Page 94 of If We Were Young

Lv U. Hv Fn. C U 2mrw.

Wow, she answered. In text speak, but she answered.

Putting my phone back in my bag, I took a moment to look at my wedding ring. It’d been on there for half as long as I’d been married with no real purpose. I couldn’t seem to take it off though. I still clung onto the safety net that Paul provided. Still hung onto my anger at him for letting me down.

“You okay?”

I glanced up at Matthew and swallowed the lump in my throat. “Yes. I’m about to go and inspect your sock drawer.”

“Oh, well, I don’t want to get in the way of that.”

“Are they all matching?”

I thought of his sharp suits, the shirts cut impeccably across his shoulders. I recalled the man in the cosy cotton casualwear that had me wrapped in his arms.

I thought the socks could be the key.

“No. They aren’t. Feel free to sort them.”

One step. Two steps, and I stood toe to toe with him, my hands sliding around his neck. “I think I like you so much more now I know your socks don’t match.”

“Such a relief.”

I chuckled but it lasted the short flight of a bird with its wings alight. “I need to say something.”

He lifted an eyebrow and watched me.

It took me a moment to get the letters ordered in the right formation in my brain. A bit like scrambling fighter jets at the outbreak of war. I ordered them around until they made sense.

“It hurts, this life you’ve had. It sounds silly thinking we could have always been friends, and maybe you are right, maybe it never would have happened. Seeing you married would have hurt me, even just as your friend, but seeing the life you have without me, I think it hurts more. I can’t help but wonder how much pain I’d be willing to take for you.”

An expression of complete shock greeted mine. I don’t know which of us was more surprised I’d spoken out so frank and honest.

His lips crushed mine and he edged me back into the wall, his hands gripping my arms.

Science

I was suspended breathless and shivering as we swiped and dove, pushing and pulling, our teeth clashing like the delicate clink of silver against a china teacup.

I was the teacup and I had taken myself close to smashing.

I’d do it to myself though. No one else would get to take me there. This would be on me. If I could take my heart and give it bravely, without fear of consequence, then I’d own the repercussions. I could blame no one else.

On a backwards count from three, I broke my lips from his. His breath rasped with a ragged edge, reaching into my mouth and pulling me closer. “I have a theory.”

“Oh, you do?” I almost melted at the deep burr of his tone.

“It’s that some things are meant to be perfect. Some of us are designed to fit together just so: big and small; tall and short; black hair, blonde. Perfect opposites.”

“I think you’re taking credit for my theories.”

I held my hand up. At dinner the other night he’d wanted me to say the words. Here they were.

I dug down deep, scraping them out of my scared and petrified soul. “If we don’t try then we will never know how perfect it could be.”

His smile liquified my insides. “Now she gets it.” He lifted me easily in his arms. With my back against the wall I slotted my legs around his waist, attaching my mouth to his like hot superglue. “Ronnie,” he sighed my name and it sparked like a match to an abandoned firework.

Heat and desire scorched through me. I’d whittled to dry tinder in a heatwave.