I stare at her. She stares back in disbelief and utter confusion. Clara puts a hand on her chest and says, deeply wounded, “I think I deserve details after the emotional investment I’ve had inthis situation since he moved back. And haven’t you been in love with this guy for like a decade?”
“It wasn’t a decade.”
“It was at least a decade.”
“Try two decades,” Hannah mutters darkly into her drink.
I ignore that. Mostly because I don’t want to admit that she’s right.
“Nothing happened at first,” I say, because once I start talking it actually feels impossible to stop, like the words have been pressing against the back of my teeth waiting for permission. “Well. Things happened. Then he ignored me all day. Then we argued in the common room on the last night and then…”
“And then?” Clara says, leaning so far across the table she is practically horizontal.
“And then we definitely stopped arguing.”
That earns me a full-body shudder from Hannah.
“Finally.”
I laugh, hiding behind my glass. “But now I don’t know what’s happening,” I admit. “Which is probably obvious from the fact I have curled my hair for what is technically a group trip to the pub.”
Clara softens a bit then, some of the amusement giving way to something warmer. “How was he when you got back?”
“Fine,” I say. “Normal. Nice. Not weird. Which is somehow making me feel weirder.”
Hannah nods like she gets it entirely. “Because now it’s real.”
“Exactly.”
Emma gives me a look over the rim of her drink. “And how do you feel?”
I open my mouth with something sensible prepared. Something measured. Something mature and emotionally responsible. Instead what comes out is, “I think if he smiles at me in public tonight I might actually vomit or faint.”
Clara laughs so loudly that even Rowan, behind the bar turns around. “Right,” she says. “So you’re in deep.”
“I’m not in deep.”
“Freya.”
“I am perhaps ankle-deep.”
“Neck-deep,” Hannah says.
“Face-down in it,” Emma adds helpfully.
I glare at them. Unfortunately that’s the exact moment the pub door opens, letting in a rush of cold air and a cluster of people from outside.
In walk Mark, Dan and of course, Rory. My whole body recognises him before my brain does. It’s instant, that awareness, like something low in me straightens and turns toward him. Suddenly, I can’t hear anything else in the room at all.God.He looks gorgeous. Not polished, not in a trying-too-hard way, not like a man who has stood in front of a mirror and consciously assembled himself for female attention. Just Rory, in dark jeans and a charcoal jumper that fits him in a way I find personally offensive, the sleeves pushed up just enough to show his forearms, his hair slightly messy from the cold outside. There is something about him tonight that feels looser than usual, more open somehow, and the second he looks up and spots me across the room, his whole face changes. And I feel it everywhere. Clara sees it happen and physically slaps my arm.
“Oh my God,” she hisses. “The look.”
“Do not narrate this.”
“He lit up,” Hannah mutters, sounding almost scandalised.
Rory says something to one of the men beside him, then he looks over at me again. I make the mistake of holding his gaze. The smile at the corner of his mouth deepens slightly, enough that my stomach does a full, mortifying little somersault and heat rushes down to my lower belly.Fuck.Pub vomit remains a possibility.
“Go get another drink,” Emma says immediately.
