It’s never easy to get up on a Saturday morning, but it’s harder still when it’s early morning, six degrees outside and you’ve got a new girlfriend snuggled up in bed. She looks like a little bird, he thinks; thin and brown and mouth pursed like she’s about to speak.

He lies for a moment hands behind head, staring at the window, trying to make out the first feeble rays of light. They’re not there yet. Not at this time of year. He closes his eyes for a second, feels sleep race towards him. It would be so easy to stay, easy to turn on his side, curl up beside Jess and put his hand up her top; feel her warm skin and quiet breathing. Nothing more than a phone call would do it. Gastro—food poisoning, the usual code for ‘can’t be stuffed’.