However hard he tried to rationalise it, Nick couldn't rid himself entirely of a sense of disappointment. It was a stifling hot night, one of those where he didn't want the covers on, far too hot; dozing, then waking up suddenly to drag them across himself, then pushing them away, feeling the sweat beginning to form down his back under his T-shirt. He'd been managing to lie still for several minutes now, finding a bit of respite in a slightly cooler side of the pillow. His mind was teeming with thoughts and it was this more than the heat that was preventing him from finding sleep.

Although it had only happened a few days ago, Nick had replayed the scene over and over in his head so many times in the days since, and this night in particular, that it was becoming a bit hazy. He wondered if he'd been drunker than he'd thought. Remy's home brew had been spectacularly strong, but he had kept a watch over his own faculties just in case the man's plans had been to take him down by stealth, leaving Jess alone.

He remembered the whispered argument they'd had while Remy went to put on the relax music; about how for both of them the need to make their point was so important they were risking actually doing something incredibly intimate with…well…that guy. And the desperate, itching urge to shrug his landlord off his shoulders and as far away from himself and Jess as possible. It was like resisting sneezing. But he was determined that Jess was going to witness a monumental exhibition of people's willingness to take advantage. And of plain creepiness, that was for sure.

But then Remy had brought Nick and Jess closer together, and he'd found himself holding her by the elbows. He was conscious that he'd looked at Remy as long as possible, to put off the terrible moment when he'd have to look at her and take this any further. Or stop. And lose. Or stop, and try and attribute the prickling on his arms and the back of his neck entirely to embarrassment, and not to anything else…

His jaw had started to itch slightly under his evening stubble and he scratched idly, lying on his side. He'd recognised for a while now that Jess had been gradually crystallising into a focal point in his life, and for his emotions. He hadn't been able to settle on exactly what they were, or what they meant. He felt irritated by her contrasting perspective on life - that seemed to work so well for her. He felt very protective; and as much as he'd been trying to knock it down that day, he wasn't sure if he really wanted to protect her, Jess the person, from harm, or Jess the personality, from hurt and lowered expectation. He was certainly attracted to her. Most of all, he was aggravated by how easily, so very easily, she had drawn him and the other two to her, becoming as familiar as the flat; becoming synonymous with it. He didn't like the sense of interdependence she had produced between them, slipping straight through his guard. It was frightening. And he thought he'd learnt that lesson.

He'd been pouring all of that into the competition that day, about whether Remy was a "nice guy" or not. So when he'd closed in to kiss her, one hand determinedly behind her head, he hadn't expected the sudden intensity, the acute awareness of his own reactions. He'd been determined to do it; determined to win, and sure that he would. But as soon as he'd held her, noting how slim and petite her frame really was, fighting with her but dragging her closer at the same time, he'd felt goosebumps begin on his arms. He could feel her pulse in her elbow joint beneath his thumb. And when he'd moved quickly towards her, it was like being suddenly suffocated; by the scent of the perfume she'd been wearing especially to entertain the nice guy, the tickle of her hair, the warmth against his chest. He'd gotten close enough to just graze her mouth, taste by osmosis…

And as she'd flailed and pushed him away, he told himself firmly he'd known she would. Her sense of wholesomeness was far stronger than his own, and it had been tested to the limit. And yet he'd felt a sinking sense of disappointment that heavily tempered any sense of triumph over his Remy instincts.

Disappointment that she hadn't just been drawn in by the pull of…well, them….that had nearly overwhelmed him. Although he'd recognised the prevalence of the Jess-coloured threads at his centre, he felt like he'd been smacked across the head with the obviousness of what was going on there. And he felt a strong, lingering sense of loss and denial, similar to listening to a favourite song and having it shut off before hearing the chorus.

And then, yesterday, she'd been feeling so twirly that he'd had to pull her away from Schmidt's door…he felt bile rise in the back of his throat and turned back over to lie on his back. This was clearly the real sore point tonight. Since then he'd felt slightly awkward around Schmidt; his retorts to the usual banter delivered with an added sharpness, and he'd used the clean fluffy towel hanging up in the bathroom to dry the floor after he'd taken a shower without feeling any shame at all.

