Chapter 7 #2
‘Of course. And I don’t want to pry but that must have been hard.
Seeing him with…two other women…like that.
’ The sympathy in her voice doesn’t reach her eyes.
They’re a touch too glossy and curious. As if she’s halfway to picturing the whole thing in 4K.
She’s not comforting me, she’s grazing, testing for soft tissue.
Looking for gossip, for the tender spot to sink her teeth into.
Luckily, there is none. But I have to fake it, so I let my eyes flutter and lower my head. ‘It was. It is. But some things are worth the effort.’
‘You’re so strong. I hope it all goes well.’ She pats my arm, and I wish she wouldn’t. Realising that I’m not spilling the beans, she swans off to the next group of people.
Hope it all goes well? The fuck you do, Polly.
I drift toward the pool table where Finn’s lining up his shot. The cue glides through his fingers. A lanky guy with bloodshot eyes sways beside him, beer sloshing over his knuckles.
‘I’m curious, mate. How did it work?’ he slurs. ‘One on your cock, one on your face? Or did they both fight to gag first?’
My blood crystallises. ‘Apologise,’ I say with the calm of a glacier.
‘C’mon. It’s a joke, princess. Lighten—’
‘It wasn’t funny the first time your lizard brain squeezed it out.’ I take a slow step forward. ‘Try again, mate.’
Finn straightens, surprise flickering across his face.
‘Chill, Bella,’ the guy mutters, suddenly interested in his beer.
Finn sets his palm to my shoulder, quiet and sure, and most of the adrenaline settles. ‘Didn’t know you played defence, darlin’.’
‘Neither did I.’ Our eyes lock. ‘Temporary position.’
Okay. I didn’t want to do it, but I guess it’s time to assert some dominance. So I vent a breath, hand him my drink, and step into the light.
‘Rack ‘em,’ I say.
Scottie blinks. ‘You play?’
‘Only when someone deserves to lose.’
The lanky guy opens his mouth. I shut it with a headmistress-level stern look. Another of my specialities.
Scottie grins like this is the best part of his night. ‘Right then. What’s the wager?’
‘Fifty.’ I chalk a cue. ‘But if you’re skint, we can play for pride.’ I nod towards the lanky guy leaning against the table. ‘C’mon, big man. Let’s play. Just you and me.’
He scoffs. ‘What, so you can cry when you lose?’
‘No. So I can make you wish you’d kept your mouth shut.’
He shifts, about to answer—
‘Naw,’ Scottie cuts in, stepping between us. ‘She plays me.’
I narrow one eye. ‘Is that so?’
‘Better game.’ He tosses me a cue. ‘Less mess, trust me.’
Scottie racks them with care, chalks his cue, sizing me up. I shrug and break. Two stripes drop in quick succession, corner and side. A clean split. The table opens up as if it’s on my side.
A low whistle from someone behind me. Scottie just nods.
‘Stripes,’ I say, cool and unbothered, and circle the table.
Next shot, clean. Third – banked off the cushion and in. I line up again. My grip’s sure and my tempo’s slow. In the end, it’s all muscle memory. Four, five, six – gone.
The room’s quieter now. Even Finn’s still.
I glance up, just once, meet Scottie’s eyes. ‘You keeping count?’
His beer stills halfway to his mouth, and he doesn’t answer.
Seven sinks with the softest kiss of felt. I straighten, and take my time chalking up for the black.
‘You’re letting me win, right?’ I say.
Scottie huffs. ‘Sure.’
I line it up. Gentle angle, centre pocket. My stance is solid and deliberate. No theatrics, I don’t need them. Cue slides. Tap. The eight ball rolls, slow and perfect, and drops like it’s been waiting for me all night.
Silence.
Then Finn, quietly behind me: ‘Fucking hell.’
I take my glass from his hands and a long sip from my juice, then rest the cue on the edge of the table. ‘That’s me warmed up. Who’s next?’
Someone mutters, ‘Hell no. Fuck that.’
‘Think we’re good,’ Scottie says, hands raised like I’m armed. ‘I, erm…value my ego.’
I flash him a tight smile. ‘Wise.’
But I’m not done, I want more. Another game. The buzz is electric and hot under my skin, and I haven’t felt this alive in over a year. There even was a time I’d have killed to go pro. But Dad had other plans, so that was that.
That’s when Finn sidles up beside me, close enough to count his breaths. ‘Didn’t know you had that in you.’
‘There wasn’t much else to do in Elie. Pub or church. And I’m not a spiritual person.’
Finn dips in close, low voice brushing the shell of my ear. ‘Awright, pool shark. Time to channel that murder energy somewhere safer.’
I don’t move. ‘Like where?’
His smile comes cocked, loaded, and aimed at me. ‘Dance floor. Come on, before you start biting throats.’
My pulse still ricochets in my palms as Finn threads our fingers and steers me away. And I follow. Still charged and sparking, but I let him lead.
The dining room is dim, the table shoved to the side to make room, and full of people swaying to whatever remix is thumping from the Bluetooth speaker. Someone’s switched on fairy lights. Someone else spilled rum on the fishbone parquet. No one cares.
