Page 66 of One Last Try

“Like thatched roofs,” he says.

“Exactly, like thatched roofs.”

“I’ve had an idea . . . about that. What if you had some kind of community event to raise money, like, I dunno, a gigantic pub quiz, or a rugby-a-thon. We could get all the sevens boys and girls to join in. Or like a bake sale, or a raffle, or even better . . . a fair. Like a summer fair. You could set it up at the club grounds.”

I shovel eggs into my mouth so I don’t have to respond right away. “I’ll think about it,” I eventually say, so that I’m not outright dismissing his ideas. He seems so eager and genuine, and I don’t want to hurt his feelings, but . . .

My pub is not a charity. It’s a registered business. Its sole purpose is to make me, the proprietor, money so I can pay my grocery bills. It’d feel wrong setting up a community event that would benefit only me. Like stealing from a good cause. In fact, it might not even be legal.

“I’ll eat up and head off. Gotta finish the quiz before we open. Though, mind you, it won’t be the first time I’ve had to scramble around on a Thursday afternoon pulling questions out of my ass.”

“I’ve done it already. Printed it out for you. It’s in the study, but I’ve got to go.” He picks up a holdall.

“You . . .” I can’t quite formulate my sentence. Instead, I swallow down the weird ache in my throat. I need Mathias to leave for training so I can be alone with my brooding teenager thoughts.

What is fucking happening to me?

“Well, see you tonight.” Mathias bounces from one foot to the other beside the table. It’s possible he’s deciding whether to kiss me goodbye. He doesn’t. He just leaves with a friendly and awkward as fuck wave.

After I finish my breakfast, I hang around Fernbank Cottage for what feels like an unjustifiably long time. I read through Mathias’s final quiz questions, and I do that thing people in movies and TV programmes do where they walk through each room and sigh. I miss this place.

I miss the bath tub. I miss having actual baths instead of only showers. I miss swiping the girls’ Lush bathbombs when they’d go out and I wanted to feel fancy. I miss the way the pond in the back garden throws shimmering wavy light onto the dining room ceiling. I even miss the fucking wood pigeon that sits on the branch outside the master bedroom window and shrieked me awake every morning. I miss shitting my pants at five thirty a.m. every day at the noise.

After I clean away my plates, I head over the road. Since Mathias has already finished the quiz, and it’s only nine twenty and The Little Thatch doesn’t open to the public until midday, I have some surprise unaccounted for time on my hands.

Might have a nap and a wank. Or a wank and a nap. Or a wank followed by a nap followed by another wank. Treat yo’self.

But alas, Daisy’s already in the pub, perched on one of the tall bar stools with a laptop open in front of her.

I can’t catch a break.

“Spend the night with Matty baby, did you?” She raises an eyebrow at me.

I could lie, tell her I got up early to go into Hookborough for some supplies, but I don’t bother. She’s too smart for that. “Maybe I did. On a completely unrelated note, I need to take a shower.”

“Oh my god, ew,” she says. She’s grinning from ear to ear. “But yay. So . . . are you two like a thing now? Because Lando told me Mathias has deleted his Grindr.”

I stumble over my next thoughts. He deleted his hookup app? Because of me? “No, we’re not a thing. We just—”

“Ahhh! I don’t need details,” she screams.

“Jesus, I’m not about to give you any details. I was gonna say that whatever we have, Mathias and me, it’s only temporary. He’s going back to Wales after the summer. Even if they offer him another season with the Cents, I’m not sure he’d take it. So I’m not going to . . .”Fall in love with a boy who’s leaving.“We’re not going to be anything more than just friends.”

“Friends with benefits?”

“Yes.”

She sighs. “Oh.” She seems genuinely disappointed, and it’s all I can do not to join in, mirror her crumpled facial expression, her deflated shoulders. “Well, in other fantastic news today, Ryan called.”

“Ryan?”

“Yeah, Ryan Whatshisname from the thatchers.”

“Ah, fuck. What did he want?” A ball of dread blossoms in my stomach, burns down the length of my gullet like I didn’t blow on a scalding piece of pie.

“He’s booking us in for the eighth of August. He said after that, their availability is shit and it’ll be twenty twenty-seven if we don’t have it done then. I haven’t said yes to him yet. Said I’d talk it over with you.”

I puff all the air out of my lungs as slowly as I can, as though if I spend the rest of forever exhaling, I’ll never have to deal with my grown-up problems. “What’s the damage?”

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