She grins, smug as hell, and sips her orange fizzy juice. I made sure the pub had it. Aye, I called ahead like a sappy bastard. Worth it.
‘You’re not bad, for someone whose entire life is balls.’ She takes a seat on one of the scuffed leather benches.
I blink at her. ‘Did you seriously make a testicle joke?’
‘I did. You may now retire.’
‘Oh, you’ve changed, MacMickin.’
Her lips twist as if she’s tasting something delicious and slightly illegal. ‘No. I’ve adapted.’
I sit beside her, our shoulders close. The room hums with old jukebox sound and quiet commentary from a nearby table.
‘You done kicking my arse, or do you need another one to really drive it home?’
Theo stretches her arms. ‘I could go again. But it seems a bit unfair. Like hustling a toddler.’
‘You’re enjoying this way too much.’
‘Perhaps a little.’ Her gaze is skating over the posters. Steve Davis. Ronnie O’Sullivan. Hendry himself. ‘A pool den. Is this where you usually take girls on a date?’
I huff through my nose. ‘I don’t usually take anyone on dates.’
‘C’mon. It can’t all have been threesomes and foursomes and mindless shagging.’
I make a noise that’s basically yeah, and?
She fixes me with that look people save for liars and politicians.
‘Awright, maybe not all. But mostly. I was never the relationship guy.’
‘Why not?’
I rest my cue against the bench. ‘Because shagging’s easier when you’ve got nowhere to sleep. If someone cute fancied me and had central heating? That was enough.’
‘That’s not all, though. Is it?’
‘I had a girlfriend, once,’ I say. ‘Before all that, when I was fifteen. Joanna. We were together a year. First time I ever felt…safe, maybe. Until it all went to shite and I didn’t have a place to land anymore. Her parents didn’t want her with the homeless lad fae Easterhoose.’
Theo’s face softens, but she doesn’t say anything. Just gives me that silence she does. She’s making space instead of trying to fill it.
‘After that, I figured it was better to be the one walking away early,’ I say. ‘Or, better yet, not stay at all.’
‘Did you ever fall in love?’
I pick at a tear in the leather seat. ‘Not properly. Plenty of lust and drama. But naw. Never got to the bit with the toothbrush at mine. That stuff.’
‘Do you want that stuff?’ She lists her head sideways, one eyebrow curving up. ‘Not everybody does.’
‘Used to think I didn’t. Thought I’d cock it up. But lately… I keep catching myself daydreaming about matching strawberry jammies.’
Her gaze drops to her cue, but not before I catch that quick flare behind her lashes. ‘That’s disturbingly wholesome.’
‘It is. Domesticity’s corrupted me.’
She laughs again, and it’s warm and real and right here between us.
‘I don’t want to be a prick, Theo. I don’t want to be like my da. Or the lads I saw growing up who used their fists more than their mouths. I want to be better.’
