He’s now standing unnaturally straight with only his boxers on, and I reckon it’s my turn to make the next move.

I want to touch him, but I’m anxious that I won’t remember what to do and where to put all of my limbs. It’s been a while. I’m in uncharted territory and I’m unsure what to do.

I move towards him and place my hands on his upper chest.

He inhales sharply. ‘Your hands are bloody freezing.’

‘Oh, sorry,’ I say, and make to move them away. Someone more practised would have thought about this.

‘No matter. I can help warm them up.’

I laugh internally (and a little externally). Whether he meant to or not, he just made a boiler-man joke.

For the most part, there is a lack of awkwardness. Sure, there is the occasional tooth-bump, general clumsiness getting on to the bed, inevitable confusion over where exactly all our limbs should go, and hair getting pulled out of my scalp whenever we change position, but it’s nothing I can’t handle, or artlessly ignore. That is, until he decided to growl like an actual lion and slap my arse. At this juncture I froze.

But all in all, a solid seven out of ten. OK, maybe a five, but still encouraging for a first go.

And now he’s snoring next to me in bed. I move a bit to test how fast asleep he is; he doesn’t stir at all so I get up and put my nightgown on before clambering back into bed.

For a while I simply stare at his face. I don’t know how I’ll feel tomorrow morning, but right now I am kinda proud of myself. The memory of the slap and growl is making me blush, but it doesn’t detract from the fact that I had sex with the hot boiler guy with great cheekbones. And I think he had a good time.

But it is odd having another human here. It feels like a faux-friendly invasion. I know I won’t sleep well. I’m not used to sharing my bed. I sigh and turn away from him and all of his cheekbones; at least this way if he wakes up he’ll see the back of my head, not my drooling face. His snoring has become uncomfortably loud, but I don’t prod him or poke him. Instead I pull the cover over my ears in an effort to drown out the sound, close my eyes and try to sleep.

CHAPTER 20

Thankfully Colin left early, and there was only a limited amount of weirdness in the morning – totally due to the fact I pretended to still be (beautifully) half asleep when he left. In truth I had been awake for at least an hour.

Finally feeling like I can face myself in the mirror, I get out of bed and assess the situation. I am happy to report that there is limited damage. There is a slight aroma of fried food, and some grease marks from the chicken on the coffee table/footstool/craft bench, but apart from that, my apartment appears to have got off pretty lightly.