13

~ A damp rubber glove will pick up pet hair from sofas, rugs and curtains, or Sellotape wrapped around your fingers is an oldie but goodie. Rubber brushes work best for pet hair on hard floors.

I got about thirty minutes' sleep on Sunday night, but that wasn't unusual: besides, I had a lot to think about, both real and, in the case of Mitch, ridiculous flights of fancy.

Sunday's brunch was exactly as I'd hoped it would be, up to a point. Fun, flirty, easy. I drank three mimosas in quick succession, then became light-hearted and (I think) tremendously witty. Mitch revealed that he too had been to university in Newcastle – what were the chances of that? – albeit on a different course to me and three years earlier, and actually at a different establishment, but even so that was a lot to bond over, and my fears that I'd handled the whole Worcester situation badly evaporated like the bubbles in my glass. He smiled, he laughed, he leaned over to try my waffles, and found excuses to touch my hand. It was going so well, until Mitch got a phone call from Allen at work, and it wasn't good news. There was a problem with some contracts, apparently, too boring to go into, but it required Mitch's input before Monday's meeting.

‘I am so sorry,' he said, lining up another call as he signalled for the bill. ‘Do you want to stay and have another mimosa? I don't know how long this will take.'

I pretended I had some paperwork of my own to catch up on, and left too.

We shared a brief kiss at the door, Mitch's phone pinging and vibrating throughout with a series of urgent messages which he ignored for a gratifying minute or two, but was terminated by the arrival of his Uber. I bit my lip. Somehow we'd managed to skirt around the topic of last Wednesday night altogether. How exactly were we leaving things? Did the fact that our night together didn't require a Big Discussion mean he'd enjoyed it? Regretted it? Would I look needy if I asked him which? Would I look desperate if I admitted I could only remember bits of it?

‘I'll call you,' said Mitch, as if reading my angsty thoughts, and leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. I was momentarily disappointed by the politeness of it, but he gave my earlobe a nibble in passing, and my insides turned to water.

Later that afternoon, while I was having a pre-interview glow-up session, my phone pinged and I hoped Mitch was messaging to pick up where we'd left off. It wasn't: it was Cleo, checking to see if she should rota me or not.

Why not? I thought, squinting as I repainted my toenails an aspirational shade of crimson. I'd need a wardrobe overhaul for the new chapter in my life, and it wouldn't be cheap. Not now I was going places.

Jim seemed pleased to see me again on Monday, which is to say he smiled briefly, and reminded me it was oven-cleaning day at the Armstrongs' place (joy).

I hadn't heard yet from Olivia about the interview with the directors. I kept checking my phone for missed calls under the pretext of going to the loo until Jim was forced to ask if I was feeling all right. Then finally it rang at half past two, just as we were loading the buckets back into the van and heading to the next job.

Olivia Malvern Property.

I took a deep breath, and tried to shift my brain out of housekeeping mode and into exclusive property finder mode. It was hard enough, on account of the overalls, but now there was so much at stake my thoughts scattered like startled pigeons.

‘Do you mind if I …?' I was already edging backwards and Jim nodded, shortly, and carried on slotting equipment into the special hooks and nooks that stopped them rolling around in the back of the van.

‘Hello, Liv!' I said, trying to project boundless positivity. ‘How are you?'

‘Very well, thanks. Is this a good time to talk?'

‘It's perfect timing!' I assured her. ‘If it's about coming in, I can do—'

‘That's what I was calling about. We don't need … you to come in.'

‘Oh. OK!' That was a good thing, wasn't it? ‘So do we need to talk about starting dates? I can be available whenever suits you.'

Liv cleared her throat. Her voice was strange, not the friendly warmth of last Wednesday. She sounded embarrassed. ‘I'm afraid we won't be taking your application any further at this time.'

What?

My head suddenly seemed too light, as if it might float off from my body, and I sat down gracelessly on a garden wall.

‘I'm sorry, I don't understand.'

‘I discussed your application with our board of directors and they felt you, er, you weren't quite the right fit for our team.'

But that was literally the last thing she said to me as I was leaving the office – what a great fit I was with the team!

I tried to focus on the pavement cracks in front of me, struggling to get a grip on the conversation as my attention bounced from one random thought to another. What was going on? What had happened? Had I missed something? Stop, stop, stop.

