‘Let’s see.’ I slid down his body.

‘What’s…. going on?’ Then, ‘No. Don’t answer that. I’m just ecstatic it’s happening.’

70

Thirty-two floors up, high above the sea, blue light streamed into a cool, white bedroom, the huge windows suggesting vast space beyond. I slid from the bed, dying for my first look at Barcelona in the daylight.

And it was spectacular. Far below was a teeny pool, a miniature strip of sand and, stretching to infinity, endless sea and sky.

I was in Quin’s shirt—I’d woken during the night, chilly from the aircon. But I could spend every second in this room naked because no one could see us.

‘Oh, Quin,’ I said. ‘The view!’

From the bed, he said, ‘I’m looking at it.’

‘Haha!’ I pulled down the shirt so that it fully covered my bum.

‘Get back in here,’ he said.

‘I didn’t come to Barcelona to spend my time doing…that.’ I swept my hands in the direction of his groin.

‘I’ll be real quick,’ he promised, a gleam in his eye.

‘Hold on.’ I picked up the phone. ‘I’m ordering our breakfast. Yes, I am. Shush!’ After giving all the details, and supplementing them with extra requests from Quin—‘Do they do detox juices? Yeah, great. But no papaya, Rach, tell them, no papaya.’—I hung up. ‘It’s being delivered in fifteen minutes.’ I pulled off the shirt. ‘Your time starts…now!’

We’d landed in Barcelona late last night, into Saturday-night frenzy—bumper-to-bumper traffic, horns blaring, music pulsing from competing venues. And it was warm. Palm trees lined the streets and it was a thrill to discover that our hotel was right next to the beach.

Quin had fallen asleep on the plane. After his middle-of-the-night homecoming, he’d managed about four hours’ sleep before getting up, unpacking, repacking and then driving five kilometres in Saturday-morning gridlock traffic to pick up twelve bottles of orange wine from Fincas de Azabache, an iconic South Dublin wine store where Audi-driving Rugby Dads regularly engaged in shouting matches with other Audi-driving Rugby Dads over parking spaces.

Said orange wine was for Finley’s birthday brunch at Vivi and Roly’s, which was surprisingly enjoyable, even though both Shiv and Golden were present. Shiv, being Finley’s mother, kind of had to be there. And Golden was Finley’s godmother.

But the beauty was that Shiv and Golden had history, so long running that it was barely concealed. (Among other things, they’d fought over Quin, a grant from the Irish Enterprise Board, and an old picnic rug Roly had been throwing out.) This meant that their attention was focused on each other, leaving me flying beneath the radar, having a surprisingly pleasant time.

Mostly with Vivi and Michelle, who engaged me in book talk, but whenever I sat up straight and declared, ‘Oh, I loved it,’ they frowned and used words like ‘specious’ and ‘mendacious’.