Sisters - Michelle Frances Page 0,99

and strait-laced and she still hadn’t put her briefcase down. She suddenly had a sense of the evening floating out of her grasp and she took a deep breath. Maybe this double date thing had been a mistake. After all, she still didn’t know Jon all that well herself. They’d met at a work function – she had been at an event with clients at the rugby and Jon had also been in the corporate box. Perhaps it would have been better if they’d gone for an intimate dinner tonight, just the two of them. She looked wistfully at the shore but there was no chance of that. She was stuck on this boat whether she liked it or not.

‘Do you mind if we just stay here a bit?’ she asked.

‘Course!’ he said enthusiastically – too enthusiastically, thought Abby, and she found herself questioning whether he really wanted to.

She fixed on a bright smile. ‘So, have you done any physio today?’

‘Yes.’ He smiled. ‘I do it most days.’

Because he’s a physiotherapist, you idiot, thought Abby.

‘Have you been watching any of the Olympics?’ he asked her.

Oh God, she knew this question was going to come up. She’d mentally filed herself a reminder to watch some now she was dating a sports specialist, since it was something that was bound to interest him. But work had taken over and she hadn’t got around to it yet.

‘Not much,’ she said vaguely. ‘Work,’ she explained.

‘Not even Usain Bolt?’

Everyone was talking about Usain Bolt. ‘I saw him on the news,’ she said, and after a pause, Jon nodded.

The silence was broken by the sound of a loud ring. Abby tensed. It was coming from her briefcase which was down by her feet. She knew who was calling.

‘Go ahead. Answer it,’ said Jon.

‘Sure?’

He nodded and she pulled her phone out. As she suspected, it was her boss. She turned away to take the call, listened to how a potential client in the Far East needed a document first thing Monday morning, so that was her weekend gone. She felt Jon tap her on the arm, and he indicated he was going to get them both fresh drinks. She nodded distractedly. Once she’d jotted down what was needed, several minutes had passed by. God, she needed that drink now. She looked around for Jon but it took her a while to see him, and then she did: he was dancing with Ellie. The track was something that even in that moment she knew she’d never, ever forget: the Arctic Monkeys’ ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor’. They did.

Rory came up alongside her, sipping from a pint. ‘So, what do you do?’

‘I’m a business analyst,’ said Abby. ‘For a shipping company.’ She was met with a blank face.

‘Sorry, I don’t know what that means,’ said Rory.

‘No one ever does,’ said Abby, but she wasn’t in the mood to explain.

‘The Globe,’ said Rory, pointing, and Abby looked over at the circular white and black-beamed building with its thatched roof.

‘Give me now leave to leave thee,’ said Rory dramatically. ‘Twelfth Night,’ he explained.

Abby looked at him.

‘Sorry, English teacher.’ There was an awkward pause, then he saw her empty glass. ‘You look like you need a top-up. I can go . . .’ Rory indicated the bar. But then Ellie and Jon looked up and waved, and the track ended and they came over, laughing and hot. Jon gave Abby a long, lingering kiss on the lips – but it still didn’t surprise her when he called up three days later to cancel their dinner date, saying it had been ‘fun’ but he ‘wasn’t ready for a relationship’. It had hurt like hell.

A month later, Abby was walking to the train station, heading home from work. It was eight o’clock and the sky was almost fully dark. A man walking towards her kept looking at her and then away, back and forth. She edged to the side of the pavement and considered crossing the road, but it was too late.

‘Hi,’ said the man, and then she recognized him.

‘Hi,’ she replied, with great relief that it wasn’t some weirdo. ‘Rory!’

‘How’s things?’

‘Yeah, good. Good. I work nearby. Office is over there.’

‘Oh. Cool. I’ve been out with some mates,’ he said, waving vaguely to a row of pubs. ‘Well, it’s nice to see you,’ he said, making a move to carry on.

Abby smiled, amused by his apparent hurry. ‘You too.’

She waved as he made to walk off, but then he suddenly turned