The Close by Jane Casey

Author:Jane Casey [Casey, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-11-11T17:00:00+00:00

29

‘Where’s Josh?’ was how Rhys Vonn greeted me, looking past me eagerly.

Thanks for making me feel special, Rhys.

‘He’s gone home, I’m afraid. It’s just me for lunch.’

‘Coward.’ Vonn shook his head. ‘All because I told him he had to down a yard of ale to mark his first game. Bit of a ritual we have for new players. Did he tell you about my goal?’

The most important moment of the match, clearly. ‘I saw it.’ I smiled. ‘Very impressive.’

‘Not at all, not at all. It was a fluke.’ His face was a shade of pink that clashed heroically with his hair, and he smelled goatishly rank after fifty minutes of football in the heat.

I knew I was supposed to disagree with him about the goal being pure luck but the truth was that he had fluked it. I settled for another meaningless smile.

‘Come and eat something, anyway.’ He put a hand on my back and guided me through the house. His palm was hot through the light material of my dress and I had to constrain myself not to twist away from him. I imagined turning and grabbing his wrist, forcing his hand up between his shoulder blades until he begged for mercy. That was a pleasant enough fantasy to get me through the kitchen and out into the garden where there was a buzz of conversation and a surprising number of people under the bulging dark-grey clouds.

‘Here’s Maeve. Josh couldn’t come after all,’ he announced, and there was a murmur of polite welcome mixed with disappointment. I felt that Rhys had been waiting for Derwent with some trick in mind – something in the yard of ale to sabotage him, maybe, to make him feel humiliated in some way. A test of strength to prove, once and for all, who was the top dog. What would it be like, I wondered, to have to assert your dominance all the time? Was that what made Josh the way he was – that other men insisted on measuring themselves against him? Or did he simply like the fact that he could compete and win?

If I wanted, I could have you.

The memory slotted into my mind like a slide clicking through a projector: a calm statement of fact on his part. All swagger, I had thought at the time, and I still wasn’t sure it was true, but now I understood that he believed it, and that generally, belief was enough. As with the football, it was his determination and self-confidence that got him whatever he wanted.

But he doesn’t want you.

And of course you don’t want him.

I blinked the thought away and with an almost physical effort focused on what was happening in front of me. Nicola was standing behind the table now, frowning in concentration as she watched people help themselves to food. Camilla was a little way behind her, arms folded across her narrow chest, ready to help if she was needed. There was nothing for me to do apart from accepting a drink from the lanky bespectacled man who had played so well.

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