Page 52 of Hard Tail
Chapter Seventeen
The food, when we finally got to eat it, was every bit as good as Matt had promised. If I hadn’t already known, I doubt I’d have even noticed it was vegetarian. It went well with the fruity Chardonnay I’d picked out at the Co-op. We were sitting on the sofa afterwards watching an old episode ofPoirotand feeling pleasantly mellow—at least I was, and I’d assumed Matt was feeling the same way—when Matt dropped the bombshell.
“It was because of what you said,” he blurted out. “Me leaving Steve, I mean.”
“What?” David Suchet’s fake Belgian accent and twirly moustache no longer held my attention.
“You know. When you said you couldn’t believe I was with him.” He ducked his head. “It got to me, you know? It was like you were disappointed in me. Like you’d thought I was better than that. I hadn’t thought about it like that before. I mean, it was a lot like what Luke said, but I s’pose—”
“Luke?” I asked sharply.
“Yeah—when he came to the shop. That was what he was talking to me about, right at the end.”
“Luke knows Steve?”
Matt didn’t answer for a moment, just stared at his knees.
“Matt?” I prompted.
“He doesn’t know Steve, but he said he’d been there.”
I was totally confused. “Been where?”
Matt had obviously decided on closer inspection that his knees needed comforting. He drew them up to his chest, his feet in their stripey socks with the holes in perching on the edge of the sofa, and hugged his legs. “When he was younger. I mean, you wouldn’t believe it now, would you? That he had a bloke who used to knock him around?”
All the blood in my veins had apparently been siphoned off and replaced with liquid nitrogen. “He—what?”
Matt shrugged, still hugging his legs in like he was afraid they’d fall off. “You know.”
“Wait a minute.” I said it slowly, needing to get this absolutely clear. “You’re telling me Steve…hit you?”
“It wasn’t his fault,” Matt said, the words carving themselves into my flesh and leaving bloody scars. “He just gets…frustrated sometimes. You know. Because he can’t be out, what with working on the docks and all. He never means to do it.”
“Is that what he told you?” I stood up, literally shaking with fury. If Prick-tard had walked in the door right now… Well, he wouldn’t have been walking out again, that was for sure. “So all those times you turned up looking battered—Christ, you really had been!”
“Not all of them,” he said earnestly, looking up at me as if he was anxious I understand his ex hadn’t been a total shitting bastardallthe time, just, oh, ninety percent or so. “I mean, you know what I’m like.”
“So,” I began, and it didn’t sound like me, not at all. “The black eye? The lip? Why the hell didn’t youtellsomeone, for God’s sake?”
“He never meant to do it,” Matt said, his voice barely a whisper.
“What, his fist just moved of its own accord? Some kind of muscle spasm, was it?”
Matt didn’t answer, and I realised with an unpleasant shock that my fury was scaring him. I sat back down on the sofa so at least I wouldn’t be looming so much. “Matt… You shouldn’t be making excuses for him. That kind of behaviour is totally unacceptable. If he can’t control his anger, he doesn’t deserve to have a boyfriend.” He certainly didn’t deserve Matt.
“Yeah, but… I know I wound him up sometimes. I talk too much, and I don’t think about what I’m saying, and I’m always knocking stuff over…”
“That doesn’t give anyone the right to knock you over!”
Matt took a deep breath. “I know… At least…” His face was screwed up with the effort of trying to articulate whatever was going on inside that shaggy head of his. “He wasn’t like that all the time. Sometimes he was really nice, you know? Fun. Caring.” He shook his head. “Anyway, I just meant to say, well, it helped, what you said. You know. You believing I was worth better.”
“You seriously needed me to tell you that? Matt, of course you’re worth better! You’re kind, you’re good-looking, you’re fun to be with—and you’re a wizard with the bikes. Anyone would be glad to have you as a boyfriend.” I’d leaned forward as I spoke, and when Matt looked up, our faces were only inches apart. My breath caught—his lips were so close to mine. As I watched, they parted, and without even meaning to, I leaned in a little farther—only to see Matt recoil and hang his head once more.
Shit. What the hell had I been thinking of? That he’d welcome a kiss from his best mate’s boyfriend? That when I’d said he deserved better than Steve Pritchard, I’d meant a cheating bastard would do just fine?
“Washing up,” I blurted out, jumping off the sofa just as Matt mumbled something that sounded likesorry. “Need to do the washing up. Chuck away the boxes. Don’t want them stinking the place out.” I scrambled into the kitchen, where I found Wolverine licking out one of the takeaway tubs. He hissed when I snatched it away. “Tough,” I told him. “I’m fairly sure monosodium glutamate isn’t recommended for cats, and I don’t want you sicking up again.”
I rinsed out the tubs and put them for recycling, loaded the dishwasher and looked around for anything else I could reasonably do in the kitchen to avoid having to face Matt again. Did the fridge need a clean? I opened it up and stared at the stacks of colourful little boxes—my secret convenience-food shame.
