‘For a pair of shoes?!’ she inhaled.

She flipped a lid and inspected the contents. Inside were a box-fresh, unworn, new pair of trainers. Unable to resist, she opened one more box. Once again, there nestled among crisp, tissue paper like a couple of sleeping babies was another pristine pair of white trainers.

‘A thousand dollars!’

Just one of these shoes was worth more than her first car.

She pushed the box aside and opened another. Yet more unsullied, white trainers. Simi thought of what she would do with that much disposable income – therapy for sure and maybe a fasting retreat where you had coffee enemas and sifted through your poo for old chewing gum.

‘Simi.’

She froze, around her now several opened shoe boxes and no legitimate explanation in sight.

‘Hi…’ she spluttered.

‘Looking for something?’

Self-respect was her first thought.

‘Trouble?’ she said with a half laugh.

Mo looked at her, confused.

‘As in Elvis,’ she said, trailing away. ‘I was looking for my, you know.’

Mo sat down on the floor next to her resting his arm on her knee. He laughed and despite her abject embarrassment, eventually she laughed too.

‘Have you looked under the duvet?’

‘Yes… I…’

Mo pulled up the end of the duvet sweeping his arm from side to side. Just then his eyes widened and a terrified expression crossed his face.

‘They’ve got me!’

His head plunged under the bedding as he fought to free himself from the terror-knickers.

‘Very funny,’ Simi said, slapping his thigh.

At last his thrashing subsided and he pulled out her underwear, ceremoniously handing them to her. She slapped him again before slipping them on and reaching for her crumpled dress.

‘You going?’ said Mo, disappointment in his voice.

‘Well, I thought you were busy.’

Mo pushed himself up off the floor and went to one of his fitted wardrobes. He pulled out a T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms similar to the ones he had on and put them on the bed.

‘Chill for a bit,’ he said before heading back to the living room.

After a moment, Simi heard him fire up the game again.

‘This is Collateral Mayhem. Over-eighteens only…’

Simi slipped on the T-shirt and jogging bottoms and looked down at her shapeless form. In the figure-hugging body-con dress he’d slipped her out of she’d looked hot. Now she looked as though she were heading to the prison gym.

‘Come, Simi, I’ve got another controller,’ he called.

‘Coming!’ she said as though even wild horses couldn’t hold her back.

She padded through to the living room feeling the lush, deep carpet under her feet. Perhaps this wasn’t a total wipeout. Mo wasn’t indifferent. He just wanted to share his passion – for gaming. If she could learn to ride a bike with Oscar, shooting insurgents would be easy. And weren’t sharing your interests one of the building blocks of a relationship? Meagan and her boundaries were all well and good but if she’d followed that advice would she be here with Mo playing Collateral Mayhem? Sometimes, love wasn’t all hearts and flowers. Sometimes it was covering someone with a suppressive fire while they reloaded. Perhaps, Simi daydreamed, once the dating game was over, something real might be possible with Mo.