But all I could hear was the buzzing of a million bees in my head, slowly crawling out to my whole body. I was frozen to the spot yet vibrating at the same time.

Liv was closing the conversation with some pleasantries I barely heard. ‘… really appreciate your time. And I'll definitely check out that restaurant you mentioned in Newent!'

Say something, Robyn. Say something.

But I couldn't say anything. My mind was blank.

‘Thank you,' I croaked.

‘All the best for your next steps, Robyn,' she said.

Was that a laugh in the background? I went cold.

Liv hung up. The conversation was over.

I stood there for a minute or two, trying to process what had just happened. This wasn't right. This wasn't how it was supposed to go.

Jim was back in the driver's seat, waiting for me. He wasn't the sort of person who scrolled through their phone to kill some time; he was staring into space, probably practising his times tables.

I walked towards the passenger side on autopilot. Seven minutes ago I was counting down the days until I started work again as a property search expert. My haircut was booked for Wednesday. I'd planned a summer holiday. Now, none of that was going to happen, and I didn't know why.

Part of my brain clung onto that comforting future feeling, refusing to let go. Was I still asleep, maybe? Was I having a very specific, very vivid nightmare?

Jim started to say something jovial about drains, then clocked my face. ‘Bad news?'

I didn't want to tell him. That would make it true. So I just shook my head.

‘So when do you start?' He checked his mirrors, signalled, and pulled away. ‘Any chance of a few days off first? Recover from your short but illustrious career as a professional cleaner?'

I wasn't listening. Was it something I'd said to Liv at the interview? I replayed our conversation over in my head, but parts of it were now blurry, thanks to the champagne and two bottles of wine with Mitch that had followed. I couldn't remember saying anything obviously wrong, though. I'd laughed in the right places. I'd made sensible observations about mortgage rates.

Then a terrible, obvious , realisation struck me.

She'd seen Emma Rossiter's Internet roasting. Of course she had. It didn't matter that Liv wasn't local; Emma had tagged it so anyone who followed property or estate agents or, for all I know, cute baby otters, would have seen me being exposed as the shoddy negotiator that I was.

‘Oh god,' I moaned aloud.

‘What?'

‘Nothing.'

‘It doesn't sound like nothing.'

I made a noise that was supposed to quell further questions but instead sounded pathetic. A scared whimper.

‘Don't tell me, your hairdresser cancelled?' Something about the way Jim asked – not unsympathetic, but confident that it couldn't be that bad – made the words flow.

‘They're not giving me the job.' It felt like I'd been sacked all over again, but this time I hadn't even worked there.

I was expecting Jim to say, ‘You said it was a done deal,' but instead he frowned. ‘Did she give you a reason?'

‘No.'

I swallowed hard. Come on, Robyn . Don't cry.

‘Why don't you phone her back and ask?'

‘What?' I wondered if he could sense my whole body cringe back into the seat. ‘ No .'

‘Why not?'

I stared mutely at him. Why not? Why not?

‘And don't say it's because you're embarrassed,' he went on, reading my mind. ‘She let you think you had the job in the bag last week, and now you don't. Don't you want to know why? What on earth have you got to lose by asking for feedback?'

Liv could tell me I'm useless, I thought, with a lurch of shame. She could tell me that they laughed about me when I left, and rewatched that TikTok over and over. That I brought the name of property sales into disrepute, and just stood there opening and closing my mouth as a client spelled out my failings.

‘Ring her back, apologise for taking a moment to process her comments, thank her for the opportunity and ask her what you can work on for next time,' Jim went on.

‘No!'

I realised I had my hands clamped underneath my knees like a little girl.

‘How do you expect to get the next job if you don't ask where you can improve?' Jim finally turned to look at me. We had stopped at traffic lights, but even so. He was a conscientious driver; he rarely took his eyes off the road unless completely necessary. This was worthy of emphasis.

Jim probably saw through me just like Liv had, I thought, mentally lashing myself with one of those spiky religious whip things. He had every right to laugh at me, given how smug I'd been about this interview last week, but instead he was trying to help, setting me straight as if I were a badly made bed, or a stubborn coffee ring on a marble worktop. I was that useless.

‘Come on, Robyn, you said yourself you're an experienced estate agent,' he added.

‘Negotiator.'

