Page 25 of If We Were Young

My lips melded together as I got stuck in the middle of deciding whether to shake or puke.

Puke.

No, shake.

Either of them, or both of them together, hovered on the cusp of happening.

His hand balanced me like a little dolly as I rocked on my heels. When I stopped rocking, he dropped his hold and motioned for the door to Red. “After you.”

After you? Is that all he’s got to say? No, Hi, how are you? What happened at the elevator of the Premier Inn when you ran away like a seven-year-old in a kiss chase with the bogeyman? Or even, Hey, fancy seeing you here, considering I live in Scotland and this is your hometown.

Nothing.

“Hi,” I blurted. My face stung a pickled beetroot shade of purple exertion. “Wow. Uh, I can’t believe you’re here.” I stuck to the spot and my knees wobbled against each other. “What a strange coincidence.”

He nodded. Just once.

Matthew Carling.

Oh my god, it was him. Like seriously, living, breathing, lean forward and smell his skin, him.

Toe to toe with me, acting like he didn’t recognise me, as though he hadn’t stared at me, eyes wide from within the depths of the hotel lift just at the weekend.

Did he not remember me? It seemed impossible to me he could forget… but I guess the obsession was one-sided… I mean, he could forget, right?

This was the final proof in the pudding of my obsession.

I scanned his head looking for any sign of trauma which could explain his plain amnesia.

“Okaaay. Uh, I hope you’re well…?” I hope you’re well? What the fuck was that? Flustered, I turned for the door, my chest unable to contain the percussion band marching the conga under my ribs. As I moved forward, I snuck a peek a foot-and-a-half up to his absurdly handsome, but irrationally angry face, catching him staring at my hands, a small frown burrowing its way across his forehead.

“Jupiter,” I said, a volcanic burst of vowels and consonants.

“Quite.”

That’s it. That. Is. It. Quite.

His hostility stung with the sharp dash of a knife.

“Just as well it wasn’t Uranus.” I marched through the door. Honestly, a total stranger could have bum rushed me in the doorway and it would’ve been more enjoyable than seeing his critical and annoyed face. I raced in front, little legs pumping, my toes pinching, so I wouldn’t have to trail in his long-legged wake, but every glance over my shoulder showed his looming and brooding shape.

I sped up for the Maître’d. Matthew one step behind.

“Veronica Childs. I have a meeting here at ten thirty with Amanda Simpson.” The fresh-faced Maître’d, who looked like he needed to sit some school exams and wait for his facial hair to arrive, nodded at me and glanced at his computer screen before lifting his eyes behind me where the hulking shadow of moody Matthew Carling huffed and puffed like a steam train.

“Ten thirty.”

Oh shit. Just like that I knew. I knew why he stood behind me. I turned, casting him a sharp side eye as I cleared my throat. “Supersaver Foods?”

“Indeed.”

His head bobbed a crisp nod.

Horrendous didn’t cover this. “Excellent.”

“Hm.” The dark-blue gaze I remembered better than I should slipped to some point to the left of my right shoulder.

I would actually punch him. No, scrap that. I would pull off his arms, using my sheer rage for strength, and then I would beat him to the ground with the stubby and bloody ends until he relented and told me where he’d hidden my former best friend.