“Are you not enjoying that?” Sloan asked.
“Dean got a little heavy-handed with the measure,” Matty admitted. “What brings you here then? I thought you were calling it a night?”
“I didn’t realise my social life was under such scrutiny.”
Matty sat back, her smile faltering.
“Sorry, that was uncalled for,” Sloan said at once. Her lips twitched, then flattened.
“You know, you can talk to me…if you want to,” Matty offered.
“Wouldn’t that make things even more confusing?”
“Maybe,” Matty said, “or—and hear me out—maybe it would make things clearer.”
Finishing her drink, Sloan said, “I’ll get us another drink.”
“Just a cranberry juice will do me. I can dilute this a bit.” Matty held up the glass and watched Sloan slide out from the booth.
Sloan nodded. “I’ll be right back.”
Matty watched her walk away, acutely aware that Sloan in joggers and a sweatshirt was about as far as possible from anything she’d assumed Sloan would even own. Other than the time she’d set this whole thing into motion, accidentally spilling coffee over the now infamous designer jeans and cashmere jumper, Matty had only ever seen her in business suits and pencil skirts.
She would bet her last pound those joggers were also designer and expensive. Still, Sloan was devastatingly attractive...because it wasn’t just clothes that made the woman, was it?
Chapter twenty-six
When Sloan returned, she slid back into the seat and passed a glass of cranberry across the table.
“Thanks.” Matty grinned. “That didn’t take long at all. You must have gotten lucky.”
“Or I just tip well.” Sloan smirked, knowing the comment was a bit of a tease. Matty remembered the size of the tip Sloan had left on that other night she’d been in. She also remembered how Sloan’s attention had left her feeling all worked up.
“I guess that could be it,” Matty said as she poured some of the juice into her original glass. She took another sip to test it and winced a little less than before.
“Better?”
Matty nodded. “Slightly. So...have you murdered Mrs S and left her body in the garden to be carried away by foxes?”
Sloan sat back and narrowed her eyes a little. “That’s a somewhat macabre imagination you have there.” Her fingers twisted the glass back and forth. “I can’t deny that I haven’t thought about it.” The right side of her mouth curled as she picked the glass up.
Matty mirrored the move and they both took a drink while intently watching each other.
“After you left, I had time to think about everything, and I suppose I let it get on top of me. I might have said a few things.” Sloan’s fingerstightened around her glass.
“Well, I don’t think there is anything wrong with saying what you need to in these situations.”
“Even if I threatened to put her in a care home?” Sloan’s brow arched a little.
“You wouldn’t, though, would you?”
“Honestly, I don’t know anymore. I’ve done everything I can think of to make her life easier since Dad died and she had her stroke. And she just pushes back like I’m this demon trying to ruin her life.” Sloan stared into her glass, swirling the ice before taking another sip. “I just don’t know what she wants from me.”
“She’s stubborn,” Matty said. “And in some ways, that’s a good thing. It means she won’t just give up on life. She’s fighting to find her place in a new world she didn’t ask to be in.”
“And that’s me, too, but she doesn’t notice,” Sloan said.
“How do you mean?” Matty asked.
