He said fine. He even put his shoes on without sighing. I should have known then that the morning was going to get weirdly domestic.
The walk of whatever
People call it the walk of shame. I have never liked that. Shame is for people who got caught doing something they did not want to do. I wanted to do it. I just did not want the 8am lighting to be my witness.
Parsons Green at that hour is all dog walkers and people who went to bed at a respectable time. I had a black dress on that had been a very good idea at midnight and a terrible one in daylight. He had last night’s shirt, slightly better than mine, which annoyed me more than it should have.
We did not hold hands. I want that on record. We walked like two people who had agreed on a mission and were too thirsty to negotiate the terms.
I checked my face in my phone camera twice on the way. Once at the corner. Once outside the shop. Both times I looked like I had been invented at 3am and not finished. Concealer was not vanity. It was public safety.
He held the basket like we were married
Inside Tesco the air was cold and the lights were doing that cruel white thing they do. You know the one. Every pore. Every smudge. Every decision you made after the third drink, listed on your face in high definition.
I went for a basket. He took it off me.
Not in a showy way. Just took it, like this was a weekly shop and he knew where the milk lived. I let him. I am not going to wrestle a man for a piece of red plastic when my mouth feels like a carpet.
He stood there holding it in the crook of his arm and suddenly we looked like a couple. That is the dangerous part. Tesco does that to you. Put two hungover people under fluorescent tubes with a basket between them and the whole place starts casting you in a role you did not audition for.
A woman with a toddler looked at us and smiled. I nearly laughed. If she knew how this started she would have steered the pushchair the other way.
What we actually bought
Water. Two big ones. I am not sharing a bottle with a man I have known for nine hours, I do not care how good the night was.
Then concealer. I know my shade better than I know most people’s surnames. I went straight to it. He followed, basket out, like security.
He said, you do not need that.
Cute. Wrong. But cute.
I told him I did. He shrugged and put a multipack of croissants in the basket without asking. Then orange juice. Then those little pots of yoghurt that taste of nothing and still feel like a fresh start. I added paracetamol and a cucumber because my brain had started doing the health performance. He added bacon. Of course he did.
At one point we were in the aisle with the flowers and he actually paused. I said do not even think about it. A bunch of garage roses after a night like that is how you accidentally start something. I am many things. I am not accidentally in a relationship in the refrigerated section.
The self checkout of doom
Self checkout is where the fantasy dies. You can play house all you like among the cereal. The machine does not care. It wants the barcode. It wants you to place the item in the bagging area. It wants to call a member of staff because you breathed wrong near the wine.
We did not buy wine. I have standards in the morning, even if I did not have them at 2am.
He scanned. I packed. Very married energy again. A boy behind us in last night’s trainers was buying Monster and a meal deal and looking at us like we had sold out. Maybe we had. Maybe that is what 27 looks like. Less cloakroom. More cucumber.
The woman on the next till had seen this exact scene a thousand times. You can tell. Tesco staff in London have a face for the morning-after couple. It is not judgement. It is more like, yes love, the water is on offer, keep moving.
He paid. I let him. Not because I cannot. Because he offered and I was busy trying to get the concealer on in the reflection of the fridge door before we hit daylight again. Sophie would call that using him. Mia would call it logistics. I call it knowing what I need.
The bit I will not pretend about
Here is the confession, since we are already in it.
I liked it.
Not him, specifically. The shape of it. Someone carrying the basket. Someone waiting while I fixed my face. Someone making the fluorescent lighting feel less like punishment and more like a scene I could use later.
That is the part people get sniffy about. They want the night to stay in the night. They want you to slink home alone with your heels in one hand and a moral hanging off the other. I have tried that. It is boring. It photographs badly. And I still end up in Tesco, just with no one to hold the basket.
He asked if I wanted him to walk me back. I said yes as far as the door. I did not invite him up again. The flat already had enough evidence. Sophie would have clocked the croissant bag before I had my key in the lock. Mia would have asked his name, his job, and whether he was coming to the pub on Friday. I was not in the mood to run a press conference over bacon.
We stood outside for a second. He went in for a kiss. I gave him the cheek. Morning breath and last night’s mascara is not the same film as the one we shot at 1am. I know the difference even when he does not.
What I told the flat
Sophie was in the kitchen in a robe, being good. She looked at the bags. Then at my dress. Then at me.
Tesco, I said.
With company, she said.
I did not confirm. I did not have to. The second water bottle gave it away. I only ever buy one when I am alone.
Mia came in halfway through the bacon and wanted the whole thing chapter by chapter. I gave her the Tesco version and left out the rest. She called that stingy. I called it editing. Not every detail needs to live in the group chat. Some of them can just live in the basket and the receipt and the fact that I now have concealer I did not have yesterday.
I ate standing up. I always do after a night like that. Sitting feels like admitting the morning won.
Would I do it again
Yes. Obviously.
Not with every man. Most of them cannot handle Tesco. They either get shy under the lights or they start performing boyfriend and that is when I remember I only asked for water.
This one was fine. Better than fine, if I am being honest, which I usually am when it makes the story sharper. He did not panic when I took my makeup off in the lift. He did not make a speech. He held the basket. He did not buy flowers. That is a higher bar than people think.
I blocked him at lunch. Not out of spite. Out of hygiene. If I leave the door half open I start rewriting the night into something with a future, and I have seen how that ends. It ends with me checking my phone in the makeup mirror and looking like a mug.
The receipt is still in my coat. Two waters. Concealer. Croissants. Bacon. Yoghurt. Cucumber. Paracetamol. A whole relationship in eight lines of print, except it was never that. It was just a shop.
Anyway. If you see a girl in last night’s dress in the cosmetics aisle at 9am, do not look so shocked. She is not lost. She is restocking. And if there is a man with her holding the basket like they have been doing this for years, do not congratulate them. They met last night. The lighting is just being kind for once.