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my job and my relationship. Sometimes I felt I was failing at both.
    And in the kitchen, as I drank half a litre of water, I saw that he had made dinner for both of us, which made my guilt bite down even harder. It was like him not to mention it. It was like him to say he didn’t mind. Sometimes I would have given all I had to know how he really felt.
    I found Rob sitting up in bed with his eyes closed, his arms folded across his bare chest, fast asleep. He looked tired too, with dark smudges like thumbprints under his eyes. As usual he was sleeping in a self-contained, composed way, not sprawling or snoring. He was just too perfect.
    Too good for me.
    I shied away from thinking about it, knowing that I’d touched on the truth but absolutely not wanting to consider it any further because I knew, logically, where it would end: with a break-up. And I didn’t want to lose him, even if I didn’t deserve him. I turned off his light as quietly as I could and edged around to my side of the bed, intending to get in without waking him.
    Some hope. He slept as lightly as a cat. As I slid under the covers, he reached for me.
    ‘Where were we?’
    ‘You don’t have to. You’re tired.’
    ‘I’ll find the energy, believe me.’
    I turned over, burrowing into the pillow.
    ‘Don’t you want to?’ Rob sounded puzzled.
    ‘I’m really, really sorry I missed dinner,’ I whispered. ‘I’m sorry I missed your last night.’
    ‘Not my last night on the planet, hopefully.’ He put on his light. ‘Maeve, look at me. If I really minded, I’d have phoned you. I could have gone to bed hours ago. I was watching TV until five minutes before you showed up. I don’t mind you going out and having a good time with your mates. I don’t expect you to be here if you’re not working.’
    ‘But you’re going away.’
    ‘And I’ll be back.’
    ‘You don’t hate me for being selfish?’
    He looked startled. ‘Who said you were selfish? You’re terrible at managing your time, but I knew that before we started going out.’
    ‘And you still find me attractive even when my makeup is smudged and I smell of alcohol.’
    The corner of his mouth lifted. ‘Then more than ever.’
    The thing about Rob was that he had an unerring instinct for the right thing to say, and do. I felt all of my worries slip away as he made me absolutely sure he loved me, despite all of my flaws. Maybe because of some of them. I showed him, because it was true, that I loved him, even though I still hadn’t said it, and couldn’t, and it turned out to be the sort of sex that makes you smile to yourself when you think about it afterwards, and you think about it a lot .
    I was almost asleep when I remembered to ask him if he thought I was intimidating, and had to listen to him laughing on and off for the next five minutes, so much that the bed shook, until I turned over and went to sleep in a proper temper.
    Some time in the small hours, around the time I usually got a phone call about a dead body, I woke up and reached for him again, curling against him, my knees tucked behind his, my arm around his waist. He held my hand and said my name, and I was almost sure he was asleep but I didn’t dare say out loud what I was thinking. I love you . It shouldn’t have been difficult.
    I forgave him everything all over again when I woke early but not quite early enough the next morning to find a glass of water and a couple of Alka-Seltzer on the bedside table, along with a note telling me he loved me and he’d see me in two weeks and of course I could be intimidating if I wanted to be, if that mattered to me.
    The flat was tidy, and too quiet, and I wandered around feeling suddenly unmoored. I hadn’t lied to Liv. I really did like the idea of being on my own. The reality just seemed a bit brutal.
    What I wanted, I realised, was to be on my own with Rob for two weeks. I missed him already.
    I hadn’t even said goodbye.

FRIDAY

Chapter 5
    In the interests of making the