Page 114 of Between Us

‘That’s not what I said, and you know it wasn’t. Don’t play his games.’

‘Hisgames?!’

Matt shook his head, folded his arms and stared at the couch. ‘I don’t know how you’re making someone who received an unwanted phone call, and Joe, the same person. One of these things is not like the other.’

‘I thought you were the one who told me the truth. I’m done with men who lie to me and rationalise it afterwards. No matter how eloquent the excuses are. No matter how good they are at turning it back onto me in the analysis. Your spare key’s over there.’

She saw herself out, and he didn’t stop her.

71

BRIAN CLUB

Dev

New message

ping

New message

ping

New message

ping

Roisin put down her roller. She was wearing pyjamas inside out and her hair bundled up into a Sainsbury’s bag to keep it from paint flecks.

She’d tried headscarves in the past; they looked more appealing and yet didn’t keep her puce hairline safe enough.The thing about being single was, there was no one to see her looking like aMars Attacksalien with a plastic shopper on her head.

Roisin wiped her hands on a cloth and picked her phone up. She best not switch to video call by accident.

She was in the process of turning the chapel-shaped open-plan reception room ‘Lamp Black’ by Little Greene. It was a dramatic shade that Joe had once upon a time, refused to sign off on, making it feel like a definitive break with the past. It was also a definitive break with good taste. Three-quarters of the way through the project, she had to admit it might’ve been the one thing Joe was right about. It had recreated a shop where they’d burn incense and try to sell you Himalayan salt candles that looked like lumps of ear wax. She could imagine Matt sayingsurely there are easier ways to open a portal for The Wicked One.

Matt.

Being busy helped banish Matt McKenzie from her mind. When masking-taping edges, swapping her brush sizes for the corners, she didn’t think about the contours of his face as much. Or his hands on her body, or how it felt when he kissed her, or any intimate moment that they’d shared that was unhelpful to the decision she’d regretfully made that they were no more.

It was the walks she couldn’t forgive, she thought, hand wavering while she was dragging bristles along the skirting board. At a bleak time in her life, those rambles through the woods had saved her sanity. Yet the whole time, Matt was a double agent. He could, as she’d said, have ended her doubts over Joe there and then. But he held it back, made a fool of her.

God, she’d even told him about her short-lived bout of misery-promiscuity in her teens.Thatwashow much she’d trusted McKenzie.

What did Gina say?I feel naked around him anyway, so once he’d literally seen me naked, it was more than I could tolerate.

Yes, that. Her port in a storm had turned out to be more storm.

She opened the messages on Brian Club.

Dev

GUESS WHO DIDN’T GO TO SOLLER

PLEASE SAY CONGRATS TO THE NEW MR & MRS DOSHI!

There followed two photos of Dev and Anita, one a selfie of them holding up their ring fingers to the camera, another outside the Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas.

While Roisin was marvelling at this, another message arrived.

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