Page 53 of Couple Goals

‘You want to speak to Kira to apologise? I think that would be a good idea but you need to maybe do it when you’re less drunk, and when she’s less hurt.’

Maeve rolls her eyes and huffs. ‘She doesn’tcare.’

‘Umm, yeah, I think she does,’ says Adriana. ‘We all care! It’s our team! And you were being a real dick to her!’

Maeve lashes out at the air, in a display of drunken frustration at herself, her inability to understand or communicate.

‘Not like that. Kira… She… She doesn’t care… about any of it. Not job. Not me. Not us. Not like I do.’

Maeve sighs dramatically, then suddenly picks up a half empty bottle of vodka that’s been left on the pavement of the smoking area, and lifts it to her lips.

‘Maeve! No!’ Adriana snatches it from her before she drinks any. She’s never seen her friend like this, and she’s really worried about her.She’s also, frankly, still disappointed in her. But she takes a deep breath. She knows that Kira rubs people up the wrong way, especially at first impression, with her brashness and her brazen confidence. But the more Adriana has seen of her, the more she thinks Kira really does have a kind heart – being confident in your own skill doesn’t make you think other people are less worthy of respect and it must be hard trying to fit into the team as the only summer signing so far.

‘Look, you’re not used to alcohol. You’re not used to going out. I’m trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here, Maeve, because I love you, but Iknowthere’s something you’re not telling me–’

‘There’s somethingyou’renot tellingme!’Maeve bursts out. ‘What’s going on withyou, huh? I know you’re hiding something.’

Adriana’s taken aback by Maeve’s sudden clarity when she’s been so out of it and this being turned around on her. ‘W-what? Maeve, remember you’re drunk.’

Adriana feels bad for deflecting this truth, but she knows Maeve isn’t really in a state to talk seriously right now, and Adriana doesn’t want to pour her heart out only for her friend to not remember a word of it tomorrow.

‘Iknowyou, Addy,’ Maeve mumbles. ‘I have known you for a decade. I know I haven’t been doing my side of our friendship recently, but neither have you. It’s not just me. Neither have you. It’s one thing to lie to me but don’t lie to yourself. I’m going back to find the others.’

Before Adriana can protest, Maeve storms off suddenly back into the club. Adriana intends to go after her, but she suddenly feels so drained of trying to keep holding everyone else up instead of just herself. Maybe she should call that taxi for herself, but her heart feels so heavy. She just wants someone to comfort her. To look afterherfor a change, instead of her looking after everyone else.

She sits down on the side of the road where Maeve had been, and sighs deeply. She closes her eyes to try to compose herself.

‘Addy?’

Her eyes open at the sound of that familiar voice. Adriana must be more drunk than she thought. Because there, like she’d just been fantasising about, walking past the club with his blazer over his arm and his phone in his hand, is Jacob Astor.

Chapter 18Maeve

Maeve must be in Hell.

She wakes up on Sunday morning with a start in a sweaty furnace of her quilt, her stomach twisted, and stumbles to the bathroom. She flicks on the light, but then groans when it’s way too bright, and immediately turns it off again. She sits on the floor before the porcelain throne, clutching at it.

Adriana’s words from last night echo in her mind. ‘This isn’t the Maeve I know. This isn’t like you.’

What is happening to her? Her throat feels dry and rancid, her head feels like someone forcibly removed her brain with a spork from how hard it’s pounding and how unable she is to think clearly. And her t-shirt smells like… tequila?

As Maeve sits on the cold bathroom tiles, still wearing her t-shirt and pants from the previous night – she had the sense to take her jeans off to sleep at least – memories from last night start to surface in hazy bursts.

Kira cornering her in Adriana’s cottagecore kitchen about how she needed to cool down. Adriana fighting with her on the side of the street, telling her off for how she’d been mean to Kira.And, worst of all, Kira dancing in the club, looking like an archangel fallen to earth. All Maeve had wanted to do was kiss her, right there, in front of everyone, and forget everything else. But Kira had made a point of ignoring her whenever they were in front of anyone.

It’s fair enough, Maeve supposes, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting. To have Kira’s golden eyes looking down at her, not up at her from the locker room floor. To have Kira laughing with the other members of the team, people who were meant to beMaeve’s friends and seemingly not care that Kira has just swooped in and taken her place. Kira just staring at her as if proving over and over, again and again, that Kira could do everything Maeve wanted to do and be better at it than her too. The truth was that although they appeared to fight on the surface, Maeve had felt drawn to Kira in a way she’d never experienced before, a way that felt even riskier than their secrecy and terrified her.

Maeve dry heaves.

Afterwards she slowly gets up from the floor and thinks what she would do if she was looking after Adriana in a similar hungover state. She makes herself a berocca and drinks it, wincing at the frothiness. She fills her personalised water bottle and sips from it. She makes dry toast and nibbles at it delicately. She showers, and puts on her softest pyjama-like clothes, her hair up in an old cow-patterned towel, another gift from Adriana. Adriana is everywhere in her flat, ghosts of their closeness.

Maeve picks up her phone to check if she has messages from Adriana, hoping she has checked she got home okay even if they did have a falling out. She finds nothing from Adriana,but Maeve has six missed calls and a string of messages from an unknown number. She clicks on it first, trying to work out what the emergency is.

Hey May, it’s Jess ;) x

I’m at the bar what would u like?

Hey?

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