return

Luis comes back unexpectedly. Alerted by Biff’s barking in the early hours of the morning, I look out of my bedroom window and see him in the street below. He has driven back from Portugal in less than 24 hours, fuelled by Red Bull.

My heart performs triple somersaults at the mere sight of him. As we walk across the darkened square towards his apartment, my hand in his giant paw, I feel frighteningly happy. I love being in his wooden-floored apartment - or his lair as I call it. It is very clean and tidy but at the same time (with the exception of his hot pink bedlinen) very masculine - a bottle of whisky and a jar of instant coffee among the few items visible in the kitchen.

He makes us both a cup of coffee and says that we could stay up all night talking if we want. This is a real possibility, partly because Luis really likes to talk and partly because most conversations take three times as long anway, as I struggle to understand his melange of Portuguese and French. (One of my resolutions for 2009 is to learn Portuguese.)

Sitting at his kitchen table, he tells me that he would like us to live together and I almost drop my (Portuguese) porcelain coffee cup in surprise. I know that most of my friends would be horrified at the idea - and Biff might not be too thrilled - but I find the idea of Luis’s boots sitting next to my leopard Manolos very alluring.