He was being unfair to Schmidt, he knew. But he couldn't scrub the image from his mind of Jess in her shorts, scattering condoms across the bed in what she would think (and actually was) a provocative way, while Schmidt looked on, wearing his kimono…

He sat up and rubbed his hands slowly across his face. Schmidt would never take advantage of Jess, but refusing something so openly offered was something else entirely. Nick wondered how he would have reacted, finding out in the morning; whether they would have tried to hide it, or talked openly about becoming someone the other could rely on whenever they felt twirly…

And he'd just thought the word twirly and meant what she meant it to mean without really thinking about it. Damn. That wasn't good. It was bad enough that the tunes she hummed under her breath seemed to stick in his head. She'd have to produce a dictionary soon for visitors and strangers to understand the language of the Loft; so easily adopted by the natives.

Surely, he should have been the one she'd think of first. Well, perhaps she had. Perhaps she'd remembered Julia, in a way he'd entirely forgotten about the other night, and what she'd think about the price of proving a point being to kiss, get naked, and do naughty things with another girl… He felt a burning sense of shame. Julia was great; interesting, attractive, successful. But she was brittle in a way that he struggled with, he knew. He was glad she was away for a week. Perhaps he might have worked out how to deal with his new understanding about Jess in that time. And what the hell to do about it.

Jess' presence in his life felt far more indelible. There was something so solid about her. The block colour of her hair; the bright print of her proper pyjamas; the black frames of her glasses. It all combined to make her world seem so real. He was ashamed of feeling, at a few years more her senior, that he had a much less secure grip on the world and his place in it. Thinking about it now, he realised even his damn clothes betrayed this sense of himself, with his faded T-shirts and "old-man" clothes, as she had called them. Perhaps that was what made it so easy for her to take him over; he was hazy, translucent, and unfocused, so she could stamp him all over with bright primary colours.

Just as he was considering giving up on sleep for a while and going to get a drink from the kitchen, there was a knock at his bedroom door. A gentle rat-tat-tat. Already knowing who it was, he sighed and got up to open it, scrubbing sweat from the back of his neck and rearranging his boxers. He opened the door, leaning on the doorframe with one arm.

"Jess, it's one in the morning." As he said this he tried unsuccessfully to suppress an almighty yawn.

She stood frozen at the door, her eyes fixed on something near his midriff. She was wearing bright blue pyjama shorts and a pink strappy top; the least amount of clothes he thought he'd seen her wear and yet still a comprehensive outfit somehow. Her hair was loose and down her back, and mussed up. She'd clearly been suffering in the mugginess too.

He realised she was staring at where his hand rested on his hip, possibly at the dreadful state of his T-shirt. Her eyes shifted suddenly upwards to his face, wide-eyed. "Hey, Nick," she said softly.

"Struggling to sleep in the heat too, Jess?" He asked.

"Er, yeah. Something like that. Can I…?" She gestured to the bed.

"Sure, if you don't mind the sweatiness." He half-smiled, and she perched herself delicately on the end of the bed, her legs drawn up beneath her.

He sat down too, a foot away further down the bed, and stared at his fingernails. He suspected there would have been a stronger sense of awkwardness, particularly from him with his concern that what had been on his mind the last couple of hours might betray him, but that tiredness was acting the way alcohol might in making this feel a bit unreal. After he had physically moved her from outside Schmidt's room yesterday, he'd deposited her inside her own door and practically stormed away. She'd gone out to work as usual in the morning and he hadn't seen her since, coming back a couple of hours ago from his shift at the bar. If he had, he reflected, he'd probably have tried to avoid her for a while anyway. He didn't know what was on her mind, but yesterday's events could hardly be avoided.

He heard her take a breath and looked up at her. She stared at her knees, and raised her right arm, ready to gesticulate. "I wanted to say, you know, that you're not really that repulsive."

"What?"

"Well, the other day, when we were menaging with Remy…"

"I don't think that's a real thing."

"Who, by the way, is still quite a nice guy who offered to come and fix the shower for me the other day…"

"Of course he did, Jess, how can you be…so….stupid! Probably while you were in it!" He realised he was standing in front of her now, hands on his hips.

She paused for a moment as if praying; sitting upright and cross-legged on the bed with her eyes closed, and then continued.

"Anyway, the other day, you know, when I pushed you away. It just wasn't the right time…" She paused with the arm held up delicately that she'd been using for emphasis, her eyes widening, finding his face. "The right…time…" she said again, staring up at him.

