Page 73 of Between Us

Nothing that mattered had changed. She’d go home tomorrow and say she had finished thinking, they were definitely done. It wasn’t a good moment to finally have this conviction, at the start of an hour and a half of being friendly and social in Joe’s company.

‘Cor, if lip fillers were sticks of dynamite, we’d be blown sky high here, right?’ Joe said, under his breath, glancing around.

‘I’ve left Matt working a shift with my mother in Webberley,’ Roisin said to the table, to keep her mind occupied.

At least Joe looked wrongfooted now, instead of her.

She’d checked Matt was alright with her telling the Brians and he’d shrugged,sure, why not.She was impressed he didn’t care about status.

‘Lol, what? Matt? A barman for your mum? Is this his most ambitious seduction attempt yet?’ Joe said.

Roisin looked at Joe, levelly. To everyone else, that was a standard risqué jibe at Matt. With what he knew of her family, it was crasser than that.

‘Nice. He’s on a sabbatical from work and keeping busy,’ Roisin said, deciding to sidestep Matt’s sacking for his dignity. ‘It’s a lifesaver for my mum.’

‘Let me get this straight: Matt is dating a Hollywood star and his job is making bitter shandies for old boys playing darts? If I pitched this in a Hallmark movie, I’d be told it was a step too far,’ Joe said.

‘Not any more,’ Roisin said. ‘He and Amelia have gone their separate ways.’

‘What a shame, she was so nice,’ Gina said, snapping a breadstick. ‘They could’ve had such beautiful, rude babies.’

‘No Anita?’ Roisin said to Dev, glancing around.

‘Nah, she’s poorly. Tummy bug. Left her watchingTheReal Housewivesof Beverly Hillsin her clown trousers. Honestly, the one way we’re incompatible is TV. She says I only like things with people in snowstorms saying, “We must keep moving! We need to get to the camp by nightfall, before It awakens!”’

‘Have you had a chance to look at the menu, guys?’ a waitress interrupted, and they guiltily tasked themselves to making choices.

Roisin saw she had a message from Meredith and read it carefully, holding her phone inside her bag.

I bloody hope it’s not morning sickness.

46

‘You’ve got a second series, though, right?’ Dev whooped as Joe nodded.

‘They’re announcing it over the final credits. God knows when, mind you. Rufus has got a pilot for something with Michael Keaton and a role in theStranger Thingsspin-off. That goes no further, obviously,’ he said, looking at a group of people without a hotline to the news desk ofVariety.

Roisin had been able to withstand ten minutes of Dev on the genius of episode two ofHunterbecause Gina had gamely protected her with, ‘No spoilers, Dev! I’ve not seen it yet!’ which reduced him to detail-free superlatives.

‘Got the last one recording!’ Dev said. Of course. Tonight was the finale. They were missing it.

Joe looked at Roisin from under his brow, twiddling his fork. He’d be unsure if she’d seen it yet and he also knew raising that question was a kamikaze mission.

Only when Dev got on to his stag do and wedding again, did Roisin push her ravioli around her plate in quiet agony. An event that Joe Powell across the table might well be attending with his next girlfriend. That’d be fun.

If he turned up at all, of course.

Was the other reason Roisin had agreed to ‘think about it’ earlier this week purely a result of the base motive of flattery? She’d spent a year thinking she was going to be let go of, by someone with options. It was obvious Joe was a considerable catch. His declaring her worth tohimhad been too gratifying.

Dev was extolling the benefits of hopping over to Palm Beach in a hired Chevy truck when Roisin spoke up, unable to take the dissonance any more.

‘Heads up that I don’t think, with his work situation, Matt can afford Miami,’ Roisin said, hoping to both do Matt a favour and start the process of conveying:we are all disquieted by the price tags lately. Team No Reindeer Moss.

‘What are you, his mum?’ Joe shot back, trying to be flip and landing hard.

‘Yeah, I was going to say,’ Meredith said, both rescuing and ignoring Joe, ‘I’ll probably need to see the total cost of Lake Como before I commit. Our boiler’s gone kaput.’ She looked at Gina. ‘She dresses well to hide it though, hahahahaha.’

‘Vicious witch,’ Gina said, craning to see a waiter. ‘I might have another Aperol. Oh yeah, the boiler. I have some emergency savings I could dip into for that.’

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