Strictly Love

‘Of course,’ said Emily, ‘I never thought for a moment it was.’ She ignored the voice in her head shouting Liar! at a thousand decibels.

‘Good,’ said Mark. ‘Then that's settled. What are you up to at the weekend?’

Emily thought ahead. Without Callum to distract her, or some big do of Ffion's to attend, the time stretched out before her without end. A weekend watching Green Wing with Mark – especially with Mark – might be just the thing.

‘Nothing much,’ she said.

‘Good,’ said Mark. It was Sam's weekend with the kids. ‘How about we kick off around two, then if you have something more exciting to do later, you'll still have time.’

‘Sounds great,’ Emily said. She lifted her glass. ‘To dancing like no one's looking.’

‘I thought you'd lost the plot when you started colour-coding my socks, but you're hoovering now?’

Charlie stood incredulously in the doorway with his suitcase. He was flying to Amsterdam that morning and seemed very bad-tempered about it. Katie had been up since five with the baby, and had decided, once Molly had finally gone back to sleep, that she might as well get the lounge cleaned while she was up. There would be precious little time later once the full onslaught of the day hit. But she hadn't factored in Charlie's bad temper, or thought very much about the fact that their bedroom was above the lounge.

‘Sorry,’ said Katie, feeling simultaneous twinges of guilt and resentment – her rejoinders of if you were here more, if you helped out more, were immediately cancelled out by, who would pay for the house? One of her mum's tricks had been to nag and nag and nag at her dad. Katie had always sworn she would never do that.

‘Do you want a coffee before you go?’ Katie asked, going for placation.

Charlie glanced at his watch.

‘It's okay, the taxi will be here in a minute. I'll grab one at the airport.’

‘Have you said goodbye to the boys?’

‘They're still asleep.’ Charlie was fiddling with a fridge magnet that bore the legend: Hysteria is a state of mind. It has nothing to do with my womb. He seemed very restless for some reason, and fidgety. Katie was feeling more than a little irritated. His evident annoyance at her cleaning had stopped her doing it, but now he wouldn't even sit down and talk to her. It was almost as though he couldn't look her in the eye.

‘You got ants in your pants?’ Katie enquired.

‘Why would you say that?’ Charlie looked like a startled rabbit caught in headlights.

‘Because you've been pacing up and down the kitchen for the last five minutes. Are you sure you don't want a coffee?’

‘Have I?’ Charlie said. ‘Sorry. I'm a bit distracted. What with this deal and everything.’

‘Of course,’ said Katie. It was understandable that he should be feeling wound up. She went over and gave him a hug. ‘It will be all right,’ she said.

‘I don't deserve you,’ he replied, kissing her lightly on the cheek.

Charlie continued to wander restlessly round the kitchen, picking up bits of paper and idly sifting through them, clicking a pen off and on incessantly. It was almost as if he was trying to work himself up to say something to her.

‘This is hopeless,’ he burst out suddenly. ‘Katie, there's something I need to tell you –’

A beep from the front of the house indicated the taxi had arrived.

Katie looked at Charlie expectantly. There was a look of raw pain in his eyes, and he was trembling.

‘Charlie, whatever's wrong?’ she asked, genuinely worried now.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing. I'm just wound up about this deal. Taxi's here, I'd better go.’

‘Oh,’ said Katie. ‘Well, if you're sure you're okay?’

‘I'm fine,’ he said, ‘I'll see you on Sunday.’

‘Be good,’ she said, going to kiss him on the lips.

‘When aren't I?’ It was said lightly, but she detected a faint look of strain in his eyes, and he turned away from her so her lips brushed his cheek instead. There was definitely something wrong. She felt sure of it. She watched him go off in the cab with a heavy heart. He looked lost and lonely sitting there. And she had the oddest feeling that nothing she could do was going to help him.

‘So when's she coming then?’ Rob was lounging on the sofa laughing like crazy as Mark frantically tried to remove all evidence of his children from the lounge.

‘In about ten minutes,’ said Mark. ‘So could you please pass me the Sims game, which I know is hiding under your cushion, because that's Beth's favourite place to lose it.’

Rob whistled as he sat up and felt behind him, dragging out a plastic computer game and handing it to Mark.

‘You're really not going to tell her about the kids?’

‘You were the one who said I shouldn't,’ said Mark.

‘I know, but … it's going to be a bit hard to hide them from her if this cosy DVD thing becomes regular.’

‘You didn't hear her going on about children. If she thinks I've got some, she'll never look at me twice.’

‘So you do like her?’ Rob could barely contain his delight. ‘I knew it. I knew I could get you over Sam.’

‘I'm not, as you put it, necessarily over Sam,’ said Mark, ‘but let's just say that meeting Emily has made me see I can keep my options open.’

‘So long as you don't tell her you have children,’ added Rob.

‘There is that, of course,’ said Mark, suddenly spotting a pair of Gemma's shoes in the corner. Honestly. It wasn't even as if the kids were with him all the time. How on earth did they manage to leave all their junk behind? He grabbed the shoes and shoved them in the kids' bedroom, slamming the door firmly shut. He toyed with locking it and then thought, no, that's paranoid. He flitted quickly into the bathroom to check that it was devoid of teen paraphernalia, but luckily, as Gemma could never go anywhere without a complete grooming kit, she tended to carry everything she needed with her.

Mark felt vaguely guilty about the subterfuge. He loved his kids, and didn't want anyone to think he was ashamed of them. But Emily was the first woman he'd been attracted to since Sam. And she had been so adamant about disliking kids, he didn't want to scupper his chances before they'd even got going. There'd be time enough to tell her the truth later. Chances were she wasn't the slightest bit interested anyway …

Emily stood on Mark's doorstep feeling incredibly stupid. It had seemed natural to say earlier in the week that she would come and watch a TV programme with him, but now it seemed a little odd. She liked him, certainly, and he had occupied rather a lot of her thoughts in the last few days, but apart from the fact they were both crap dancers and they liked Green Wing, what exactly did she know about him? He might be a serial killer or something. Right.

Rob answered the door. Which reassured her. At least she wouldn't be alone with Mark. But as she followed him into the lounge, she had a sudden panicky thought. Oh God, suppose they were into threesomes or something. Had she just walked into the lion's den?