‘Marrying Warren.’
‘Well, you’re marrying Patrick when you’re not even into him.’
She looks up at me with a curled red sneer. ‘I’m not lying to him. Iaminto him.’
‘I’m sure. And I bet he still hasn’t talked to you about his ex-girlfriend?’
‘He has,’ she says with limited conviction.
‘Well, there we go. We’re all a bag of liars. You’re no better than me or Warren or your future husband.’
Her nose wrinkles up in disgust. ‘God, Dolly. It’s not all about you. I can like him too.’
‘So youdolike me.’ I’m so smug.
It’s her turn to growl. ‘Urgh, can you just fuckoff!’
Her words echo off the tiles, and both of us spin our heads to the door. No one appears. The music outside must have covered her yelling.
‘I don’t want to talk about this,’ she groans.
‘That’s what I’m suggesting,’ I insist, though it rings a bit hollow when I’ve been digging at her. ‘People are noticing that we’re pissing each other off all the time, on purpose, and will put two and two together. If you care about your marriage to Patrick then you surely don’t want that.’
Her eyes drop to her skirt. ‘I just don’t like what you’re doing.’
‘Fine. You don’t have to. You can just fume quietly about how much you hate me, while we stay civil in public. If we both want to keep playing the Little Miss Perfect Heterosexual card, you need to agree to this. If we keep this up, everyone will notice the way we look at each other.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘And howexactlydo I look at you?’
‘Like you want to kiss me, Carys.’
It hangs in the air, awkward but true.
‘I don’t,’ she whispers.
‘Do you really believe that? You’ve just turned all that off for yourself, have you?’
‘Some of us can…’ She begins haughtily, but she trails off as quickly as she’s started. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘We just can’t get away with eye fucking each other across the sexy dance-offs either.’
‘I don’t imagine there’ll be any more of those.’
I snort. ‘I wouldn’t put anything past this show. Just, can we leave it?’
‘Only if you can stop implying that I’m a lesbian.’
‘Actually, all I’ve said is that you obviously like women and are hiding that from yourself for some reason.’
She stands up suddenly, an angry little noise shrieking out of her. ‘Urgh, this is what I mean, Dolly. You don’t know me as well as you think you do but you always have an answer for why I’m wrong and you’re right. I’m just stupid little Carys who has got everything wrong as usual.’
I look up at the ceiling, trying not to roll my eyes. ‘I didn’t say that, and if there weren’t two marriages on the line, I wouldn’t give a fuck how you act.’
Carys storms towards me. I think for a second that she’s about to push past me out of the bathroom, but she stops right in front of me. God, she’s beautiful even when she’s furious with me, all that pretty pink an angry flushed colour. Raspberry red, perhaps.
I want to kiss the colour off her, even now.
‘I thought you were good at hiding how you felt?’ she says.
