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Adriana throws her head back into his chest and laughs. She feels like she’s floating.

‘I’ll make you another one,’ Jacob offers, getting up and stretching, topless but still in his pyjama trousers, which Adriana has to admit, she finds strangely sexy for something so dweeby.

‘I’ll help,’ Adriana stretches too.

‘Like how you “helped” with the crossword?’ Jacob raises an eyebrow, but then he surprises her by holding out a hand to help her out of bed – scooping her up before putting her feet on the floor.

Adriana giggles and puts on Jacob’s pyjama shirt, buttoning it half up. It’s like a shirt dress on her and she hopes she looks as cute as she feels in it.

‘Do you have any boxers I could borrow?’ she asks, not because she needs them, but because she wants them, and she suspects Jacob will find it hot too.

Jacob rolls his eyes and opens a draw in his walk-in wardrobe, throwing her a pair of blue cotton boxers that probably cost as much as her fanciest lingerie. He takes her in.

‘You look insanely good like that,’ he says, and kisses her again. Then he gestures for her to lead the way to the kitchen so that he can watch her walk ahead and admire how good she looks.

Adriana remembers Jacob’s open plan kitchen from her first visit, but this time, it strikes her differently.

Amidst the tall shining surfaces of the sleek kitchen, she searches for the traces of him amidst the reproduced luxury.

The choices of fresh fruit in the bowl – pineapple, kiwis, passionfruit, pomegranate – and the bold red coffee machine.

An eye-catching oddity in the kitchen is a teapot in a bobbly knitted cosy in clashing colours which looks like it would be more in keeping at Adriana’s own flat than Jacob’s.

‘My grandma knitted it,’ explains Jacob, seeing what’s caught her attention. ‘She’s been knitting for five decades, I didn’t have the heart to tell her it’s hideous.’

They both smile. Then Adriana looks through into the living room.

The most noticeable thing about the room is the tall glass windows looking out onto the water, so that you barely notice the room is practically empty.

With its brown leather sofa and low glass coffee table, it’s tasteful and sophisticated – but characterless.

It feels like a house not a home, the place of someone who only moved a few weeks ago and hasn’t spent much time in it.

Piles of unpacked boxes, neatly stacked in the corner so that they’re out of the way, until they’re ready to be opened.

In fact, the only source of colour is bookshelves, which Adriana notices have been filled before anything else in the room, its chunky hardbacks and paperbacks neatly arranged.

Heading over to it she chuckles to herself.

‘What’s so funny?’ Jacob calls out from the kitchen, like his hearing is perfectly tuned to her every sound.

‘Was the first thing you unpacked when you arrived your books? And… they’re arranged alphabetically?’

‘Of course,’ he says. ‘How else would you recommend?’

She shakes her head, smiling as she traces her finger along their spines.

She hasn’t read a book in years, preferring to hear stories from the lively mouths of her friends in pubs and clubs, not written down in quiet black and white.

There’s a lot of intense business and economics non-fiction.

These look denser than she would ever want herself, and frankly she can barely make her way through some of their titles because they’re so long.

But there’s fiction there too, ones she recognises from some of her nerdy friend’s shelves – Bernadine Evaristo, Andrea Levy, Anne Enright.

Why is it that she, as someone who doesn’t like reading herself, finds it so attractive that he does?

‘Anything you want to borrow?’ he offers. ‘You’re welcome to, but I must warn you, anyone who borrows my books is not allowed to dog-ear any corners.’

‘Yeah, I have always wanted to read… Mathematics for Economics and Business Fifth Edition. ’

‘Ah yeah, that’s a good beach read that one,’ Jacob laughs. ‘Incredible plot twists. Turns out trickle down economics doesn’t work at all! Didn’t see that coming.’

Adriana skips back into the kitchen to find Jacob frothing milk for her mocha, the tendons in his bare arms flexing as he stirs it at a clearly practiced angle. How is she getting horny for someone because of the way he froths milk?

Adriana lifts herself up to sit on the corner of his kitchen island, kicking her feet.

‘So what do you have on today?’ Adriana asks him.

Jacob shrugs one shoulder, maintaining a firm look at the drink. He opens his mouth, then seems to change his mind.

‘Well…’ he goes quiet and looks away from her. ‘Honestly? Nothing. I’m free as a bird. But that– you don’t have to– I’m not expecting you to spend more time with me.’

‘Oh,’ Adriana pauses, feeling her heart drop.

She had just assumed they would spend more time together, that seemed to be the flow of the morning, but that was foolish of her.

He wants her to go, of course he does, maybe that’s why he’s been making her this coffee so that he feels less bad about throwing her out.

‘Unless,’ he says, his eyes still trained on the milk he’s pouring into her mug so he doesn’t have to face her. ‘Unless you wanted to? You have a couple of days off from training after your big win, right?’

He puts the mug in front of her, still trying to avoiding meeting her eye. He has made a dextrous floral shape on the top of her drink. A man of surprising talents. He finally glances at her.

Adriana feels flustered. It still feels like a dream, being here with Jacob, when she was so convinced just hours ago that he never wanted to speak to her again.

It feels like their relationship is still so delicate, hanging in the balance.

But she is starting to suspect they’re both playing a game of chicken, trying not to reveal how invested they are in the other.

