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I’ll walk,’ I replied coolly, as if I was at home in even the most treacherous of conditions; this wind was so strong it could have flattened my fringe with one gust.
    ‘You can’t do that – I feel terrible now,’ she said.
    ‘I insist,’ I replied.
    She handed back my coat, clambered into the taxi, then turned to look at me. ‘Give me your number. I’ll pay it back immediately.’
    ‘Gladly.’ The boy was back in business. ‘Have you got a pen?’
    She rustled around in her bag then looked at me, dejected. ‘No.’
    The taxi driver was thoroughly pissed off by now. ‘Hurry up, Romeo and Juliet, shut the bloody door.’
    ‘Sorry, mate,’ I mumbled, then a flash of genius hit me. I rooted in my coat pockets and pulled out one of Terri’s lip-liners.
    ‘Here. This’ll work.’
    I held Gemma’s hand and crayoned my number on the back of it, in bright pink digits. She looked up and blinked, clearly lost for words.
    ‘Nice colour,’ she said eventually.
    The implications of this compliment hit me like a 4-ton freight train. ‘The lipstick isn’t mine!’ I blustered.
    ‘It’s cool,’ she shrugged. ‘I’m very open-minded. Thanks again.’ And at that, she closed the taxi door and trundled away up Mount Pleasant.
    I slipped my coat back on and felt light-headed as her scent drifted around me. Then I started the four-mile walk home, which should have been the most miserable journey of my life. I was drunk, broke, soaking wet and shivering. But my head was swollen with thoughts of her.
    If she phoned like she said she would, I could explain that, while I too am ‘very open-minded’, I am not in fact flirting with transvestitism, and if I were, I’d choose a better lip colour.
    But after two days, the smell of her perfume had faded from my coat, and I couldn’t remember what her face looked like. I was annoyed that I’d failed to ask for her number, and that the only new entry I’d been able to put in my contacts book was a doodle of her seashell tattoo on the front cover.
    Instinct, I’m afraid, was starting to tell me that she wasn’t going to phone.
    And, as ever, instinct proved to be right.

Chapter 6
    Gemma
    Dan has been really evasive about buying a car in which to commute to work from his mum’s.
    Buddington, where she lives, is only a fifty-minute drive to Liverpool, but local public transport is dire, offering little more than a Noddy train that leaves approximately every six days; travelling by donkey might be easier.
    I’ve been pointing out the increasing urgency of the situation in the four weeks since we handed in our notice to the landlord – as well as the fact that I’ve managed to part-exchange my own vehicle (sob) for an eight-year-old Fiat Punto, in an attempt to swell our coffers.
    This afternoon, with less than twenty-four hours before we are due to leave our flat, Dan finally phones as I’m heading into a meeting to tell me he’s bought one.
    ‘Oh good!’ I say brightly, as I hurry along the corridor to The Think Bubble , which used to be known as Meeting Room One. ‘Where did you get it?’
    ‘From a friend of a friend of Pete’s. Or maybe a friend of a friend of a friend of Pete’s.’
    I feel a shiver of unease.
    ‘Pete’s coming with me first thing tomorrow,’ he continues.
    ‘But the move’s tomorrow.’
    ‘It’ll only take half an hour to pick it up, I promise – then we’ll load up both of our cars and make the trip to my mum’s.’
    I pause in front of the door as Sebastian strides past and gives me a salute. ‘Okay, I’ll have some last-minute packing anyway. How much did this car cost? You didn’t go over budget?’
    ‘The car more than fulfils all criteria with regards cost-control.’
    My ears prick up. ‘Go on, how much?’
    ‘Honestly, not much.’
    I glance into the room and realise they’re waiting for me. ‘The fact that you’re refusing to tell me means it was either too expensive or so cheap it’s falling to bits,’ I