‘You shut down and go to ground instead of sharing it with your girlfriend?’

‘Yes. I know it’s not ideal. Please come inside, Anita.’

She shook her head. ‘You seemed perfect. But of course—I mean, of course everyone has flaws.’

‘Yeah. I’m definitely not perfect.’

‘And this—what I’m seeing now—is this your main flaw? You clam up and won’t engage if you feel bad about something?’

He nodded.

‘I guess that’s not so bad,’ Anita said. ‘Plus you admit this flaw and you’ll talk about it, so it’s not even that bad.’

Rohan shrugged. ‘That’s not for me to say.’

‘I’m saying that if this is the worst thing I can expect from you, it’s pretty tolerable as flaws go.’

‘Well, okay. Good. Great.’

‘But as long as you know that I can spin myself up into an anxious hissy-fit if I imagine someone—for example, you—is thinking something bad about me and they won’t say it.’

‘I get that,’ he said. ‘And I’m sorry for contributing to any anxiety.’

‘So your clamming-up thing with my paranoid thing—that’s not a good mix.’

‘No. But I think we can handle it. Would you like to come inside?’

‘Yes, I would like to come inside.’

When they walked down the little hallway into the living room, Rohan reached to put his arms around Anita but she took a step back.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘You don’t want me to touch you?’

‘Not quite yet. Not while I’m still upset about the things I imagined you were doing—for example, laughing about me with your new girlfriend.’

‘Which I wasn’t doing. And there is no new girlfriend.’

‘Right. But it’s like when someone is horrible to you in a dream and you still feel cranky about it when you wake up. The imaginary feelings need time to settle. Like a cooling pond in a nuclear reactor.’

‘A cooling pond in a nuclear reactor.’ Rohan pulled his mouth down to fight off a smile.

‘Yes,’ said Anita, but she couldn’t stop herself grinning. ‘There’s a requisite period of decontamination.’

‘Oh, is there?’

And then they both spluttered into laughter, much more laughter than the moment warranted, releasing a little of the tension that had built up in the last weeks and the weeks before that.

The sex that night was good. They were slightly more self-conscious and courteous with each other than usual, but it was still better than the sex Anita had ever had with anyone else.