His eyes locked on to hers, and he felt his stomach burn. They stared at one another, and it was too long…too late. Too late to pretend that the meaning of what had just been said was lost, and long enough to slip into the parallel universe that had been running alongside them all along…

And several thoughts and pictures flickered through Nick's mind. Himself, saying, "This is happening. This is actually happening…right now, with this guy." And his incredulity really had not been intimacy generally, in this flat, with anyone already in it, with Jess, but that it should be intimacy desecrated by the presence of a stranger.

She looked away suddenly, cupping the elbow of her upraised arm in the other hand, and said haltingly,

"You know, for romance. With anyone. In front of a slightly odd stranger. Not for me."

He ran a hand through his hair. He hadn't imagined that look between them. He was sure of it. He was shaking slightly from adrenaline, overtiredness, and a dreadful squeezing inside his stomach. He knelt down in front of her, his hands on his knees in front of him, and he saw that she was shivering too.

"I don't think that's what you meant to say, Jess," he said softly. She continued to look away, but she was blinking quickly, and her mouth was open.

There was silence for perhaps twenty seconds. She moved both hands and placed them on her own knees, gripping them. It appeared to do nothing to stop them trembling.

He took a deep breath, and looked up at the ceiling. To hell with it.

"Do you mean there could be a right time?"

He reached out at the same time and touched her hand, placing his fingers round her wrist. He dragged his eyes down to look at his hand on hers, and she did the same. She raised her other hand, and stroked his index finger softly with her thumb.

"I don't know, Nick. I think…I think there could be." She raised her eyes and gazed directly at him. He felt a jolt of anticipation, warmth bubbling up from his belly. Unable to look away, he raised himself up on his knees, moving slowly towards her. She lunged forward suddenly and wrapped her arms round his neck, sitting astride his knees, her thighs either side of his.

She buried her face in his shoulder, her fingers stroking the hair at the base of his neck. Her neck was against his mouth, and he took a deep breath, feeling the suffocating sense of her, drawing it in this time. He was acutely aware of her thighs against his bare skin, and how she was pressing on him.

"Jess..." he whispered in her ear. Her ear was so delicate, perfect; his teeth were almost against it.

"Mmm?"

His hand was moving up the other side of her neck to draw her closer. He closed his eyes and breathed, "Me too."

She raised herself up from him and pushed herself an arm's length away, holding on to his elbows in a way that seemed very familiar now.

"But not now."

And although he knew why, as she did, he gripped her arms hard, as if to freeze them in place.

"We need a bit of space….you need to be sure. And Julia needs to know."

He closed his eyes and nodded.

"I could stay, if you like. But we'd have to make sure nothing happened."

He opened his eyes again and gazed into her earnest face. He felt a sudden rush of love, terrible love, well up inside, and almost laughed out loud. He stared at her in her skimpy clothing, still sat against his own state of ruffled undress, at the sheen of sweat on both of them, and he registered his own adrenaline and arousal.

"I think that might be a test too far," he muttered, suddenly hoarse, his energy draining away again with his decision as he stood up, picking her up with him. He opened the door and put her down across the threshold. His hands rested on her shoulders, unable to let go completely.

She hugged him suddenly, squeezing his sides tightly, and then stepped back, still holding his sides. A slight frown creased her features.

"About yesterday, with Schmidt…"

Oh yes. The conversation he'd been expecting to have had been completely derailed, and he felt a stinging bitterness return. As if sensing it, she held him tighter.

"The whole thing was really about just proving I could do it with no follow-up. Nothing complicated." She smiled up at him. "You're complicated, Nick. We are. Not the best idea I've had. But it made me think, about you and me and how I was suddenly frightened I'd upset, you know, us."

He sighed gently and held her, pressing his lips to her hair. "It definitely wasn't. But I can live with that." He thought he could. He could work on it, at least. If he jar'd Schmidt money, perhaps.

She stepped back, disentangling herself.

"I look forward to the right time, Nick," she said, quite solemnly, and curtsied, for Jess-reasons. "Let's talk tomorrow."

He leaned on the door again, closing it slowly, smiling.

She turned and walked away down the hall. He shut the door, and paced round the room. He was just about okay with that. But sleep? He felt a greater sense of loss than before. Sighing, he sat down, feeling the bed to find the coolest spot again.