Page 93 of Between Us

He smiled warmly. The jukebox had struck up ‘Slave to Love’.

‘Another?’ He stood up.

‘Yes, please. Bloody hell, I need to tell Mum to pay for the upgrade, don’t I? This thing loops the Eighties and Nineties. It’s like a late-night minicab.’

‘Some of us like familiarity! You’re such a grinch,’ Matt said. One hand outstretched for her hand, he mouthed,Tell her I’ll be waiting …

With a groan and feigned reluctance, Roisin accepted the invitation, put her hand in his. She got to her feet and let Matt waltz her around the lounge bar.

She rested her head on his chest. After the handholding, she wasn’t sure if this was wise, but it felt too good to stop. Such close contact was a strange mixture of fireworks and security.Thatwas it – that was what Roisin had noticed during the handholding. It was completely natural, and yet wildly exotic at the same time. Exhilaratingly new and already familiar. He was a safe place, full of danger.

She toyed with her own feelings, imagining how it would feel if they crossed lines. If they … belonged to one another.

Imagine if this was real.

Matt was completely out of her price range, surely? Or she was slumming it, for him.

When Roisin glanced up, to her surprise, Matt was looking down at her with an intense seriousness. She’d almost call itpained. It was utterly unlike him. She realised they had been catapulted into A Moment Before Another Moment – this couldn’t be played off as horsing around when they’d gazed at each other with such obvious intensity.

What did she do, or say, next? The answer was simple, and Roisin couldn’t believe she acted on it: she leaned up and kissed him.

Their mouths connected and her heart lurched. She wanted this, and wanted him, and as much as it was a huge surprise, there was no point denying it. The kiss was tentative; she felt Matt was responding in shock as much as anything. But he did respond. Time stood still.

Her feelings for Matthew McKenzie had arrived in two ways: gradually, then suddenly. Slow, but fast at the end.

‘Wait,’ Matt said, pulling back, frowning. ‘If you’re trying to upset Joe, I can’t deny I’m the killer choice. But I don’t want to be a nuke.’

He gave her that troubled look again. She felt she was seeing a side of him he always kept hidden. It was slightly disorientating.

‘Oh, OK,’ Roisin said, flustered and flushed, unsure what she was supposed to say. She’d not expected to kiss him.

‘The etiquette is to at least vaguely try to deny that’s what you were doing, though!’ Matt said, now sounding both amused and offended. Normal Matt had returned. But while his tone of voice was steady, he was flushed, too. She had affected him.

‘I do deny it,’ Roisin said. ‘Completely. I’d never tell Joe.’

Tell Joe what, exactly?

‘I don’t think you need to tell him for it to be revenge,’ Matt said quietly.

The jukebox decided to be a silent wanker, clicking through to the next track with agonising sluggishness. It left them stood in an unbearable silence until Simple Minds’ ‘Alive And Kicking’ came on. It wasn’t helpful to haveYOU TURN ME ONboom out, either, if Roisin was honest.

‘I just …’ She just what? Was experiencing an overwhelming carnal pull towards Matt, and it felt like her heart was along for the ride? How the hell did you say that, out of the blue, after ten years? ‘It felt right in the moment,’ she finished lamely.

‘Nothing to do with that “distasteful” thing you needed to do, to prove you and Joe were over?’

Roisin’s jaw dropped. ‘Oh God! That wasn’t … this isn’tthat…’

Nevertheless, she saw Matt’s point.

‘Hmmm. OK. No offence, but I don’t want to be a source of regret to you,’ Matt said. ‘I don’t want my body to be the equivalent of the empty bottle of apple schnapps.’

‘You’d never be that,’ she said, with feeling. How could he ever imagine himself as disposable?

Simple Minds echoed through the dimly lit room, as unsaid things whirled around them.

‘Uhm, I’m going to head up to bed,’ Matt said eventually.

‘Sure,’ Roisin replied, a confident monosyllable masking internal chaos. ‘Night.’

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