My phone was almost always in my pocket, not because I had anything to hide but just because. The only time my phone wasn’t on me was when I was asleep or when it was plugged in recharging, but then it was locked.

So, Matty checked my phone. I could change the passcode – but then, what if he asked me, why have you changed your passcode? Wouldn’t it imply I had something to hide? And the truth was, I didn’t have anything to hide, so if he really needed to check my texts, then wasn’t it best just to let him? Wasn’t that the best way to reassure him, rather than act as though I were guilty of something when I wasn’t?

I couldn’t help smiling to myself, as I slipped my phone back into my coat pocket and strode to work – it was cold and windy that day and the breeze slapped my hair across my face every few minutes. I should have worn a hat. Matty: who would have thought a man so outwardly confident and charming could be so insecure in secret? I thought of how keen he had been to meet my parents, meet my friends – how he always wanted to know when I would be back and how I would get home whenever I went anywhere without him, even in daylight. We’d talked about his past girlfriends a bit – in his twenties there had been one called Lorna who he’d been really in love with, apparently, who had left him for his best friend or something. All that confidence: all that need. He never told me he loved me and we had both studiously avoided the subject of marriage or children, it was far too early for all that – and yet, he wanted to know everything about me. He was keener on me than he would ever admit to himself, I concluded. It was really quite cute, wasn’t it? There was no point in raising it with him – but maybe I’d be a bit more careful about what I texted to people in the future.

*

That weekend, on the Saturday morning, I woke before him. We usually had sex on Saturdays, followed by breakfast together, like most couples I suppose. I lay still for a while, waiting for him to stir, but the quality of his breathing told me he was sound asleep. It had been hot overnight and I felt sticky, my hair needed washing, so I slipped from the bed and went to the bathroom.

The shower was just a fitting over the bath with a thick, translucent curtain decorated with goldfish. The other thing I longed for, apart from built-in wardrobes, was a proper shower cubicle, or a wet room, even though I wasn’t all that sure what a wet room was.