Page 35 of Between Us

‘I was working up to it,’ Matt said, rather brokenly. ‘I didn’t think the big reveal there was time sensitive. Dev, I’m so sorry – I never thought for a moment telling her where we were staying would mean she’d take it as an invite. Her schedule’s nuts, I didn’t even know she was in the UK.’

‘Are you kidding, stop apologising! This is an all-time killer brag.’

‘OK. Bye, then,’ Matt said, barely meeting their eyes as he left, to muttered farewells.

Roisin wanted to say something supportive, but with Gina on her last nerve, she didn’t dare say more than, ‘Bye, take care.’

After a beat, they shamelessly reassembled by the window to spectate, the Jeep now with tail-lights on and one door open. Eventually Matt walked into view, dressed like hipDoctor Whoagain, headphones round his neck.

He glanced at the dining room window and raised a palm.

‘It’s like he’s getting into a spaceship,’ Anita said. ‘With an alien.’

‘Goodbye, Matthew McKenzie,’ Joe said, waving. ‘Your passing leaves a huge hole.’

‘Lesson learned,’ Dev said. ‘Always worth checking exactly who Matt is dating. Next time he says “Kylie”, I’m going to be like “Minogue or Jenner?”’

Except, Roisin thought, had Joe not stopped Matt’s reverse catfish reveal, they would’ve known.

And she noticed, save one piece of sass, Joe had been unusually restrained around Amelia Tornado. She guessed it was because his precious career prohibited being sarcastically insulting to very well-known actresses. Game recognised game.

‘Did this happen? I’m shaking,’ Roisin said, as the car drove away and adrenaline started ebbing back out of her veins. ‘Did Amelia Lee turn out to be Matt’s latest girlfriend, and Gina told her to go fuck herself? Did I really say: “are you Amelia Lee?” like a total melt? I felt like I’d asked someone in the Mafia if they were in the Mafia. Something you don’t ever do.’

‘Glad you did, ’cos until then I was going to go with jewel thief,’ Anita said. ‘I thought she might be on the run. No photos!’

‘If it’s a hallucination, I must have eaten the same hash cake,’ Meredith said, putting her arms round Roisin. ‘Oh, Miss Walters, make it make sense.’

Without needing to communicate their next thoughts, they looked at each other in concern, and over at Gina, who was saloon-in-a-western sploshing more wine into her glass, while making a sly face Roisin could only classify as ‘Fleabag’.

Much as Gina had chewed Matt out for his felonies, Roisinfelt sure she’d feel even worse than him tomorrow, psychically as well as physically.

‘Joe! The time!’ Anita said, looking at her phone. ‘Hunterstarts in five minutes! Everyone, get your drinks, we’re going to the screening room!’

‘It’s going to feel like something of an anti-climax now, isn’t it?’ Joe said. ‘Talk about a hard act to follow.’

Very recently, Roisin would’ve said this statement from Joe was false modesty. But frankly, he could be right.

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Roisin had no detail aboutHunter, beyond the skeleton of the premise and the casting. She’d been involved in every spit and cough ofSEEN,but Joe was fully launched now, had a small army of professionals to give him notes. He deserved some space.

In last-minute regret, as they took their seats in Benbarrow’s plush screening room, Roisin wondered what she’d thought was charming and relaxed might’ve in fact been reckless to the point of negligent.

‘It’s really quite filthy,’ Joe said to them, proudly. Roisin felt suddenly sick.Filthy? She could really do without her GCSE kids seeing filthy. What if there was some dreadful talking dirty, or Bad Sex Award, purple scene? Why did she feel such a lack of faith? Was she a prude? OK, she’d known it was about a ‘sex addict’, but it wasn’tporn, so. She very stupidly at last caught on that there were still several degrees of heat between U-rated and X-rated. The devil was in the detail.

‘I hope you like it,’ Joe said to the room. ‘No pressure!’

‘We are guaranteed to love it,’ Dev said.

Whatever show was finishing beforeHuntercrackled intolife in front of them, in eight-foot-wide HD. Meredith opened chocolate peanuts and Liquorice Allsorts and tried to get a bladdered Gina to have some.

Anita rejoined them, having been projectionist. ‘Oh, Joe! I am a bag of ants, so what must you be like!’

Roisin really wished she could share their euphoria for Joe, instead of being eaten up by anxiety.

This must be how the parents of actors felt when their offspring was playing Hamlet.Stop this,she told herself.You’re having stage fright by proxy. It’s going to be amazing. Breathe.

She squeezed Joe’s arm and smiled at him in the dark. He smiled back, slipped his hot hand into hers and squeezed, let go. It was the tenderest moment they’d had in a long while.

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