‘Yeah, they can apparently. I looked it up.’

‘Do you believe her?’

‘No. None of us do. But till she says otherwise, we gotta go with it. She defends him to the hilt. One time she came round for dinner – lip all swollen. Swore she’d tripped on a bathmat and smashed her face on the sink. She won’t say a word against him. She wouldn’t speak to Mom and Dad for months last time they accused him. Gotta play it real careful when it comes to Edouardo.’

‘I like Liv,’ I told him, stroking his arm up and down. ‘I’d hate to think of her being hurt. Makes me wanna – put Edouardo on our list.’

‘Yeah, me too,’ he said. ‘He’s king of the fucking list. Believe me, we’ve all said our piece to her on this and it never goes well. But we gotta follow her lead.’

‘For now.’

‘For now.’ He pulled me in and kissed me again. ‘Hey, why don’t you come back to San Diego with us on Sunday?’

‘What?’

‘Come back with us. Stay for a while. See if you like it. Just be with me.’ He could tell I was squirmy. ‘It’s all right. Forget I said anything. I’ll settle for coming to see you every few weeks.’ He cuddled me in. ‘If you want me to.’

‘I want you to,’ I said. ‘But—’

‘But what?’

I swallowed my answer – it’s what Rhiannon would have done, hiding her true self. But I didn’t want to do that – the new me had to be different. Well, as much as she could be.

‘I need to know I can be without you first.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, you’re going home the day after tomorrow and I’m gonna miss you like mad. But I need to know I can handle that. I need to know I can be all right on my own. Do you know what I’m saying?’

And the stupid idiot said the perfect thing:

‘Yeah. I think we both need that.’ His kisses were slow and gentle and I couldn’t get enough of them.

I think I knew for sure how he felt about me the following day: the day he did the David Guetta Face.

Lemme explain: