Charlie had been quiet for a week, still upset about Levi staying in the apartment.

“It is too small for three people, and I wanted to use that room as a studio.”

I’d told him that Levi was only here for a few weeks. I wanted to add that the arrangement was like his own, but he’d decided to make it permanent. I didn’t say anything because young French boys can be very temperamental.

“I miss our quiet nights together,” Charlie said sadly.

Levi, the Polish lad with the broad Yorkshire accent, had been a whirlwind, his energy blasting through the apartment. He went out, came in late, and slept until lunchtime. He’d told Charlie that he worked in a bar and was very popular with customers. I could imagine that because he talked and smiled all the time.

“You don’t like me, do you?”

The conversation took place on the balcony. Charlie, in his underwear because he’d been painting in the sunshine, and Levi, dressed in only his blue jeans.

I was conscious that old Mrs Hayward across the road would be absorbing everything as she watered her window boxes. There was a lot of naked flesh to see. I took them coffee and sat with them.

“It is not that I don’t like you,” Charlie replied, “it’s because you are always happy and too noisy.”

“I thought it was because you thought I’d stolen your boyfriend.”

“Are you sleeping with him?”

“You know very well that I’m not, and besides if I was, you’d be the first to know because you’d have heard us.”

“I am here,” I said. It had been a long time since people had fought over me, or at least appeared to.

“We are not boyfriends,” Charlie confirmed. “We are simply flatmates.”

Levi, smiling as always, sat back, and put his bare feet on the table.

“Then why don’t you like me?”

Charlie hesitated.

“I have told you already. You are too loud, and bounce around all day, and I cannot concentrate on my work.”

Levi got up and disappeared inside. Charlie smirked because he thought he’d scored a victory, but Levi returned with a damp cloth in his hand.

“What are you doing?”

Levi wiped a streak of blue paint from Charlie’s cheek.”

“You’re very messy when you’re painting.”

“I am not! I must have caught my hand on my face.”

“Blue and red makes you look cute,” Levi teased.

“I have not been using red paint.”

Charlie rubbed his cheek but couldn’t stop Levi rubbing it again, this time harder, and faster.

“Stop it!”

“I’m wiping your face like your mother used to,” laughed Levi, “and I’m sorry, it’s not red paint, it’s because you were blushing.”

He threw the dirty cloth onto the floor, sat down again, and put his feet back on the table.

“Your feet are dirty,” Charlie said.

“I think you make out that you hate me, but really you’re madly in love with me.”

“Sacré bleu! That is so childish.”

Charlie got up, straightened the band on his boxers, and went back over to the painting that had been drying in the autumn sunshine. Levi laughed out loud, mocking him, and Charlie could be heard swearing under his breath.

I listened to Levi’s laugh and Charlie’s cursing and felt disheartened. I’d thought that Charlie was envious because Levi had encroached on our lives. But what if it was true? Over the past few days Charlie had become increasingly hostile. Did Charlie really want Levi?