Page 65 of Love and Loathing

“I can’t,” she said. “I have to take Romona’s bike home.”

“Who?”

“The friend I’m staying with. I borrowed her bike…”

“Put it in the car.”

“It won’t fit.”

He let go of her hand and walked into the church hall. An old lady was there, rinsing out tea mugs. She directed him to a cupboard which smelt of wax and wet mops. When he walked back out of the hall and over to the bike, Evie looked dubiously at the battered toolbox in his hands.

“You’ll get oily,” she said as he started to remove the wheels from the bike.

And then: “It’ll get your car dirty,” as he hefted the frame and wheels into the boot.

“I don’t really care, Evie.”

He returned the toolbox, then opened the passenger door, looking at her. She walked slowly over. Got inside.Thank fuck,Aubrey’s heart said, soaring somewhere overhead, idiot thing, getting perilously close to the sun.

“I’m not dressed for dinner,” she said as he pulled out of the small car park onto the busy road.

“We can go anywhere.”

She gave a faint smile. “Vegan restaurant?”

“If you like.”

“I’m not…” she began, toying with the bike helmet on her lap. “I’m not preachy. I don’t care what my friends eat. I told you that at dinner. At Conyers. I told you to go ahead and eat, that I wouldn’t judge.”

“I know.”

“So why are you suddenly making such a big deal about it?”

He let out a breath, cursing Liv’s memory, even though she’d been speaking more than a kernel of truth.

“I suppose it’s the easiest example of the differences between us.”

“Of all the reasons you think we won’t work?”

He half nodded, shrugged, hating to be negotiating this—them—so coldly, rationally, when rationality had so little to do with it.

“I would have thought there were more serious potential issues,” Evie said.

He shot her a look. “Like what?”

“Well…” She smiled. “Like it all being a ruse purely so I can throw drinks over your clients.”

“Hah. I’d have to get some clients first.”

“What happened at BlacktonGold? Why did you quit?”

Aubrey paused. “Difference of opinion.”

“With my father?”

“Yes.”

“About Domnall?”

---