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Angela laughed, flicked on the bedside lamp, and yanked the duvet back over herself. ‘That’s a problem for you, not me.’

‘What?’

‘My fire alarm beeps, so I’m pretty sure that wailing is your lovely little parrot doing a very good impression of someone else’s alarm.’

‘Oh crap.’ He caught her eyes. ‘Sorry. I just realised I’m going to have to get my flat soundproofed, aren’t I?’

‘Probably.’ She laughed, trying not to think about how expensive a task that would be, and gave him a shove. ‘Go on, go and sort your Chicken-butt out.’

‘I thought you didn’t like me calling her that?’ He yanked on his jeans.

‘It’s barely light. She’s definitely not being marshmallow-sweet right now.’

‘That’s true.’ He leaned down to brush a quick kiss against her lips, which made her tingle, and winced as the wailing stepped up a notch. ‘All right Chicken-butt, I’m coming. Try a little patience.’

Angela grabbed the pillow he’d slept on, and pulled it over her ears. It smelled of Ri . . . Ryan, and she inhaled deeply, then hugged the pillow to her, thinking. The caterwauling had stopped so quickly that she guessed Mallow had shut up as soon as she’d spotted him. As annoying as it was to be woken at ugly-o’clock in the morning, Angela couldn’t really blame the little cockatoo. She’d obviously had some fairly awful experiences in her life, and if Ryan made her feel safer, she couldn’t really resent her that. Especially when she’d so recently learned how good being the centre of his attention could be.

He walked back into her room a couple of minutes later, shaking his head. ‘Silly thing had managed to knock over her water bowl. The way she dived in it, you’d have thought she’d been dehydrated for days, not a couple of hours. Little diva bird I’ve found myself there.’

‘Yeah, but she’s cute most of the time.’ Angela sat up, still snuggling the covers against herself.

‘So what do we do now, Angela?’

‘About what?’

‘This.’ He gestured between them. ‘Us. How do you want to handle this? Do you want me to gather up the rest of my clothes and the diva-brat, and on Monday we pretend this didn’t happen? Or do I go downstairs and make you tea and breakfast?’

She had a few ideas herself, but couldn’t resist the impish urge to tease. ‘Well, I did just get woken up by your feathered alarm clock.’

‘You did.’ He smiled as he watched her. ‘Probably something I should apologise for.’

‘Definitely.’ She folded her arms across the duvet. ‘And I really am not a person who likes being woken up.’

‘So I’ve got a lot of “making up” to do?’

‘Absolutely.’ She tried not to grin. ‘A huge amount.’

‘Probably going to take me ages then. Hours.’ She tried not to shiver at the promise in his voice as he grabbed the end of the duvet and started to pull. She fought for a few seconds, a ridiculous game of tug-of-war she didn’t even really want to win, and tried not to laugh as she lost.

‘That’s better.’ He gathered her up in his arms, making her squeal as his cold hands hit her warm skin.

* * *

‘So, this whole Rick-slash-Ryan thing, what am I supposed to call you?’ Angela asked while chewing the sausage and mushroom sandwich he’d made for them both. He’d struggled a bit with the idea of vegetarian “sausages”, and they’d looked really quite weird when he’d poured them out of the box from the freezer, but they’d cooked up pretty well and were surprisingly tasty.

‘For the last few years, pretty much everyone has called me Maverick or Rick. I adopted the persona nearly ten years ago, but it’s really taken off more recently.’

‘Doesn’t answer my question.’ She watched him over the top of her sandwich.

‘Sorry, I guess I’m trying to figure it out myself.’

‘Fair enough.’ She shrugged and went back to her breakfast. ‘But let me know when you’ve figured out what you prefer me to use, otherwise I might have to resort to “Oi”!’

He watched her in surprise, unable to help thinking how different it would have been if he’d said similar to Yvette. She would have nagged, pushed and badgered at him for an answer, unable to accept that there was anything in his head he wasn’t willing to share. He shook his head irritably, not wanting to give Yvette any space in his thoughts, especially when he was sat opposite Angela, whose hair was still tousled from his fingers.

She shoved the last of her sandwich into her mouth and sat back with her tea. Another hugely refreshing difference to someone who barely ate and would lecture him on the evils of carbs.

‘What? Do I have sauce on my face or something?’ She wiped her mouth.