That shouldn’t have been surprising. Sloan Williams was ripped and charming and he’d given her two incredible orgasms. But it did surprise her. Why? Scrolling past pictures of Willow in polo shirts, on boats and on golf courses, the answer came. He was the epitome of her brothers’ sporty, posho friends. The kind of guys she’d grown up hating. The kind of guys she couldn’t believe women actually fucked. Yet here she was, frothing over one of them. Not just one of them, the pinnacle of that type.

She kept scrolling. One of Willow’s posts was a reel of him on a talk show. She clicked the link and watched him interviewing school kids about their favourite footy players. He pretended to get upset at a little redheaded for picking Derek Hardiman instead of him.

“We’re supposed to stick together, Michael!”

The clip ended and Eden hit replay. She watched it five times. Each time her stomach knotted tighter. Willow was funny. He was hot and funny and cute and sunshine and why had she fucking agreed to see him again? He was so not her type, and judging from the women on his grid, she wasn’t his. He liked them sleek and busty with tanned skin and eyelash extensions. Professional hot girls. Exactly the kind of chicks who dated football players.

She hadn’t looked at herself in the mirror yet, but she was pretty sure she looked like run-over garbage. She scrubbed up okay, but she belonged to the night. To chips and cigarette smoke and unwashed clothes.

Willow was apple pie. No, more nutritious. One of those smoothie bowls posh cafés shilled. Overnight oats and stewed fruit and raw nuts. That was Sloan Williams. He probably wanted to get married and have babies and go on group holidays to the Whitsunday Islands.

“We could hire a catamaran,” Eden said to her empty bedroom. “It’s cheaper this time of year.”

She Googled his age. The search results said he was thirty-three. She gave a low whistle. Mid-thirties wouldn’t register on Cheryl’s scale, but it was pretty grown up. Eight years older than her. Where would she be when she was thirty-three? Living in Germany, maybe. Producing, if she wasn’t still actively performing. And Willow? He’d have married a hot girl, had four kids and be hosting a TV show where he wrestled emus or some other manly Australian thing. She lay back and closed her eyes. So that was it. It would never work. Even if she wanted a boyfriend, she wasn’t in the market for a healthy meal. She lived in a filthy shoe box and spent her money on poppers and electric blue cocktails. Still, if he came to her show tonight, they could hang out one more time and he could kiss her again. All slow like melting glass.

Her phone buzzed.