his head at her.
“When was this trip to the cinema?” Matt asked Nick.
“Oh mate it was pre-Rich,” he said. To which everyone started to laugh as Matt once again shook his head, but this time at Nick rather than at Charlie.
“I’m also out,” Bex said. “Spin the bottle with Matt and Nick, dated Ben, and married to Rich.”
“I’m out as well,” Nick announced. “Spin the bottle kisses with Rach and Bex, and I copped a cheeky feel of Charlie along with the whole tongue incident at the cinema until she hit me. Sorry Matt. Oh, and I lived with Claire obviously.”
Again everyone started laughing, but more at Matt who was looking unimpressed with Nick.
“I’m also out,” Ben said. “Spin the bottle with Charlie and Claire in the same night, every boy’s fantasy! Sorry Adam, sorry Matt. Dated Bex, and now married to the lovely Rach.”
“I’m in,” Rach said proudly. “Spin the bottle with Nick and Matt, and I’m married to Ben, but I’ve never done anything with Rich thank god. Sorry Bex.”
“I’m in,” Rich said. But he sounded disconcerted. “Who’d have thought it? Charlie and Bex we all know about, nothing with Rach or Claire though. God, what have I been doing with my time?”
“So Claire, you must be in too?” Bex asked, and Claire nodded.
“And Matt must be in as well?” Mel asked, and Matt nodded.
“You fucking liar!” Rich said laughing. “Seriously play the game fair and answer honestly.”
“I’m out,” Matt said making everyone laugh. “Spin the bottle with Bex and Rach, married and have impregnated Charlie, and... kissed Claire a few times.”
“Kissed Claire a few times? That’s what you’re going with?” Rich asked.
Claire and Matt exchanged an awkward look, before looking across at Charlie who returned their looks innocently.
“Did you two have at it in school?” Ben asked sounding shocked.
“Let’s just say they visited some bases,” Charlie said serenely. “Although I always wondered how they found the time, you know in between all of their arguing that is.”
Matt was stunned by what Charlie had just said. He’d had no idea that she’d known, and it looked like Claire hadn’t either.
“How do you know that?” Claire asked Charlie.
“Hmm, you two are both pretty clever and both claim to know me better than the other. Yet neither of you can piece this together?” Charlie asked them before laughing.
Matt looked at Charlie and asked; “you’ve always known?”
Charlie exchanged a look with Rich, and then nodded.
“We walked in on you in a pretty compromising situation mate,” Rich said smirking. “Not something I’d want to see again,” he added pulling a face at Charlie who laughed again.
Matt was feeling mortified and he saw that Claire was blushing. Yet the moment was made even more horrifying and cringe-worthy for them both, when Rich made a lewd gesture to the room to show exactly what they’d been doing when he and Charlie had walked in on them.
“Note no unimpressed look on my face,” Nick said laughing.
“Nor mine,” Adam said laughing; “but you really are incestuous, you get that right?”
“Yeah, and it gets worse if you include our older brothers in this!” Claire said smirking at the girls. To which all the boys looked at her, and Rach, Bex, and Charlie all burst out laughing.
Emily
It hadn’t been an easy couple of months for her since she’d moved out of Matt’s home. The initial feelings of indignation, and impromptu I’m too good for him platitudes, had quickly dissipated and her life had returned to what it had been like when she’d first moved to Birmingham. It was lonely again.
Emily spent her days and nights, if not on call or at work, alone in her flat. She had no friends, and the nurses at the hospital – that had on occasion asked her to join them for drinks, no longer seemed to bother now that it was common knowledge that she was no longer with Dr Grayson.
She missed Matt more than she wanted to admit to herself. She missed his company. She missed their conversations about patients and about the hospital, and more generally she missed just having someone to come home to and be able to share her day with.
Emily dwelled upon the memories of the times that they had spent together. She thought about them making love, the way that she would watch him sleep, and the way that he would pull her close in the night. The pain of no longer being with him sometimes felt like it would cripple her.
Each day after the breakup