Page 102 of Between Us

Roisin took a deep breath. ‘I’m saying, Matt, I’m yours, if you want me. I want you to be mine. I’m saying I think I’m in love with you.’

A stunned beat of silence.

‘Since when?’ Matt said quietly.

‘A few days ago. Which sounds flippant, but it’s not. It’s just … suddenly all there. As if it was there all along.’

Matt stared at her, and she stared back. Nearby, a female voice said, ‘Sorry to butt in. Matt, should I get you another drink?’

He looked over. ‘No, ta.’

The person retreated.

Roisin wondered if she should say something else, but before she could, Matt stepped forward, wound his hands in her hair, and kissed her.

She put her arms around his neck, thinking,if this is pure sympathy, I may as well get the most out of it.

‘For clarity, what does that mean?’ she said, when they disentangled.

‘It means, “you could’ve led with that,”’ Matt said, his face suffused with a joy she could honestly say she’d never seen. ‘Then I could’ve said, “Well, that’s a coincidence. I’ve been in love with you the whole time.”’

‘You know what I’d like to do?’ Matt said, as they lay side by side in bed. Matt picked up her hand and put his palm against it.

‘Horrify me,’ Roisin said, certain she would not be horrified, even if she should be.

Her black dress lay on the floor of his mezzanine bedroom in his frankly daft apartment, and they had embarked on what Roisin hoped was the first of many times they’d fall into this bed. Being naked with someone you’d been friends with for so long could feel strange, and at moments it did, but mainly it just felt very, very good.

‘To go on holiday with you. One of those holidays that exists mainly in the imagination and Instagram brags. Games of UNO on tables with tea lights, tumblers of cheap white wine. Lights in the harbour beyond. That sort of thing. Possibly a lobster with fries.’

‘Sounds like Greece or Italy. We could do that. Holidays in half terms are punitive though. Drawback of my job. Dev Doshi money. Oh God.’ She put a hand to her forehead. ‘Not looking forward to going back to work. I had a panic attack in front of a class playing a clip fromHunter. Urgh.’

Matt rearranged himself on the pillows to pull her into the crook of his arm, kissing the top of her head. ‘You are an absolutely ace teacher, and you will be fine. I have every faith. Stroll back in there with your head held high.’

‘Thank you,’ Roisin said. She gazed at their opulent surroundings, and she didn’t just mean Matt McKenzie. ‘How much of this is you? I don’t mean what’s yours, as in own …’

‘Aye aye. Assessing if I have enough family silver left?’

‘Pffft. I mean. If you say the flash and glamour and man about town stuff was a … front.’ She didn’t want to repeat the word ‘lonely’, though she still felt it in her gut.

‘That’s a good question. One I asked myself a lot after I got the sack. It’s only half serious, in a weird way. Like I played a role on purpose that people found amusing.’

Concocted Casanova persona.So, Joe’s assessment hadn’t been entirely off.

‘The mask eats the face though, and all that. I can’t tell you how idiotic I feel admitting to you, and myself, that my lifestyle was some sort of performance-art joke to get people to like me.’

Roisin thought of Matt uncomplainingly mopping up napalmed spaghetti hoops that Terence had detonated in the microwave at The Mallory, and realised why she’dcaught feelingsfor him when she had.

‘I don’t think you need to hide behind anything to be liked,’ Roisin said, warmly.

Matt squeezed her shoulder. ‘Having never been a couple, I want to be so very coupley. Would you feel vomitous if I did things like wrote you cards with inspirational messages about my love and put them in your work bag to find?’

Roisin hooted with laughter. ‘Saying what? Live, laugh, love?’

‘Saying … I don’t know, you’d have to open it to find out. Declarations that would leave you unable to concentrate for the rest of the day. Or maybe I’d go with a joke.’

‘Oh God, nothing blue, please. Knowing my luck, I’d drop it and someone from 10E would open it.’

‘I promise. Nothing like, “found the keys to your dildo cabinet.”’

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