He blinked hard, possibly to stop himself rolling his eyes. ‘ Negotiator . So it's hardly going to be something terrible. Maybe they can't afford to match your last salary?'

‘We didn't discuss salary.'

‘Or maybe one of the directors wants his own candidate?'

‘Maybe.' That was a possibility.

‘So ask her. Find out,' said Jim. ‘Then you can move on.'

‘Yes,' I said.

‘Good.' He paused. ‘Well?'

‘I'm not going to ring her now, am I? While you're driving?'

The lights changed and we set off again.

‘Hold that thought,' said Jim. ‘I'm looking for somewhere safe to stop.'

I asked to speak to Liv when the receptionist answered, and it took an excruciating couple of minutes before she came on the line. Her tone, when she answered, was stilted.

‘Hello, it's Robyn Taylor again, I'm so sorry, I think we got cut off earlier.' My voice was too high, too keen. I took a deep, deliberate breath.

‘It's fine,' said Liv. ‘We'd covered everything we needed to say, though, hadn't we?'

I glanced over to Jim, who made encouraging bobbin- weaving gestures with his hands. He'd parked up in a quiet cul-de-sac and I'd got out of the car, for the fresh air and privacy. Jim had also got out of the car. He was standing a few discreet metres from me, next to a postbox. Like an unwanted stage prompter.

‘I was wondering …' I stumbled. ‘Um, this is awkward but I was wondering if I could ask where I, um, could …'

Why couldn't I do this? Cleo would have no trouble asking for feedback.

I closed my eyes and pictured Cleo behind her desk, dynamic, fearless, focused. How would Cleo handle this? Then the words flowed in an impressive stream. ‘Liv, I felt we had a very positive meeting last week, and from what we discussed, it seemed as if I was a good fit for the team. I'm disappointed that the directors didn't share that view, and I wonder if you could give me some feedback on my interview and what I could improve on going forward?'

Wow. Where had that come from?

Jim gave me a thumbs up, and then, urgently, put a finger over his pursed lips and frowned hard. I think he meant, ‘and now shut up'.

If I hadn't been so stressed, I'd have laughed at his ridiculous panto expression.

There was a pause, then Liv said, ‘OK, well, since you ask … For one thing, HR raised a flag about your references. We like to see the last two employers. And you didn't give either, just a developer you'd worked for.'

Blood rushed into my cheeks. This was what I'd dreaded.

‘Did you speak to Mitch Maitland?' Cleo's borrowed confidence was wearing off fast.

‘We did,' she said. ‘He was very complimentary about your abilities. But we also did our own due diligence and …' Liv hunted for the right words. ‘There's no nice way of putting this, Robyn, but my boss saw that TikTok your client filmed in the Marsh & Frett office. The one where you admitted you'd crashed some chains and basically let your clients down rather badly.'

I closed my eyes. I'd guessed right. Emma Rossiter loomed up at me, her face red with fury, everyone blurred in the background, heads swivelling between me and her. This was some revenge she was having. She was going to haunt me for the rest of my career, a real life Woman in Grey.

‘Don't get me wrong,' Liv continued, ‘we've all had difficult clients. And I'll be honest, we work with people who have requirements that make them, um, more challenging to satisfy. But when we followed up with Dean, he confirmed that the allegations had been reasonable and that, combined with the fact that you hadn't disclosed it at interview …' Her voice trailed off.

‘Oh,' I said, weakly.

‘It had over 300,000 views,' Liv added, unnecessarily. ‘Which is great reach, but just not the kind of publicity we want for our agents.'

Jim hovered closer, expecting to see the positive fruits of his advice blooming in real time. He wasn't expecting to see me on the verge of tears.

I gestured for him to go away and he took a clumsy step backwards.

‘I'm sorry, Robyn,' said Liv. ‘Am I telling you something you didn't know?'

Either way I was stuffed: a liar, or a self-proclaimed social media expert who didn't even monitor her own social media tags.

I swallowed and said, ‘I understand.'

‘Good luck with your next projects though! I'm sure this will blow over soon enough.'

Now she sounded sorry for me.

I struggled to salvage a crumb of dignity from the conversation. ‘Thank you for telling me that, I appreciate your frankness.'

‘Not a problem,' said Liv, safe in the knowledge that she had never been called a dangerously incompetent, narcissistic, marriage-wrecking bitch of an estate agent in front of everyone she worked with, and now the rest of the Internet.

