diff --git a/lib/body.js b/lib/body.js
index 2b8e3bd..c7ffa5b 100644
--- a/lib/body.js
+++ b/lib/body.js
@@ -127,8 +127,10 @@ class Body {
       : this.size ? new MinipassSized({ size: this.size })
       : new Minipass()
 
-    // allow timeout on slow response body
-    const resTimeout = this.timeout ? setTimeout(() => {
+    // allow timeout on slow response body, but only if the stream is still writable. this
+    // makes the timeout center on the socket stream from lib/index.js rather than the
+    // intermediary minipass stream we create to receive the data
+    const resTimeout = this.timeout && stream.writable ? setTimeout(() => {
       stream.emit('error', new FetchError(
         `Response timeout while trying to fetch ${
           this.url} (over ${this.timeout}ms)`, 'body-timeout'))
diff --git a/test/body.js b/test/body.js
index 7108b5f..1d280e9 100644
--- a/test/body.js
+++ b/test/body.js
@@ -176,6 +176,33 @@ t.test('stream body too slow', async t => {
   })
 })
 
+t.test('no timeout if stream ends before we even start consuming', async t => {
+  // this test mimics how lib/index.js writes data into the intermediary minipass stream
+
+  // the SlowMinipass class delays the result from concat() mimicking a slow pipe downstream
+  class SlowMinipass extends Minipass {
+    async concat () {
+      // 10 millisecond delay before resolving
+      await new Promise((resolve) => setTimeout(resolve, 10))
+      return super.concat()
+    }
+  }
+  const networkStream = new Minipass()
+  const wrappedStream = new SlowMinipass()
+
+  networkStream.on('data', (chunk) => wrappedStream.write(chunk))
+  networkStream.on('end', () => wrappedStream.end())
+
+  for (let i = 0; i < 10; ++i) {
+    networkStream.write('some data')
+  }
+  networkStream.end()
+
+  // timeout of 1ms, must be lower than the 10ms used in SlowMinipass to trigger the bug
+  const b = new Body(wrappedStream, { timeout: 1 })
+  await t.resolves(b.text(), 'some data')
+})
+
 t.test('random toString-ing thing body', async t => {
   const b = new Body({ toString () {
     return 'a=1'