Page 103 of Between Us

Roisin shrieked. ‘Have you really been in love with me all along?’ she said.

‘Yeah. I told you I had been. The woman I was in love with, back in the day? Who I told a friend about and he steamed in ahead of me? That was you. And Joe, of course.’

Roisin sat up slightly. ‘What? Really? “She emigrated to the other side of the world”?’

‘That was an exaggerated depiction of West Didsbury. I needed a red herring. I feared while speaking that you’d seen right through me, with thoseold soulbrown eyes of yours.’

Roisin had to take a few seconds to absorb this. ‘Wait. That was me? Youhidme on social media?’

‘Haha! I love that you think that’s the most shocking thing, not the secret ten-year obsession. Yeah, sorry. I checked in every so often so you couldn’t tell, though, right?’

‘In case of a baby announcement?!’

‘Yeah. I recently downgraded the threat level of your posting an ultrasound from substantial to moderate, obviously. The chances were low, but never zero.’

‘This is amazing. Why didn’t you ask me out in the first place?’

Roisin cast her mind back to the Deansgate shop floor years. She remembered an absurdly handsome, personable young lad from a monied background, whom she was surprised wanted the grunt work of retail. She remembered suspectinghe’d be a brat, and instead Matthew McKenzie being one of sweetest-natured people she’d ever met. And he looked like he’d been carved from marble. Roisin had assumed he had a vast hinterland of attention from women, the sort who didn’t dip twiglets in hummus while readingHello!in the staff room.

‘I was going to. I kept trying to finagle the seating plans when we went out after work, so I could talk to you. You may recall, a lot of people wanted to be next to Roisin on those nights. Then, as I said, I lost the moment. You were seeing him.’

She’d never seen Matt look shy before.(God, Gina, you were right.)

‘Joe asked me out because you’d told him you were going to?’

‘Yup. He told me you’d forced the timing, not him. Took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to realise that was bullshit.’ Matt paused. ‘I shouldn’t have mentioned this, should I? He’s come between us, again.’

Roisin pushed her hand across his chest, under the sheets. She’d told him she’d been trying to acclimatise to someone having this many muscles, more muscles than she actually knew anyone had.

‘I promise you. I’m not thinking about Joe.’

63

There might be more awkward places to receive a phone call from your ex’s mum than the sky-high flat of your new lover, the morning after the first night before, but if there was, Roisin didn’t care to know about it.

Even worse and more cackhanded, Roisin hadn’t intended to answer it, for all the aforementioned reasons, but had been mid-swipe when Fay’s name appeared, pressing Accept Call in error.

At least she was alone – Matt’s job kept some anti-social hours and he’d had to go to a Sunday morning meeting about his rehiring. He’d left her a key.

‘You can keep that,’ he said, before another feverish bout of kissing that made him late. Roisin would’ve happily made him even later.

‘Hello, Roisin. I wanted to say how sorry Kenneth and I were to hear about you and Joseph separating.’

‘Thank you, Fay,’ Roisin said. ‘It’s really sad, but hopefully it’s civilised.’

‘You’re staying in the flat, Joe says?’

Fay was battling to keep the disapproval out of her voiceand failing. Roisin spotted the exact tenor of neutrally raising something that had been discussed in extremely judgemental terms already.

‘Joe insisted that it was only fair, after I supported his writing career for all those years. It’s extremely generous of him. I guess he’s so successful now it’s different rules.’

Fay inhaled. ‘Joe also says you’re involved with someone you both know? A friend?’

Oh GOD. Scorched earth, Joe, is it?There was no need for this. She could’ve given Lorraine chapter and verse and opted not to.

‘Erm. There were multiple factors in the break-up,’ Roisin said, terse. ‘It wasn’t due to any infidelity.’

‘I’d have thought it didn’t help! Come on, Roisin.’

---