Page 45 of If We Were Young

I’d resorted to an emergency summit meeting at the pub.

“I’m sorry, guys. I’ve tried to keep us going, but I don’t think Supersavvveers will save us.”

I giggled and slipped sideways off my hand. “Get it, supersavers, save us.” I looked around the table but no one else seemed to see what I’d done with the words there. “And anyway, you know I’ve been thinking maybe I should start dating again. It’s been five years.”

Five long years. My sex life was a drought in summer during the hosepipe ban.

Wait a minute, did I say that out loud?

Natalie patted my hand as Fred came back to the table with a tray of drinks and slipped into the seat next to mine. “I’ve been telling you, Ronnie. You need to come clubbing with me, loosen up.”

Ugh clubbing. I shook my head.

“I should probably go home and check on Hannah.” I let out a gust of air from my mouth. I didn’t really want to grow up. Well it wasn’t real grow-upping was it? My mother was there for that.

Natalie squeezed my hand. “She’s thirteen, Ronnie. When I was that age, I preferred it when my parents weren’t home.”

“What if she’s got something else pierced? Oh God, what if she’s got a tattoo? Men are wankers, across her forehead.”

“She won’t.”

“Why didn’t you tell us you knew Matthew when he first came in?” Natalie prompted with the skill of a wily gossip.

I groaned. I doubted I’d see him again. Our parting in the office seemed kind of final, which was ironic considering I thought we’d already had our final parting. We needed to stop talking about him now.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Well, we all want to know.”

“He was my best friend.”

Natalie snorted, but I nodded, trying to stay focused on her. A deep white wine fog had sunk down into my brain and misted itself around the edges of my faculties.

I really should go home.

Fred, his blonde hair just registering on the edge of my vision, nudged his shoulder against mine and nearly pushed me off my seat. “Boys and girls can’t be friends, everyone knows that.”

“That’s not true. We were.” God it hurt so bad. “We were.”

“No, Ronnie. Someone always ends up falling in love and someone always gets hurt.”

Ohhh. It’s soooo true. Why didn’t anyone tell me that eighteen years ago? Why was there not a special lecture during orienteering week where they told you how to steer away from heartbreak and destruction?

“Yeah, well. I guess I know who got hurt in this one.”

“So, dating?” Natalie clapped her hands together, and it helped me focus—for two seconds. “We need to hook you up, get you online.”

I managed to hook my gaze onto her red lips. “I’m not internet dating.”

“I hate to be rude, but that might be all that’s left.”

“Am I that old?”

“No,” Fred said, just as Natalie said, “Yes.”

“Ronnie, I’d take you out, you know that.” I think it was Fred.

Yes it must have been, because Natalie followed up with. “I could ask my Charlie, see if there are any older single men at his work?”