Page 65 of The Fall-Out

I laughed, my nerves vanishing as I remembered that we were friends – we’d been friends before all this, and we’d still be friends after. I didn’t care that I was far from perfect myself and hadn’t been near a gym in months – I knew he wanted me just as much as I wanted him.

I pushed him gently down on the bed and straddled him, smiling down at him, my hair brushing his chest. Then I lowered myself on to him and kissed him again, feeling us begin to move together, fitting together perfectly.

TWENTY-FOUR

‘They’re asleep,’ I told Bridget. ‘Fingers crossed they’ll stay that way – at least until four in the morning, when they wake me up.’

‘Oh, bless you.’ She reached over and touched my cheek. ‘I remember those years like they were yesterday. Funny, because it was all a blur at the time. You think it’ll last forever, but it’s over in the blink of an eye.’

You think it’ll last forever. Her words seemed to have a different meaning – one I really didn’t want to consider right then, or ever, if that was an option.

‘There’s a lasagne in the oven. It’ll be ready in half an hour, but I’ve set the timer just in case.’

Bridget looked doubtfully at the cooker like it was some piece of space-age technology that couldn’t quite be trusted, then at her watch.

‘Delicious,’ she said. ‘Wherever you’re off to, I doubt they’ll feed you so well.’

‘It’s just a Thai place round the corner. Patch is meeting me there when he’s finished at the gym.’

Which hopefully wouldn’t mean me sitting there on my own for ages drinking wine like a Tinder date gone wrong.

‘And you look beautiful. You should wear green more often, with your colouring.’

‘Thank you.’ I’d only had time to throw on a clean jumper over my jeans and put on some mascara while the kids were in the bath, but her compliment made me smile. ‘We should be back by ten, and then Patch will get an Uber home with you.’

‘All set then. Have a lovely evening, Zar— Naomi.’

I hesitated, doubt creeping into my mind. Bridget’s absent-mindedness seemed to come and go – when I’d asked her to babysit so Patch and I could go out for a date night, she’d seemed alert and eager to help. But her vagueness troubled me – what if there was an emergency and she didn’t know what to do?

We’re only down the road. The children are asleep. This is important. What could possibly go wrong?

So I kissed her on the cheek, picked up my bag and left.

The clocks had gone forward the previous week and it was still light, the new leaves on the chestnut trees acid green against the sapphire sky. Soon, the children would be playing in the park in shorts and T-shirts instead of coats and wellies; soon, we’d be planning outings to the seaside, sandcastles and fish and chips.

Maybe. If my conversation with my husband tonight went as I hoped it would, rather than as I feared it might.

As I’d expected, Patch was late. I sat on a wooden bench, my back to the distressed brick wall, sipping pinot grigio and trying not to scoff all the prawn crackers in my anxiousness. The restaurant was busy – couples out for early dinners, families with older children, groups of students drinking lager and making the most of the Tuesday night all-you-can-eat special. Alone on the end of the long communal table, I felt shy and out of place.

It wouldn’t have been my first choice of venue for the conversation we needed to have, but the words ‘all-you-can-eat’ had always been music to Patch’s ears. So I wasn’t surprised when he came striding in, just ten minutes after I’d arrived, his face wreathed in the easy-going grin that had always melted my heart.

‘Hello, beautiful.’ He leaned over and kissed me, and I smelled the shower gel I’d given him for his birthday, which was perfect for the gym because it came in a tiny bottle but cost about a tenner per squirt.

‘Hey. Good day?’

‘So much better now I’m here with you.’ He swung a long thigh over the bench and settled down. ‘God, I’m Hank Marvin. That workout they made us do was extra.’

He launched into what would have been a long explanation about sets of burpees, snatches and cleans (whatever they were – certainly not something he did a good deal of around the house), but fortunately was interrupted by a waitress bringing over our menus.

‘How shall we do this?’ I asked, knowing that there was no point expecting him to focus on anything until the pressing issue of food was dealt with. ‘One each of the starters then share a couple of the mains?’

‘Maybe double up on the chicken wings?’

‘Really? You know I don’t really like them.’

‘But I really, really do.’ He smiled at the waitress, who smiled back. I wondered whether she was thinking: Look at this hunk of a man with his healthy appetite, or God, we always get the greedy bastards on Tuesday nights.

I wasn’t exactly sure what I was thinking myself.

---