Page 94 of Between Us

She was frantically scrabbling to find the words to makethe fact she’d lunged at him normal, or nothing much, or a joke, so they could patch this up, and completely failing.

Once Matt was out of sight, she smoothed her hands down her sausage skin-tight dress and thought,well. You sure plucked defeat from the jaws of victory there, Walters. Fuck.

She put a palm over her face. She felt sixteen years old.

Aaaaaargh you tried to get off with Matt and he blew you out! Aaaaaargh! This is the most embarrassing thing to happen, like, ever.

Did he even think the Joe revenge thing, or was it a nimble way of not having to be mauled by her?

Roisin grabbed a trigger bottle of disinfectant and began wiping the tables to Spandau Ballet’s ‘True’ with an amount of force the task didn’t require. She tried not to think about how unbearably awkward tomorrow’s ‘good morning’ would be.

She’d have to mumble stuff about being wasted, and both of them would know it was balls. Their whole dynamic was based on Roisin being a woman immune to his charms, and she feared that was permanently shot. She cringed so hard it was as if she’d sprain her stomach.

She heard a noise and turned to see Matt on the other side of the room again, looking at her. Before she could say anything, he walked towards her, pulled her into his arms and kissed her like it was the last scene in a movie. It was nothing like their halting first attempt: passionate, deep and pushy, their hips clashing. Roisin still had Dettol in one hand and a J-cloth in the other but reciprocated as best she could.Tongues, woah.

‘What happened to apple schnapps?!’ she said, when they came up for air.

Matt brushed her hair from her face, smoothing it behind her ear, and smiled. ‘I thought if it was a one-off, it needed to be a better memory than that.’ He paused. ‘Sorry if I was uncool. I panicked.’

This was officially a head wreck: was he kissing her that well to show off? Did he fancy her or not? That kiss felt a lot like the opposite of not.

Before she could begin to process it, Roisin had a thought so violently upsetting she wriggled out of his embrace and almost pushed him away with open palms.

‘Oh NO,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘GINA.’

‘… I’m not involved with Gina?’

‘No, I know, butMatt. She’s my best friend. One of my best friends. She’d be utterly shattered by us …’ Roisin didn’t want to look presumptuous. ‘By us. You’re right – this absolutely cannot happen! What the hell was I thinking? I hate myself right now.’

‘Ah, there you go. There’s the regret you ordered,’ Matt said, in a very flat voice. ‘That arrived faster than even I predicted. Amazing.’

‘You see the problem though?’ Roisin said.

‘Yes, I do. I never thought something I didn’t do could cost me this much. You know I’ve never, ever taken advantage of that situation, right? Nothing’s ever happened, nor would it?’

‘Yes, of course! I didn’t think it had.’

Roisin realised that Matt was deeply pissed off, and he hada right to be. Coming on to someone and then remembering you couldn’t because your friend liked them was fifth-form stuff.

‘I’m sorry,’ Roisin said. ‘Really sorry.’

‘Probably for the best,’ Matt said. He walked off without saying goodnight.

Roisin was left in a state of disarray.

58

‘Matt’s gone, he said to say bye,’ Lorraine said, doing a little shimmy to Girls Aloud’s ‘Can’t Speak French’ on the jukebox as she multi-tasked swilling down black coffee and restocking the mini ginger ales.

‘What? Where?’ Roisin said, her dread at seeing him converting immediately into panic that she wouldn’t.

Her mum nodded to the front of pub. ‘There. Look.’

Roisin darted out the door and caught up with Matt, who had his duffel bag on his shoulder. He looked, with bloodshot eyes, as if he’d had a sleepless night, or maybe she was projecting her own. He also looked heartbreakingly good, and she wished she could still be indifferent to that.

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