I ended the call and covered my face with my hands.

So that was that. Back to square one.

Although not square one, a mean-spirited voice pointed out. Square minus ten . Because this was going to happen again, and again, and again, with every job I applied for.

I'd effectively made myself unemployable.

If you regularly suppress emotions, a therapist once told me, it's like pushing down a jack-in-the-box. When the lid inevitably pops off, you're liable to take your own eye out with the force of the blast. I'd managed to block out that mortifying, public dressing-down with relentless cleaning, and I'd done it so well that it was a genuine shock to feel the shame again.

The consequences of my actions rolled out in front of me. I'd have to tell Mum and Dad that I hadn't got the job I'd assured them was in the bag. Mum would be so disappointed. Dad would worry about my rent. They'd ask questions about my flat money and I'd have to tell them that it was safe, but that Mitch's project was still at the planning stages and I didn't have a date for repayment.

And Mitch! If he'd spoken to Liv, she might have told him why they'd rejected me and probably send him a link to the evidence. I cringed, hard. He hadn't mentioned it so far, and I didn't want his attention drawn to that .

Shame – and disappointment, and guilt, and despair – crashed over my head like a massive wave engulfing a tiny surfer. I pressed my hands over my eyes to stop the tears, but I couldn't.

I was useless. A failure.

I turned away and struggled with myself for a good minute before I sensed Jim standing behind me. He didn't touch me, or try to hug me, but something about his calmness had a weird effect on my gulping breaths. He was obviously deploying whatever Zen calming vibes he used to stop Rambo the terrier going crazy at squirrels on our walks.

‘Tell me what you're so upset about,' he said.

It took me a few goes to get it out. ‘I didn't … get the job … because I'm stupid and careless.'

‘Really?' He sounded doubtful. ‘Random and easily distracted, maybe. But you're not careless, and you're definitely not stupid.'

‘I am! I was sacked from my last job because I was so disorganised that at least one major chain crashed because of me, costing people thousands of pounds. Thousands!'

‘Ouch.'

‘Yeah. Ouch.'

‘Everyone makes mistakes,' said Jim. ‘I'm sure you were a decent estate agent most of the time.'

‘I wasn't.' I told him about the video, the one of me getting publicly bollocked by a client whose marriage fell apart because she and her idiot husband were stuck in the house that I should have sold.

Jim refused to accept that either. ‘Come on. If marriages fell apart purely because of bad estate agents, no one would risk buying a house.'

‘She's suing the agency!' My voice was rising, but I couldn't stop it. ‘I don't even know if I'm going to end up going to court!' I stared at him. Why wasn't he getting it? Why was he being so stubborn?

A woman walking her dog passed us on the other side of the road. Both she and the dog were gawping at us, and she had to tug its lead to move it along.

Jim made a ‘honestly, she's fine' gesture over my head, and steered me back towards the van, which in hindsight probably wasn't that reassuring to the passer-by.

We sat inside. The artificial smell of pine and cotton was soothing. I took some more deep breaths and realised it was comforting because it smelled like Mum's house.

‘So, you didn't tell them about this video?' asked Jim.

‘No! If I can't see it, it can't see me.'

‘That's not going to help you. You should have told them, but then used it to show how you've gained positive insight into your professional weaknesses and grown from the experience, that it was a turning point in your career, learning points, blah blah.'

‘OK, fine. But we're going to be late for our next job.'

He ignored me. ‘People make mistakes. It's what you learn from them that counts. And the biggest part of that is acknowledging you made a mistake in the first place. I guarantee you won't ever work for a boss who hasn't screwed up at some stage.'

‘But if this client sues, it could finish the agency.' I hadn't dared search to see what people were saying about Marsh & Frett now. My imagination was doing a good enough job. ‘And they might sue me for damaging their reputation.'

‘Again, think about that for a second instead of catastrophising.' Jim passed me a tissue from the box on the dashboard. ‘How many people watching that will be planning on buying a house in the next year?'

‘I don't know.' He waited until I admitted, ‘Not many, I guess.'

‘I'd say a handful, if that. And how reliable a witness does the woman look?'

‘No idea, I haven't watched it.'

‘I'm only guessing, but I suspect she comes out of it as badly as you do. No one looks good airing dirty linen.'

