She needs to let off steam, or she’ll crack. Wine and coke are not the optimal release here. I know what is, but I can’t go there. Not crossing that line. Even though as she is right now—her hair messy, her eyes wide, her cheeks flushed—she’s eminently fuckable.

I glance at the pillow on the floor. Then with a grin, I pick it up and brandish it.

“What are you doing?” she asks, voice shaky.

“Pick up your other pillow and prepare to defend yourself.”

“What?”

“Pillow fight,” I say.

“Are you fucking insane?” she spits.

“No, but you’re on the edge of it. Trust me, okay?” I jerk my head at her pillow. “Pick it up.”

She does so, reticently.

“Now, whoever or whatever it is that has you so strung out, imagine I’m it. Come at me.”

She shuffles to the bottom of the bed and gives a half-hearted swing of the pillow.

I laugh. “Oh, come on. I felt that slap; you’re capable of a lot more fire than this. Go for it.” I lower my voice. “Let it out. No judgment. Go for it.”

She surprises me when she screams again and then leaps off the bed and runs at me, swinging the pillow around her like a club.

I raise my own and parry her hits, but she keeps coming. I let her get some in, knowing she needs to get it out. Then I whack her on the back, and she responds with an ow, but her face is already lighter.

She retreats as I get in three, four blows, and then she gets me good on the side of the head. I pretend to stagger back, and she comes at me, hitting me repeatedly as I retreat.

“Do you surrender?” she demands.

“Never,” I say.

She hits me again and again, getting me in the side. She’s giggling now as she does so, and her face is so much brighter.

I’m so distracted by how different she looks, I put my guard down for real, and she knocks the pillow out of my hand with a triumphant whoop.

“I won,” she shouts as she jumps up and down.

“I demand a rematch tomorrow, for my honor.”

Her laughter slows, but her entire body language has changed. She’s relaxed now, not tense and uptight.

“I’ll kick your arse again,” she says.

I love the way she says arse, not ass.

We are both still laughing on and off as we place the pillows on her bed.

She flops down on the duvet and stares at the ceiling. “Sorry I slapped you; it’s been a shitty few weeks.”

“That’s okay.”

“Can I have my phone back?” she asks.

My silence stretches into the room, deflating the fun atmosphere.