But it didn’t,” I said gently. Anyone notice how I’m being the calm one here?
    “And the abscess?” He was staring at my arm. “I’ve seen people lose limbs—”
    “Well, I’ve still got all mine. Luke, it’s healed. It went all icky, it oozed, it swelled, it tunnelled—”
    “ Tunnelled ?”
    “But it’s healed now. Honestly. And the septicemia is all gone away.”
    Luke was white. “You’re okay now?”
    “I’m okay now.”
    “You’re not going to die?”
    He did look genuinely worried. “We’re all going to die, Luke,” I said. “Just, I’m not planning to for another good seventy years.”
    He slumped in his seat. “Jesus, Sophie.”
    I sighed. “So that’s why I’ve not been drinking. Trying to be nice to my body.”
    “And that’s why Maria wouldn’t let you have a cigar.”
    “Yep. I don’t know how bad cigars are for you…”
    “Bad enough.” Luke drank about half of his pint in one go. “I think I need something stronger.”
    “It’s half past two in the afternoon.”
    “So?”
    “Luke, I’m okay now. You don’t have to do the shocked worried ex-boyfriend thing. And there’s no way you could have got anything, I mean I came out clean for hepatitis and HIV and besides, we…” I trailed off, blushing.
    “I know. I mean—just—Soph. God.” He got up and ordered another pint, looked over at me and said, “Are you sure?”
    “Sure. Sort of gone off it anyway.”
    This earned me another look of disbelief, but there was a faint smile there as well.
    A couple of hours later, when I had read a few more chapters of my book and Luke had gone to take Norma Jean for a walk along the beach (it must be a guy thing), Maria flew in to tell us that as it was getting too dark to surf, she was going into Newquay with “the guys” for the evening. She’d get a cab home. Was that cool?
    I shrugged. “Have fun.”
    “You want to come?”
    “Nah. I’ve had a hard day of sitting and reading. I think I need to go back to the cottage and chill.”
    “You’ll be all right with Luke?”
    “I think I can manage to keep my hands off him.”
    Her eyes glittered. “You didn’t last night.”
    “Nothing happened last night.”
    “Sure?” She looked disappointed.
    “Nothing at all. My bedroom is creepy—”
    “Glad I’m not the only one who thinks so. Aunt Nerea