Page 30 of The Reunion

I know it’s fantastic. I love my life. I love my career and my apartment and my sleepy Sunday lie-ins with my Kindle and the nights out at bars or comedy nights or gigs with my friends. I don’t need anybody to tell me how great it looks; I live it, I know.

So … why do I care? Why do I need them to tell me?

I take my phone out, on the verge of redialling the taxi firm I used earlier. In the reflection of the screen, I see my lipstick is smudged. Should I fix it – or just wipe it off altogether and go home?

Come on, Ashleigh. Don’t chicken out now, or they’ve won. Last woman standing. Show them all they were wrong; you’ll regret it if you don’t.

Yes, but counter point: chips. And battered sausage, and curry sauce.

Counter-counter point: cold pizza. Get your shit together and get back in there.

Yes, but—

A chuckle from somewhere in front of me startles me to attention, and my head whips up towards the sound.

Ryan is lurking in the shadows, leaning against one of the display boards with one ankle crossed over the other, and his arms folded across his chest. His eyes glint at me, his teeth like a damned toothpaste advert. How long has he been there? How long has he been watching me?

‘Sorry,’ he says in a low, smooth voice that suggests he is absolutely not sorry. ‘Don’t let me disturb you. Carry on.’

My chin jerks up of its own accord, shoulders braced. ‘I wasn’t doing anything.’

‘Yes, you were. You were doing that thing where you get ready for a debate. Should I warn Freddie he’s got his work cut out for him?’

I glower, and that prickling anger he’s always instilled in me spreads from my fingertips to smother my lungs and scratch at my throat as Ryan pushes away from the wall to stride towards me. He stops about two feet away, unsettlingly close, but I bet that’s exactly why he’s done it, and keeps grinning down at me. I’ll hand it to him, that’s a feat in itself; he’s hardly taller than me, with the heels I’m wearing.

‘I’m not debating anybody,’ I inform him. Lie. But I don’t think it counts if I’m debating against myself, and I hate that Ryan has ever known me well enough to recognise what it looks like when I’m having a silent argument. I hate that he still, apparently, does. ‘And as for Freddie—’

And his gross, clammy hand and stinking, boozy breath and not-even-a-little-bit-subtle cleavage ogling … Ugh.

Not, of course, that Ryan needs to know that. And not that I need to acknowledge that Freddie traded up for Bryony the second he had the chance …

‘Well, I don’t think it’s any of your business how I spend time with Freddie, is it?’

I shouldn’t say it. It’s stupid – silly. Reckless, because I know I’m only saying it to try to drive a wedge between Ryan and his friend, like if Freddie picks me, it’s some kind of insult to him. And it’s so bloody ridiculous, because we’re all grown-ups, and won’t hold it against our friends if they spend a night out flirting with somebody, so it’s not even like I’ll achieve anything anyway.

At worst, it’ll just give them all an excuse to laugh at me and say I’m a frigid bitch and that’s why Freddie rejected me.

I put on my best poker face, all but daring Ryan to call my bluff.

Except it’s not me with the tell.

It’s him.

Because as I stare at Ryan with my sneer firmly in place, I watch as his gaze sharpens, his grin vanishing, and then – his eyes dip to my mouth. Zeroing in on the smudge of my lipstick on my lower lip. He doesn’t look away for a very, very long moment.

Long enough that my heart does something funny and disturbing and quite possibly also medically concerning, and my lips part involuntarily as I swallow, my mouth bone dry, and it’s only when I inhale a bit too sharply, the noise audible in the deserted corridor, and when I don’t exhale, that Ryan’s eyes tick back up to mine.

His cocksure grin slides back into place as if that never happened; the only reason I’m sure it did, and wasn’t some punch-induced hallucination, is because the usual tension that charges the air between us is suddenly thick and oppressive, making me want to bolt.

And I’ve never wanted to turn my back on Ryan. Never run away from a fight. I’ve stayed till the bitter end every time, even when it’s a losing battle.

Oh, fuck, please don’t let this be a losing battle.

I’m – not prepared for this.

I don’t know what to do with that look. This tension.

But Ryan just slides his hands into his trouser pockets, nonchalant as ever, and nods his head in the direction of the girls’ cloakroom I’m still loitering outside. ‘You know, I thought we weren’t supposed to go sneaking off around the school. Didn’t take you for such a rule breaker, Easton.’

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