“So, you just got up and left him in bed and walked out without even saying good morning or making him a drink or giving him a celebratory blowjob?” I shake my head slowly, and she glares at me. “Oh, Charlie, that’s absolutely terrible. It’s not like you.”

I groan. “I know. I’m not that person at all. I always try really hard with a bloke when we’re dating. They don’t need to know about problems and shit.”

“Maybe that’s your problem.”

“What?”

“Well, you shouldn’t have to try so hard to be so happy and lovely for a bloke. No one is like that all the time, and anyone who expects it is just on a fast track to a relationship with his right hand.”

“But I should have been better for Misha, of all people,” I say in an agonised whisper. “I just started thinking about him waking up and maybe hating what we’d done, and then I fucking freaked out, and boom!” I clap. “Before I knew what I was doing, I was outside the flat and in a taxi.”

“And has he messaged you yet?”

“I haven’t dared to look,” I say, shamefaced.

She grimaces and gestures with her hand. “Hand it over.”

I reach in my pocket and place my phone in her palm and watch anxiously as she swipes the screen. “Has he left any messages? Oh shit, does he sound hurt?”

She shakes her head slowly. “There’s nothing.”

“Oh.” There’s a long pause. “Oh, well, maybe that’s good.” I can hear the shock in my voice because I thought he’d have blown up my phone by now. Misha doesn’t do silence in any area of his life. He’s forthright and honest.

“Will he be awake yet?” she asks.

I check my watch quickly and slump. “Yes, definitely at this time. He’ll be at work.” I hesitate. “And he hasn’t left any messages?” She nods slowly, her expression both cross and sympathetic. “Oh well, maybe that’s good, then,” I say faintly. “No harsh words.”

And it is good that he isn’t shouting at me, but that doesn’t explain why I suddenly want to talk to him so desperately that my skin itches. Not when I had every chance to do that before I crept out like a nasty twat this morning. I think of my last sight of him lying tangled in the white sheets of my bed, his olive skin glowing in the morning sunshine, his face soft in sleep.