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Chapter 3

I open the front door to a delicious smell of coriander and spices. I breathe it in and feel some of the tension slip from my shoulders. Louisa's suitcase is lying open in the corridor, colourful chiffon spilling over onto the parquet. I have trained myself to ignore her mess. When it gets too much I escape to my own room. I wasn't always tidy, but the busyness of my online life has made me crave order everywhere else.

In the kitchen I find her leaning over a steaming frying pan, stirring a creamy yellow concoction with a wooden spatula. It's some sort of delicious Thai curry. She looks up, her eyes clearing before letting out a shriek of delight.

"Yes! You're here! I was worried you'd be working late."

She swings her non-spatula arm around me and squeezes. She smells of coco butter and sunshine. I pull back to get a look at her post-holiday glow. Her skin is golden brown and her blonde hair has white lights bleached into it.

"You look gorgeous."

'Thanks! I feel it!"

She's wearing a turquoise t-shirt and chunky wooden beads which rest on the swell of her cleavage. Louisa is very proud of her cleavage. I've heard her say a million times she would never go on a diet in case it shrank. These announcements are usually followed by a sympathetic glance at my chest, which, if pushed between the right kind of wrench could also manage a perfectly decent cleavage.

Louisa is the only one who calls me Legs. Not long legs or white legs or skinny legs (which they are), just Legs. My slim physique is part genes and part due to the fact that when I'm busy or worried I don't have much of an appetite. Because I've been anticipating the launch of the Platinum Package, I've been busier and more worried than usual. It's not something I've admitted to my flat mate although she's obviously noticed. Next time I'm working late I'll make an excuse. I'll tell her I'm having a drink with friends.

Louisa doesn't want my legs, and neither does she drool over my long red hair like Clare does. Not even now that I've finally nailed the bouncy curls at the ends look. I tried curling tongs first, then normal rollers, heated rollers; now I just leave hairbrushes hanging from my hair in the morning. Blondes have more fun! says the sign above Louisa's mirror. She believes it as if it were a scientific fact. But red heads know, that while blondes may have more fun, we are more fun. At least, I used to be more fun, and will be more fun again, once I've got on top of my workload.

"If you'd told me it was so sunny here I wouldn't have been so depressed about coming back," she says.

Has it been sunny? I hadn't even noticed. Craig had dropped in another client file as I'd been considering taking my cafeteria bought sandwich outside. In the end I'd stayed at my desk, dropping crumbs over the bullet points. Only now I notice how warm the weather is. The watery evening light filters in through the kitchen window, summoning memories of past summers.

"We have to organise some picnics," she says, turning back to the curry. "And barbeques and we've got to go to Brighton and actually swim this time, even if it's freezing."

"Yeah, definitely. I can't wait."

This isn't entirely true. I wouldn't mind putting summer on hold for just one more month. I just need a bit more time to research my new clients so their voices come naturally to me and I'm not over-thinking everything I do.

"I think we're going to have a brilliant summer this year," Louisa says brightly. "We deserve it after all that pissing rain."

She throws a few chopped peppers into the mix and I spot an opportunity and take out my phone.