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“I just…” My voice catches. I clear my throat. “Can we please forget this happened? This was…” The right word isn’t there. The one that arrives: “A mistake.”

For a moment, he looks almost wounded. Then a mask slides into place. He takes a step back.

“Aye.” His voice is flat now. “You’re right. We’d both definitely regret this in the morning.”

He’s only agreed with me, yet his words sting.

He turns and heads up the stairs, two at a time. He doesn’t look back.

I gather my keys and bag off the floor. My hands are shaking. It takes two goes to get the key into the lock.

I let myself into my quiet, empty flat and close the door on the stairwell.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

RYAN

The bag swings back at me, and I meet it with a left hook hard enough to send it flying away again.

The chain rattles overhead. Leather creaks.

Briony’s mouth opens under mine.

I catch the bag and drive a knee into its middle.

Her legs lock around my waist.

Right cross. Left hook. Low kick.

Her hips roll against me, and a soft wee sound catches in her throat.

I hit the bag harder.

Glasgow Fight Club is quiet this morning, as Sunday mornings usually are. Two of the semi-pro lads are drilling at the far end of the mats, moving through the same takedown entry again and again. Somebody grunts in the strength section. The speakers are on low, the music almost lost beneath the slap of gloves and bare feet.

I plant my lead foot and throw another combination. The bag jumps on its chain.

Briony against her front door. Her dress shoved up around her thighs. The heat of her through her underwear. How close she was—how close I was to getting her off right there on the landing.

My glove slams into the bag.

“Ryan. Stop.”

The horror on her face, as though she’d suddenly come to her senses and realised what we were doing. Who she was doing it with.

The chain gives another violent clank.

Sweat runs from my temple, along my jaw, then tracks down my throat. My T-shirt is stuck to my back. Inside my gloves, the wraps are damp, and my knuckles have started to ache.

Good. Pain is simple.

Briony Sinclair kissing me like she was starving, then looking at me like she couldn’t believe what she’d done? That’s less simple.

I switch my feet as the bag swings back and hammer it with a kick. The impact cracks across the gym. One of the lads at the far end glances over. I ignore him.

She was right. It was a mistake. We live in the same building. If we’d shagged, there’d have been no clean exit afterwards—no deleting a number and never seeing her again. We’d have kept bumping into each other on the stairs, and there’d no doubt have been glares from her, seeing as I don’t go back for seconds with anyone.

Aye, far better she knocked me back than the other way round.