‘You’re so lucky,’ I grumbled, looking back up at the bright blue sky. ‘I wish I were pregnant.’

‘No, you don’t,’ she replied. ‘Have you ever had haemorrhoids?’

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. I was still suffering from my roller skating injuries and they were quite uncomfortable enough.

‘Time for more tea,’ I said, grabbing the teapot and ignoring her wicked laugh. ‘You stay there.’

She waved me off into her kitchen, staring contentedly out at her patch of the world while I fished around in different jars and tins for teabags.

It really was a lovely house, I thought, admiring the neat paintwork, the carefully restored radiators, the stripped wooden flooring. Lucy had always been good at making things beautiful. Where were all her things? I wondered, hunting for invisible clutter. The contents of my handbag spilled out onto her butcher’s block table, receipts and lip balms and pages from notebooks and random flyers I’d accepted out of politeness. Lucy projected nothing but serenity whereas I took my own personal brand of chaos with me everywhere I went.

What would mine and Patrick’s home look like? His flat was so him, his personality indelibly stamped on every surface. I hadn’t decorated my flat in DC, never quite sure how long I was staying, and the main style reference for my room in our shared house before that was ‘I bought it at Ikea like everyone else’. Maybe we wouldn’t stay in London. Maybe we’d travel before we settled down. Either way, I was happy for him to take the lead on the decorating. Or maybe I could ask John who had designed that upstairs room in the bar. As much as I hated the pretentious steampunk, Insta-friendly downstairs, upstairs was beautiful, a perfect balance of classic and contemporary, masculine and feminine. I wondered if his wife had done the decorating or if they’d used a professional. Or maybe he’d done it himself. I really had no way of knowing.

Running the teapot under the tap, I thought back to our conversation last night. A crossword puzzle with the wrong clues. What was that supposed to mean?

‘Not that it matters,’ I said out loud over the singing teapot.

‘What did you say?’ Lucy called back, twisting as far as she could in her seat. ‘I zoned out for a minute. Baby brain.’

‘It’s nothing,’ I replied, smiling back at her and wiping the thought of John from my mind. ‘Absolutely nothing at all.’

CHAPTER TWENTY