I blew my nose. Mad as it seemed, that hadn't occurred to me before.

‘Shall we have a look at it now?' Jim got his phone out of the glove compartment – of course he didn't have it on him during work hours – and started searching through his apps.

‘No!' I swivelled in my seat. ‘No no no!'

‘You need to see it, so you can face it and let it go.'

A terrible urge to get out of the van gripped me. ‘No. No, I'm not going to …'

‘OK, OK.' Jim raised his palms. ‘It's what I would do but —'

‘I'm not you,' I snapped.

We sat in silence for a few minutes.

‘So what would you do?' I asked, eventually. ‘After you'd watched it, obviously.'

‘Not much you can do. You're not going to get that job. But there'll be others.'

‘But that was such a great job,' I moaned.

‘Life goes on. You can't get stuck on what might have been. You're growing as a person until you die. That involves the shovelling of manure and some rain.'

I turned to him. ‘Can I ask you something, Jim?'

His normally guarded face was open, a little wary. ‘Sure.'

‘Did you read that in a fortune cookie, or were you a vicar in a previous life?'

‘Management course.' A smile twisted the corner of his mouth as he started the van's engine. ‘One of my better lines, I thought.'

‘Why were you on a management course?' I asked, innocently. ‘Did Cleo send you on one?'

Jim's expression returned to its usual impassive state. ‘As you said, previous life.'

I waited for him to expand on that, but it was soon clear he wasn't going to. I sank back in my seat. ‘Well, don't book the Edinburgh Fringe any time soon. Can we go home now?'

‘Nope,' said Jim. ‘It's time for the Armstrongs' oven.'

I texted Mitch as soon as I got home and didn't get a reply until lunchtime the next day, as Monday's meeting with Allen and the contracts had been ‘complicated', but his reaction was gratifyingly sympathetic.

Mitch assured me it was their loss, not mine, and offered to take my mind off it with dinner in a new place that had opened by the canal, a modern wine bar that had recently been refurbished to look like a derelict Victorian warehouse it had never been. De-furbished, I suppose.

When I told him why Malvern Property Finders had declined to pursue my job application, he laughed out loud.

‘That was you ? Oh my god, someone forwarded that to me, I didn't realise it was you.'

‘You've seen it?' I said, horrified.

It was a tiny sliver of comfort that he didn't recognise me. But then I'd seen Mitch fail to recognise Natasha, his old office manager, when we'd bumped into her in a bar the previous week, so maybe he just wasn't good with faces.

‘It wasn't very funny at the time,' I said. ‘Or now, actually.'

Mitch struggled to return his expression to something more serious. I could see it took some effort. ‘I'm sorry. But you've got to admit, when she …'

I put my hands over my ears. ‘I don't want to talk about it. Please.'

‘Fair enough.' He grinned and clinked his glass against mine. ‘Still, you've put Marsh & Frett on the map. The logo's visible in the background the whole time. Any publicity's good publicity and all that.'

Was it?

‘But I'd have loved that job,' I said. ‘I'm sorry if it reflects badly on you.'

‘Nah.' Mitch waved a dismissive hand. ‘I've done much worse than that.'

‘How?' It was easy enough to spout platitudes. Jim hadn't shared his own mistakes to make me feel better, just delivered some corporate advice about Teachable Moments. ‘I need examples .'

Mitch shook his head. ‘How long have you got? Oh my god … well, there was the time I borrowed a show flat because my lease had run out, and an agent started showing a buyer round while I was in the shower. That was embarrassing. And then one of my first projects, I signed it off without doing a proper check, and it turned out that the fitters hadn't plumbed the kitchen pipes into anything. So the dishwashers were emptying into the pond outside. We only found out when all the fish died. Never seen cleaner koi carp, mind you. And then the time that I had to …'

He stopped. ‘You're not laughing. Maybe I shouldn't be telling you some of these, eh? Look, it's not that bad. Malvern Property are great but they can be a bit up themselves. If Liv can't see the funny side, you're better off somewhere else. Forget about it. Move on. Tomorrow's another day, yadda yadda.'

If Mitch and Jim were both offering identical ‘move on' advice, then maybe there was something in it. I sighed and tried to think positive.

I still had the Lark Manor project to look forward to. I still had my beautiful apartment in the pipeline. None of that had changed. No one would be laughing when I slapped that glossy brochure down on the table.