Since their tipsy conversation last night, and all the ways Jacob is showing tenderness for her now, she realises his distant behaviour had just been self-preservation, and because it’s what he thought she wanted.

And that was fair enough – she had literally told him she would never see him again.

Adriana takes a sip, and moans in appreciation.

‘I would love to spend more time with you today, Jacob,’ she says. ‘I just have one rule.’

She can see it more clearly now, through his poker face. The way even his seemingly impassive face can fall.

‘Oh goodie,’ he sighs. ‘I do so love your rules.’

He tamps down the coffee granules on another coffee before pulling it hard back into his machine. Adriana keeps looking at him until he, almost as if against his better judgment, looks back at her.

‘My one rule is,’ she says, ‘please can we not talk about work?’

Jacob releases a breath, and snorts, shaking his head. He presses the button for the coffee. ‘Well, that depends. Please can you clarify what counts as work?’

Adriana counts it off on her fingers, hope rising in her chest. ‘No talking about football.’

‘Damn, I really wanted to mansplain the offside rule to you.’ He teases.

Adriana grins through continuing – ‘No talking about training, or our “business agreement’”.

Their smiles have become more serious now.

Jacob steps towards Adriana, still sat on the kitchen counter, stepping inside her dangling legs so that she automatically wraps herself around him again.

He touches the side of Adriana’s face softly.

There’s a tenderness in his frown which makes Adriana’s chest ache.

‘I just… It’s so…’ She takes a deep breath. ‘I feel so good right now, Jacob.’

He kisses her and runs his fingers through her hair and Adriana feels herself falling more.

‘Wait.’ She pulls back, eager to put her cards on the table so there are no more misunderstandings between them.

‘It feels like things have felt really awful between us the last few weeks,’ she continues in a rush, ‘and it was so, so nice last night, and so lovely to be able to just… hang out. Like two normal people, getting to know each other? Right? So I’m not saying let’s never talk about it again, but just please, not right now? Not today?’

‘But don’t you want to talk about–’

Adriana groans and feels her face fall into a pout.

Unexpectedly, Jacob barks laughing. Adriana blinks up at him, and he pinches her cheek, shaking his head.

‘Okay,’ he says. ‘I can’t say no to that face, it’s like kicking a puppy.’

Adriana feels the high of getting her way, like getting given seconds of a delicious meal when she thought the food was all already eaten.

‘I thought you’d love kicking puppies,’ she jokes.

‘I’ll leave the kicking expertise to you.’

‘Hey! No talking about work!’

He grins, mimes zipping his mouth. Adriana, playing along, mimes unzipping his lips with her own fingers.

His lips are surprisingly soft, and at her touch, he stops breathing.

Adriana lets the trace of her fingers slow, and then doubles back, at his lips parting at her touch so she puts her fingers in his mouth.

He sucks and pulls her close towards him.

Their kiss becomes more urgent, the heat between them rising again.

‘No, no,’ he says, pulling away, holding her hand to keep a distance between them. ‘We can’t have sex again, Adriana, not until we’ve both had some food. It’s not good for our blood sugar levels. You’re an athlete, we need to be looking after your body.’

Adriana feels as high as if she’d been having constant sugar all morning.

‘How would you like to top up your blood sugar then, Mr Astor?’

‘Well, you know, I am kind of craving honeycomb brownies…’

Adriana stares up at him.

‘Really? You wanna go back to Honey?’

Jacob looks nonchalant, shrugs. ‘If you want. I feel like we deserve a do-over after last time.’

Adriana squints at him. No, she realises, he’s just trying to look nonchalant.

‘You’re practically drooling!’ she squeals with delight. ‘I knew you were eyeing up my brownie before.’ She kisses him. ‘Let’s go. Oh, but… I only have my going out dress with me.’

Adriana looks at the really wonderfully skimpy dress scattered on the floor by the front door from where he unzipped it last night.

‘Well,’ he says, pointing at his own shirt on her. ‘You’ve already raided my wardrobe. Want to see if I have anything else you can wear outside the house?’

Adriana squeals with delight, and lets him lift her down from the counter and guide her to his bedroom, where she looks with a practiced eye over the rails of his wardrobe. Jacob doesn’t have many clothes, clearly prioritising quality over quantity.

‘I mean, do you think I can get away with wearing your boxers as shorts? It is the summer.’ She asks, after only finding suits. Then she pulls on a plain white cotton t-shirt of his, the simple style she remembers him wearing so gorgeously at their last visit to Honey.

She steps out and poses for Jacob, who is dutifully waiting by the door. He’s wearing belted caramel shorts and a white linen shirt with a navy baseball cap and sunglasses in his hand. Jacob seems unable to do anything less informal than ‘smart casual’, but he does look incredibly handsome.

‘Do you think this is indecent?’ she asks, of her own outfit.

Jacob’s eyes fly up, taking her in in his t-shirt and boxers.

‘Honestly, I do think it’s indecent,’ he says. ‘But only because it is… Well, you look very, very hot in my clothes. I don’t think anyone will complain, especially not me.’

She slips on her shoes. Thankfully, she made the decision to wear trainers to the club – better for dancing.

‘And it’s such a shame I don’t have any spare underwear with me,’ she says coquettishly. ‘I guess I’ll just have to go without any.’

Still not believing the turn her weekend has taken, Adriana skips off out of his front door. Jacob groans happily, and follows her.