Page 66 of The Fall-Out

‘Whatever you think,’ I said. ‘Go wild. And I’ll have another glass of wine, please.’

‘And a beer for me,’ Patch said, when he’d finishing placing a lengthy food order.

Soon, platters and bowls began arriving at our table, occupying more than our share of space and forcing the students next to us to budge up. I lifted a couple of sweetcorn fritters and a pork dumpling on to my plate and ate slowly, waiting for Patch to placate the ravening beast that was his post-workout hunger.

‘So,’ he said at last, when the starters had stopped coming and dishes of noodles, red curry and rice had arrived. ‘This is nice. We haven’t had a date night in ages.’

‘Yeah, and your mum said it was a while since she’d had an evening with the kids. So I thought, why not?’ I raised my wine glass and tapped it against the rim of his beer bottle. ‘And besides, there’s something I wanted to ask you.’

‘Is it about you going back to work? Look, we can make it work if we have to, I guess. But are you sure it’s what you really want? You’ll end up spending virtually everything you earn on childcare and?—’

I dug my chopsticks into the bowl in front of me and lifted out a prawn, but my hands weren’t quite steady and I fumbled, letting it fall back before it reached my mouth.

‘It’s not about that,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry – we can talk about that another time. This is something else.’

‘Jeez,’ he grumbled. ‘Here I am thinking I’ll have a nice evening out with my wife and it turns into a summit conference. Okay, hit me with it.’

I waited until he’d piled his plate with rice, pork and salad. ‘Okay. It’s more of a question, really. When did you actually break up with Zara?’

‘Oh, God, Nome. Not this ancient history.’ He put his chopsticks down and raked a hand through his hair. ‘I can’t remember. What are you looking for – day, month, hour?’

I felt a flare of annoyance at his flippancy. ‘Patch, come on. It’s important.’

‘No, it’s not. You and I are together now – that’s the important thing.’

‘It’s important to me,’ I insisted. ‘I mean – not the day or the hour, obviously. But whether it was before or after… you know.’

‘Before or after we shagged?’ he asked, too loudly.

The girl sitting next to him paused, a forkful of food hovering mid-air. Then she put it down and whispered something to the bloke next to her. Give me a second, I need to hear what this couple are saying, maybe.

‘Yes. I mean, no. More like before or after we started going out, like, properly.’

‘Oh, come on.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘What’s properly? We’d known each other for years. We didn’t need to do the whole “exclusive” thing and have a coming-off-the-apps ceremony.’

‘No, we didn’t. Because after we’d got together, I would never, ever have had anything going on with anyone else.’

And for ages before, because as far as I was concerned no one else could ever have measured up to Patch.

‘Naomi.’ He put his chopsticks down and took a long swallow of lager. ‘Here’s the thing. As soon as I met you – okay, maybe not the very first time, but pretty much straight away – I fell for you. I knew it was you I wanted to be with. I tried to do the right thing by Zee. I really, really didn’t want to hurt her. So I put aside my feelings for you for a long time, but it was hard.’

As soon as I met you, I fell for you. He’d never told me that before. Even now, with all the years that had passed, all the times we’d said we loved each other, it gave me a thrill of happiness. If I’d known back then that he’d felt the same as me, right from the beginning, would I have done things differently?

The knowledge was bittersweet. If only you’d told me, everything would have been so much easier.

‘But you were with someone else.’

‘But you were hanging around looking so bloody pretty I could barely keep my hands off you.’

‘That’s sweet. But you did keep your hands off me, because you were with Zara. Until you didn’t. And I need to know whether you were still with her then or not.’

‘For God’s sake. It doesn’t?—’

‘Yes, it does.’

We looked at each other across the table. His face was so familiar – as handsome as it had always been, his eyes the same rich, deep brown, just a few wrinkles at their corners. His hair the same glossy black, just a few silver threads running through it.

I remembered how it felt to love him so much it was like a pain.

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