Reversing Over Liberace by Jane Lovering

weekend.”
    â€œWas he any good?”
    I thought. “Oh, Katie, he was fabulous .”
    â€œLucky cow. And you got the Lake District. I only got a Saturday night in Blackpool out of Dan.”
    â€œCould have been worse.” I got up to boil the kettle again. “Could have been Bognor.”
    â€œYeah, but I came back pregnant with twins.” Katie sighed and stood up. “Better get on with what we laughingly call ‘work’ then.” She walked to the door and stopped. “Will, can I be nosy?”
    â€œWhy break the habit of a lifetime?”
    â€œNo, it’s…what is it with you and Luke? Is it a casual thing, or something else? Are you falling for him?”
    I gave a rather superficial smile. “Why the interest? I’ve only known the man a couple of weeks.”
    â€œJust wondering whether I should be buying a hat or a huge stack of Kleenex, that’s all. Do you want it to be a relationship? Because if you do, then it’s about time you did a bit of talking, Will. If he finds out that you’ve been sitting on all this cash and not saying a word about it, it might give him the wrong impression about you, don’t you think?”
    After Katie had gone out and I’d put the phone back, I thought about what she’d said. Not about the talking part, talking could wait as far as I was concerned, but the falling-in-love part. Was I falling for Luke Fry? Casually, I let the memory of him wash through my mind. An image of him sitting on the grass as we picnicked, head thrown back as he laughed at my impersonation of a duck, shirt slightly untucked, collar open to show golden skin.
    Phew. I fanned at my face until the hot blush receded. So there was no doubt I was in lust with the man, but love? Did I love him? Could I love him? Was I even capable of loving someone? After all, with my little—well, we decided we’d call it my little problem, didn’t we?—I’d not had a lot of practice at loving men. I loved my parents, wherever they were, and my siblings—sort of. As long as they didn’t interfere, or patronise me, or poke holes in my posters of Duran Duran, the bastards. But falling in love with a man was something else entirely, territory not exactly uncharted, but one with a map drawn on the back of a Mills & Boon cover in purple crayon.
    I walked from work to Cal’s to pick up the laptop. At last the sky was the pure blue of a boiled sweet. Tulip and daffodil stems were pregnant with blooms and birds were beginning the annual round of gang warfare in the hedges, so my step was jaunty as I bounced my way up to the flat and leaned on the doorbell.
    Cal must have been waiting, because the door swung inwards as soon as I rang. “Hey, Willow, good to see you.”
    â€œHi.” I went in. “Is Ash not here then?”
    For a second his face clouded. “No, not at the moment. Come on through. Hungry? I just made a mushroom stroganoff. Yeah, it looks like puke on a plate but, hell, it tastes good.”
    â€œSounds great. Yes, I’d love some, thanks, Cal.” I hadn’t intended to stay. I was going to grab the laptop, maybe have a cup of tea and rush off home for an early night to try to refill some of the bags under my eyes. But there was something about the combination of the sun slanting in through the long windows, the creamy smell of cooking and the general air of stillness in the flat that made me think “sod it”. “Ash has been a bit weird lately. Did you and he have a tiff or something?”
    Cal paused, mid-stride. “You’ll have to ask Ash, okay?”
    â€œIf you say so. I usually avoid asking Ash anything.” I looked out of the window, for some reason struggling for something to say. “It’s a beautiful evening.”
    â€œThank you.” Cal gave me a mischievous half-smile. “Do you have any idea how hard it is winching the sun into that