“Oh you never lost it,” she yells back.
Even Rowan is looking over from behind the bar, though his attention seems split, because Eleanor, new to our chaos, is perched on a stool nearby and he looks very interested in topping up her wine. Interesting.
Clara and I keep dancing, singing into imaginary microphones, hands in the air. I turn to grin at the girls in the booth…and freeze. They all look… weird. Sheepish. Wide-eyed. Like kids who’ve just been caught passing notes in assembly. I laugh. “What? Did I split my dress or something?”
No one answers. My stomach drops. Slowly, I turn around. And there he is. Rory. Standing just inside the door like the air’s been punched out of him. He looks like he’s seen a ghost. Or maybe like he’s just realised the ghost can dance in heels. For a split second, it’s just us. Across the room. Noise fading. Lights blurring. His eyes drag over me, hair, dress, legs, then snap back to my face like he feels guilty for looking but physically cannot stop. And then…
“RORY, MY MAN!” Rowan’s voice booms across the pub.
Rory blinks like he’s waking up. His head turns, focus breaking, and Rowan waves him over from the bar with a grin.
“You finally decided to pay your old buddy a visit!”
Rory hesitates, actually hesitates, like he’s considering bolting straight back out the door. But he doesn’t. He walks over, shoulders tight, jaw set, and climbs onto a bar stool as far away from me and the girls as he can possibly get without leaving the building.
I’m still staring. My vision starts to narrow at the edges. The music is loud, my pulse louder. Tequila hums through my veins. Emotions from earlier claw back up my throat. He’s here. After the ‘almost’ kiss. After what I said. After what he said and didn’t say. And he’s sitting there like he doesn’t know whether to stay… or run.
I turn back to Clara, but my voice comes out thin. “You see him too, right?”
“Oh I see him,” she mutters. “And if he ruins your night, I will trip him on the way to the toilets.”
I laugh, but it wobbles. Because the worst part? Not the anger. Not the history. Not even the heartbreak. It’s the pull. Like no matter how loud the music is, how many people are in this room… Every part of me still knows exactly where he is.
Chapter twenty-six
Rory
Fuck. Shit. Fuck.She’s here.
For half a second, I genuinely consider turning around and walking straight back out the door. Maybe even running. Pretending I never opened it, never saw her, never felt my entire nervous system short-circuit. But then…
“RORY, MY MAN!”
Rowan’s voice booms across the pub like a foghorn, and that’s that. No escape.
Rowan and I grew up together or as close as you can when one of you is in school and the other’s being home-schooled on a farm. I basically lived in his fields every summer, getting chased by geese and pretending we were tough enough to wrangle sheep. I haven’t properly caught up with him since moving back to Oakwood. And of course the first time I come into The Old Oak… She’s here.
I look at Freya for maybe two seconds and yet my dick is now standing to attention inside my jeans.
Fuck she is… breath-taking.
She’s wearing a backless dress. Dark, soft fabric that skims over her hips before falling down her legs. Her back is bare, smooth, the line of her spine disappearing into the curve of herwaist. Her hair is down, loose, catching the coloured lights from the dance floor, copper and gold flashing as it sways. It brushes the small of her back when she moves. And she is moving. Laughing, arms in the air with Clara, hips swaying in time to the music like she doesn’t have a single care in the world. Her legs are toned and strong, stepping and spinning, and every time she throws her head back laughing, my dick hardens a bit more. She looks happy. Free. And for some reason, that massively turns me on.
I drag my eyes away like I’ve touched something I shouldn’t. Mentally, I start listing the most aggressively unsexy things I can think of to get my dick to shrink. Brick walls. Tax returns. Wet socks. A sponge.
Breathe, Bennett. For the love of God.
I make my way to the bar and climb onto a stool, turning slightly so I’m not blatantly staring at the dance floor, even though every nerve in my body knows exactly where she is anyway.
A long table of Oakwood Primary mums and a few other women are gathered in and around a booth, cocktails and shots lined up. Laughter, glitter, chaos.
So, this is the infamous girls’ night she’s mentioned over the years. Brilliant. Of all nights to come out.
I scrub a hand over my face. I should leave. But truthfully? I need this. I need noise, distraction, a drink, a conversation about literally anything that isn’t Freya Collins and the fact that we nearly kissed and I swiftly fucked it up. Unfortunately, Rowan follows my line of sight like a heat-seeking missile. He leans on the bar beside me, polishing a glass with a grin that says he’s already clocked everything.
“Hot bunch of ladies over there,” he says casually. “Got your eye on one of ’em, mate? Or still hooked on Freya?”
“I…” I clear my throat. “Er. No. Not exactly.”