I looked up, about to suggest another walk around Lark Manor now I had some time on my hands to think about spaces, but Mitch nodded at my glass. ‘Time for another?'

It was ten to seven, the tipping point between ‘quick drink' and ‘should we eat?'

‘Go on,' I said.

In a way this was good, I thought, as his hand stretched out across the table, one finger stroking mine. Crises were bonding. And Mitch hadn't run a mile, even though he'd seen me both drunk and now humiliated on social media. That had to be a green flag.

He ran his fingertip around the silver ring Mum and Dad had given me for my nineteenth birthday. Back and forth on the metal, then up the knuckle to the back of my hand. Little electrical shivers tingled across my skin. I reached out my own hand, and found the knotted leather bracelet hidden beneath his shirt cuff. The contrast between the office cotton and the surfer bracelet was deliberate and, even though part of me thought it was a tiny bit corny, I still couldn't help finding it sexy.

‘Do you want to get something to eat?' I asked.

‘What do you suggest?' He raised an eyebrow.

I had a pleasantly dizzy sensation as the evening fast-forwarded in my head. There were a couple of decent restaurant options in town, not including Ferrari's, and I could imagine us sharing a bottle of wine, some tapas, laughing, another bottle of wine, flirting. Intense flirting.

Then maybe he'd pull me into one of the old Georgian doorways along the high street, out of the streetlights, and we'd kiss hungrily in the darkness and then hurry hand in hand through the streets of Longhampton, back to his flat where …

I stopped, realising I didn't know where Mitch lived. And did I want to go to his place anyway? I didn't have anything to change into if I stayed over, and more importantly, I wanted to redo the night in Worcester properly. And by properly I meant decent underwear, at the very least.

I rewound back to the bit where we were kissing hungrily in the darkness, then hurrying hand in hand through the streets of Longhampton back to my flat where …

Again I stopped, abruptly.

I couldn't invite anyone back to my flat, not the way it was. My mind's-eye film continued with Mitch stubbing his toe on the boxes in the hall, seeing the weighted blankets (plural) dumped on the bed, judging me on my junk. I hadn't loaded the dishwasher for three days, and the bed needed changing. When did I last change the sheets? I frowned, trying to remember if I'd even brought a second set of bedsheets with me.

‘Robyn?'

I looked up. Mitch was gorgeous, and he was sitting there on the other side of the table, practically inviting me to come up with a seductive plan. I'd wanted this to happen for so long, I couldn't risk him finding out what a walking catastrophe I was. It had to be perfect.

‘Pizza?' I suggested. Then heard myself say, ‘I can't be too late, I've got work in the morning.'

I wanted him so much. I wanted to have that first time over again, but this time I wanted to remember every second of it. But how could I say that, without suggesting I was too drunk to know what I was doing at the time? Or that I couldn't remember it?

I smiled stupidly while my brain struggled to find a charming way of putting that.

‘OK.' Mitch sounded confused. ‘In that case, I should be getting back – I've got a breakfast meeting with a couple of investors.'

We were getting up from our seats – why were we getting up from our seats? I'd happily have stayed for another drink! – and he was signalling for the bill.

‘Sounds exciting,' I said. ‘Which project is that?'

I wanted to say, Is it Lark Manor? But that was all I seemed to say to Mitch. Lark Manor, Lark Manor, like a child.

‘The Jam Factory, it's a music venue.' Mitch paid, left a generous cash tip, grinned at the waitress, and slipped on his jacket, pretty much in one fluid movement. ‘You'd love it. I'll put you on the list for the soft opening.'

‘Sounds great,' I said. But it wasn't my stunning new flat. The Christmas tree slipped backwards, visible but now out of reach.

We lingered by the door, then lingered some more by Mitch's car, where we had an awkward kiss that thankfully turned into a longer, much less awkward kiss. He tasted of mint and lime, and as he pulled me closer, the smell of his skin triggered a buried memory – the kissing in the hotel lift, his cool hands confidently slipping under my shirt, my body responding to his.

And then some teens on bikes cycled past hooting, and that was that.

I walked home, hot and bothered, with only one thought in my mind. I would tidy my flat tonight. Definitely. I couldn't let my own slovenliness destroy my sex life.

I tidied mentally all the way home, even buying some storage boxes online, then fell asleep on the sofa.