Page 42 of Our Song

‘Come on, Lol,’ he says.‘I was hardly going to forget aboutyou.’

I smile back at him and I’m filled with such fondness for him it takes me by surprise.We were friends once.We were real friends.And maybe we can be friends again.Maybe we already are.Maybe we’re …

A familiar old feeling pervades me, one I almost don’t want to name.

Hope.

Tadhg’s phone buzzes.He looks at it and says, ‘Oh, bollocks.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ he says.‘I just didn’t realise how late it was.’

‘How late is it?’I say.

‘Just after six.’He sighs.‘Sorry, Lol, I don’t want to kick you out but we’d better call it a day.I’ve got to be somewhere at seven.’

‘No worries,’ I say.‘I should head too.’Though I don’t have anywhere to be apart from Katie and Jeanne’s house, and I’d have happily stayed playing music with Tadhg all evening if he’d asked me to.‘Where are you off to?If you don’t mind me asking.’

And I find myself silently praying, with an intensity that shocks me,Please, please, please don’t let him say it’s a date.

‘Just a dinner thing in town,’ he says, which could be anything.A hot date.A business meeting.His mother’s birthday.

Or a dinner with some other woman like me, a woman who used to be in love with him and is, I very much regret to inform myself, in danger of falling in love with him again.

Chapter Seventeen

2002

At four o’clock the day after my surprise reunion with Tadhg, the band – and Katie – were sitting in the café section of the Buttery.The Buttery occupied the lower ground floor of the eighteenth-century Dining Hall building, with a bright, busy café on one side and a cosy, windowless bar on the other.We had grabbed a table by the windows.

‘I can’t believe I’m going to meet your long-lost bandmate,’ said Joanna.I loved Joanna.She dressed, as she said herself, like someone going to work in a bank, and people who judged others by their appearance – especially annoying boys – were always taken by surprise when they found out she was an awesome bass player.

‘I can’t believe you didn’t know his real name was Tim,’ said Brian.

‘You only knew because you stayed in the same house in Laoise!’said Katie.She and Brian were still close.Though rightnow I was glad that, on my orders back in 1999, she had never told him about my teenage crush on Tadhg.‘Hey, there he is!’

I raised a hand in greeting and Katie waved wildly.Tadhg’s face broke into a smile as he approached us.

‘Fancy seeing you here!’said Katie, jumping up and giving him a hug.‘I hope you don’t mind me joining your band meeting.I just wanted to say hi.’

‘Course not,’ said Tadhg.‘This is brilliant.Hey, Brían!’

‘Alright, Tadhg?’They did some manly back-slapping.

‘And this,’ I said, ‘is Joanna.Jo, this is Tadhg.Sorry, I mean Tim.Sorry, Tim.’

It felt very weird calling him Tim.I’d been thinking of him as Tadhg for three and a half years.Not that I’d been thinking of himthatmuch.

Tadhg smiled at Joanna and I could see her take in just how attractive he was.‘Nice to meet you,’ she said.

‘Great to meet you too,’ said Tadhg.‘And you know what, Tadhg’s fine.’

‘Are you sure?’I was dubious.‘Feel free to correct us any time we use it.’

‘Nah, it’s grand.’Tadhg pulled out a chair and sat down next to me.‘I always liked being Tadhg every summer.It’s a bit more rock and roll than Tim.’He grinned.‘It can be my stage name.’

‘Is your actual full name Timothy?’Katie’s eyes sparkled with mischief.‘Please say it is.’

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