We step over to the table and I take water biscuits from the cupboard and put them down next to a brick of parmesan. I can’t cook but I can still prepare a delicious feast.

‘Muffallo Bozzarella?’ she says, pointing to a creamy Burrata topped by a drizzle of nutty olive oil and a sprinkle of sea salt crystals.

I smile. A stupid in-joke.

She pinches the end of my dressing gown belt between her fingers.

I lean in closer.

Her breath on my neck. The fine fuzz of her cheek against my chin. The scent of her.

I sense her sigh. A good sigh. And I kiss her. My teeth dragging gently on her lower lip, as gently as anything could ever drag. A glance of her tongue.

We step away from the kitchen table as one.

The pressure of her hipbone against mine. She slowly pulls my dressing-gown belt and the gown opens. She doesn’t pull it apart. She kisses the skin beneath my earlobe. Her breath warm against me. She puts her hands on my waist and I push my fingers into her hair.

We lock tighter and tighter together. The room is hot. My lips caressing down the perfect slope of her neck. Her hand inside my gown. The pressure of her palm at my waist.

A door slams nearby.

Noora and I look up.

Nothing.

Just the draught from an open window.

We kiss harder, and move to the bed, and fall on each other. But then another bang, one from outside my own apartment door.

We disengage.

‘I’ll just check,’ says Noora, standing up. Her face back to police mode.

I wrap my gown’s belt tight around myself.

Noora looks through the security lens, then opens the door.

There’s a young boy sitting alone on the building stairs.

The boy from the flat next door.

He’s holding a tartan sausage dog the size of a courgette.

Noora and I step out.

‘You okay, kid?’ asks Noora.

I sit next to him as Noora looks around for his parents.

‘I’m Tuva,’ I say.

He looks at me with huge brown eyes.

‘Nice dog. What’s your name?’

‘My name is Dan.’

‘You live there, Dan?’ I point to the door in front of us. ‘Next to me?’

He nods his head.

‘Your mum or dad home?’

‘Mum’s at the shops. She’s angry.’

Noora knocks on the door but nobody answers.

‘How old are you, Dan?’ she asks.

He answers her but he’s looking at me.

‘Seven.’

‘Do you like cheese, Dan?’ I ask.

He shakes his head and makes a disgusted face and Noora and I both smile.

‘Come inside if you like. You can wait for your mum with us.’

‘Mum’s angry now,’ he says.

‘I’m sure she’s not angry with you,’ I say. ‘You want to come in for a bit?’