Page 61 of If We Were Young
The frown.
The skin around his eyes tightened. Just like it always did the whole time I’d known him. From the moment he crushed my innocent heart one night, shoulder to shoulder with me, when I leant my lips against his cheek, and he shifted away and told me he already belonged to someone else.
The sharp cut across my chest oozed from the old wound. “Ronnie, please don’t.”
God, that hurt to remember.
“We are very different people.”
No fucking shit; I wanted to say. No, I wanted to shake him and scream in his face, I could have told you that after knowing you for just weeks. I could have told you that the first time I saw your shoulders drop at the thought of catching the train home to see her.
“You always were though.” I don’t know how I kept my tone moderated, but I did. It came out all silky soft and genuine. Inside, I raged like an inferno. “You knew that anyway.”
He lifted his attention from his half-eaten plate and the hunger in his gaze made me drop my hands to my lap so he couldn’t see them shake.
“A marriage based on a lie is a difficult one to maintain.” I squirmed under his gestapo gaze but couldn’t quite look away. “Don’t you think?”
“My marriage to Paul wasn’t a lie.”
His lips pressed into a slender line and for the millionth time since we met, I wondered what they would feel like against my skin.
“Are you done?” He motioned to the food. I tried not to think of starving people in the world as he motioned his hand at the ever-watching waiter.
“Can we box it up to go, please?”
The waiter nodded, but then paused and looked between us. “You were away, yes?”
God, he did remember us.
Matthew’s gaze glanced across my face. “Just visiting.”
My stomach hurtled at a million miles an hour until it was just a trail of dust left by a falling star.
He picked up the bill, waving away my offer to pay.
We buttoned our coats in thundering and loud silence. The waiter gave us a cheery wave. He’d be looking forward to not seeing us for another decade.
Shooting a side eye at Matthew as we hovered at the door to the restaurant, I tried to visualise another fifteen years without him here.
He was going back to Scotland in a week.
It had always been the same thing with him. Scotland—home. Always been there. Always an unknown to me, things he’d never talk about.
It was like finding a locked cupboard in someone’s home and not knowing what was behind the door. The longer it stayed locked, the worse your imagination made it. Dead bodies, chains hanging from the ceiling, garden gnomes; things you don’t know but can only guess at.
Rain fell in a steady mist and he glared up at the dark sky, pulling his coat tighter around his neck. “We can order a cab if you don’t want to walk?” The midnight and slate swept over me.
No, I almost shouted. If we drove this would be over too quick. “I don’t mind rain.”
His lips curved with a secret.
“What?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. Just part of a theory I have.” He motioned me off the doorstep and I hovered on the pavement, waiting for him to make his stride so I could match it. His legs were twice as long as mine, but I’d always kept pace with him.
In his hand the noodles in their container swung in a white plastic bag. Without saying a word, he slipped the bag into his other hand and then clasped my fingers in his.
It was an instant weave, fingers knotted.