Finn faces me, one hand already on my waist.
‘Do you even dance?’ I squint up at him.
‘Darlin’…’ He eases closer. ‘I’m a flanker. I move my body in unexpected ways and have very flexible hips. It’s what I do for a living.’
I tip my head back, exasperated, but it’s useless. I’m already moving with him, body still humming from the pool kill. And he keeps grinning, as though he’s suspected it all along and had been waiting to see this version of me.
‘Better now? Got that out of your system, then?’ he asks.
‘Don’t push it. Pool is my favourite game,’ I say. But I’m smiling.
My hands find uncertain ground. One on his shoulder, the other grazing his side. The bass is low and slow. Remixed nineties R&B, sticky with suggestion. It swells and coils around the room. People move to the syrupy rhythm, hips rocking, bodies pressed too close. It’s roasting in here.
Finn doesn’t say anything. He just steps into me until we’re flush, the press of his chest against my dress a question he’s not ready to ask out loud. He smells like rumpled sheets, skin-warm citrus, and whatever alchemy turns boy into man, cocky into risky.
And then we move.
Not dancing, it’s more swaying. Gravity pulling us together molecule by molecule. He settles his hand lower, right at that boundary between safe and suggestive. My blood fizzes under his touch, and I don’t know if it’s the music or the temperature, but his inhale stalls halfway when I look up.
We’re not speaking, but something’s definitely happening. And I’m powerless to stop it.
I tighten my fingers on his shirt and catch the shadow of his jaw as he watches me. His forehead tips toward mine, close enough that I feel the heat of it before our skin meets. I’m not breathing right. Not blinking either. My body’s holding still so I don’t break the spell.
His nose brushes mine. Our mouths don’t touch, but they hover.
And that spot – right at the curve between his nostril and his lip – floods me.
A pure hit of him, dark and delicious. It lands at the back of my tongue and melts there.
I could drink it. I could drown. He exhales, lips parting like he’s about to say something, but then…
doesn’t. Instead, he leans in a fraction closer.
My pulse skitters, and my whole body’s straining forward.
One more millimetre and we’d fall over the edge.
He pulls me in, slow but sure. The line disappears. We’re right there. The music fades, the heat dims, and there’s nothing but him. If he kisses me now, I won’t stop it.
I want him to.
I want to taste what he’s not saying. This – whatever this is turning into – isn’t all pretend anymore. There’s something else underneath, some form of kinship or recognition.
That’s the moment I know I’m in fucking trouble.
My brain slams the brakes and screams in warning. The room keeps pulsing around us. I can’t… I’m not ready. This was supposed to be a job, a favour, a performance. Not this.
Not…him.
Because I don’t do this. This isn’t safe. This isn’t smart.
This is how I fall.
And when I do, I won’t get up again.
So I step back like I’ve been burned. My hands drop and my body retreats before my brain can catch up.
‘I-I…erm…need some air.’
And then I turn without looking at him or waiting for a reply. Just out, out, out. Away from the music, the heat, the eyes. Finn. I shoulder past the girl in sequins and apologise without stopping. The music fuzzes out as I hit the hallway, the air cooler and sharper, but still too thick.
Not enough. I need to leave. Now. I slip into my shoes.
I’m stupid. So stupid.
Outside, the night smacks me across the face with January chill.
Edinburgh, smug and indifferent. I keep walking down the cobbled lane towards the street.
Head down. My block heels catch once on the uneven stones, but I don’t slow down.
I gulp air like I’m surfacing from a riptide I should never have let pull me under.
Fuck.
That was the edge of a cliff. And I nearly jumped. Voluntarily.
‘Theo.’ His voice knifes through the hush. Not loud, but urgent enough to make me stop.
Still, I don’t turn.
Footsteps close the gap. I mean, he runs for a living, so what was I thinking? Of course he’d eat up the distance between us in no time. Then he’s beside me, breath visible in the streetlight.
‘You forgot your coat,’ he says, holding it up.
‘No, I didn’t.’ I take it anyway and pull it on.
‘I see.’ He keeps his eyes on me. ‘You awright, love?’
I huff a laugh. It sounds nothing like one. ‘Do you think I’m all right?’
‘Think you’re wee bit shook from the…dance.’
‘No shit, Sherlock.’
‘We should go back in,’ he says eventually. ‘They might talk.’
‘Let them.’
He cocks his head. ‘That’s not what you want.’
‘I don’t know what I want.’ And this is true on so many levels.
‘Come back in, Theo. Just for a bit.’
For a second, I actually consider it. His voice is too soft, his face too open, and there’s heat still clinging to my skin from everything we didn’t do. I want to say yes. Or I want to want to. But I can’t.
He waits. Long enough for it to sting. Then he nods. ‘Okay. Then let’s get you a taxi.’
I let him walk me to the kerb, this man I’m fake-dating and real-wanting, who makes me feel seen in ways I didn’t agree to.
As the car pulls up minutes later, I know one thing for sure: I can’t fall to bits over a single hit of his potent pheromones. Not when both our careers are on the line.
If I let myself fall for him, it won’t be pretend. It’ll be real.
And it’ll hurt.