Chapter Twenty-Four
When Piper woke up she had no idea where she was. The room was pitch dark and totally silent and she blinked up at the ceiling for a second before remembering: Rob. She was at Rob’s flat. In Rob’s bedroom. In Rob’s bed. She rolled onto her side, expecting to find him there, fast asleep, but the other side of the bed was empty, the duvet flapped open like a book.
She reached for her phone and squinted at the brightness. Four a.m. Maybe he’d just gone to the loo. Or maybe she’d been snoring or – god – farting, and he’d gone to sleep on the sofa or in the spare room, if he even had a spare room. She swung her legs out of the bed and tiptoed through to the living room, but there was no sign of him.
The only light in the room was coming from the cooker hood.
‘Rob?’ she whispered. She didn’t like the way her voice sounded in the empty flat. Her stomach started to flutter with nerves. Where the fuck could he be? At four in the morning?
She pulled the curtain back a little and looked out onto the prom. There was no one around, of course. Apart from the water on the river and the occasional seagull, everything was still. Should she phone him? It made no sense that he wasn’t here. Maybe there’d been an emergency and he’d had to go, but wouldn’t he have left a note?
Pulling the curtain closed again, she checked the bathroom and then the en suite, but both were dark and empty. By the time she climbed back into bed, she was trembling, both with cold and with fear.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been lying there when she heard the front door and then the sound of the shower in the other bathroom.
Why the fuck was he showering? She sat up in bed, leaning back against the pillows. Rob’s pillows. She reached for her phone again. It was five now. And Rob was showering. He couldn’t have sneaked out to see someone else, surely. That would be mad. But where else could he have gone and why would he need to shower at five a.m.?
Only a couple of minutes later, Rob opened the bedroom door and startled at the sight of Piper, sitting up and staring back at him.
‘Shit.’ He was naked apart from a towel around his waist. ‘Why are you up?’
‘Where have you been?’ Piper said. She’d hoped to hide the panic in her voice, but knew instantly that she’d failed entirely.
‘God, sorry,’ he said, coming to sit on the bed next to her. ‘I didn’t think you’d wake up. I’ve been for a run.’
‘At four in the morning?!’
‘Yeah. I don’t sleep all that well. I get to sleep, but then I wake up and my mind starts racing and that’s it for me. So I started getting up to run and when I get back I can usually get another hour or two of sleep. I would’ve told you, but I didn’t think you’d wake up.’
Piper shook her head. ‘I freaked out a bit.’
‘Fuck,’ Rob said. ‘I’m sorry.’ He clasped her ankle under the duvet.
‘No, it’s okay, it’s not your fault. I just don’t do very well with people...’ She swallowed and her throat burned with it. ‘Disappearing.’
‘Shit,’ Rob said, crawling up the bed and sliding an arm around her. ‘That’s… Yeah, I’m sorry. I didn’t even think about it.’ He kissed her temple. ‘Are you okay?’
Piper nodded. ‘Better now you’re back, yeah.’
‘Did you undress me?’ Piper asked. ‘The night of the reunion?’
They were still in Rob’s bed. Neither of them had gone back to sleep. Instead they’d kissed and talked and fucked, and Piper felt boneless, more relaxed than she’d been for as long as she could remember, aching in the best way.
Rob laughed and Piper turned her head, where it was resting on his chest, to look up at him.
‘What?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I wanted to tell you that morning – I didn’t want you thinking I’d done it, but I didn’t want you worrying about it either. You said you were shame-spiralling.’
‘Oh god.’
‘Yeah. We got back and you said there was something on the neck that was scratching you. A label, I think? And so you took it off.’
Piper turned her head again, pressing her forehead into his shoulder. ‘Oh my god.’
‘Didn’t even make it to the bedroom. Right there in the lounge.’
‘Oh god!’ Piper said again.
Rob squeezed her, his arm around her back.
‘I couldn’t believe my luck. I mean, I knew nothing was going to happen, cos you were…’ He sang the next word. ‘Hammered! But you stood in the middle of the room, in this amazing underwear, with your hands on your hips. You said it was—’
‘Power Pose,’ Piper mumbled into his neck.
He laughed again. ‘That’s it, I couldn’t remember. You sang a bit of the Wonder Woman theme too.’
‘Oh god, please stop talking. I’m so sorry I asked.’
‘Are the words really something about tights?’
‘Satin tights,’ Piper said. ‘Rhymes with “rights”.’
‘Fucking hell.’
‘I know. It’s amazing.’
‘You were amazing,’ Rob said, kissing her head. ‘You were so cute. And really fucking hot.’