Page 9 of Date Knight (Roll for Romance #2)

Phil

F ive years ago, I’d nearly kissed Amy Evans.

She’d come home for the summer holidays before her last year of uni, and her mum Patricia had invited Ethel and me over for a barbecue.

Jack was still off globetrotting with his evil soon-to-be-ex girlfriend, and whilst Chloe had done a good job of keeping tabs on Amy whilst he’d been away, it had been more than a year since I’d seen her when she walked through her parents’ back door into the garden.

Years later, I could still remember exactly what she was wearing– a sage green linen playsuit that perfectly matched her eyes, with white Converse trainers– and the way her blonde hair bunched together, held in a low, loose ponytail with a white satin ribbon.

Long gone was the kid who had followed us around for years.

It was like it was the first time I’d ever seen her, and I nearly dropped the pavlova I’d made.

I’d had to hit the booze immediately to avoid saying something out of pocket.

Unlike when we were growing up, instead of her following Chloe and me around, we gravitated to her.

Uni had made her a hell of a lot more confident.

She was funny and self-assured and whip smart, and maybe she’d always been that way and we’d just failed to realise it, but we certainly realised it then.

It was only a few weeks, but the three of us became inseparable.

We went to outdoor films, rode her Uncle John’s quad bikes all over the place, and hung out by the pond where Jack would eventually build his house.

She dragged us into her summer fun, and we were just happy to be along for the ride.

It was like having Jack back, but different, because where Jack was easy-going and affable, Amy was incisive and instigative.

I also wasn’t wildly attracted to Jack.

I’d known that Amy had liked me growing up.

It was perfectly normal; I was her brother’s best friend, and I’d spent an inordinate amount of time around theirs.

But as far as I knew, she’d grown out of her crush when she’d gotten old enough to realise that the weird guy who spent most of his time baking and sewing with the mother figures in his life wasn’t actually very cool.

But as the summer went on, it became clear that she hadn’t, in fact, grown out of it. And as it turned out, I’d grown into it. Chloe could tell, and she tried to warn me that it might end badly, but I didn’t listen. How could I, when faced with someone as mesmerising as Amy?

By the time our last hurrah of the summer came around– another family barbecue that ended with her parents and Ethel inside and the three of us on the drink out back– we’d shared more than a couple lingering looks that told me it was probably safe to make a move.

Chloe, possessing a pair of eyes and more than a single brain cell, excused herself, and it wasn’t long before Amy and I had found ourselves sharing a sun lounger, looking up at the sky, where there was supposedly a meteor shower on.

But I was too intoxicated to see it, both from the beer and from the nearness to Amy.

I was certain I’d had more than twice as much to drink as anyone else, trying to psych myself up to risk our newfound friendship.

The critical moment came, and I turned my body to face her fully.

My free arm draped across her waist– she was wearing that same sage green playsuit– and she turned to me, too.

I brought my other hand to her face, running over her jawline with my thumb.

God, she was beautiful. She smiled into my hand and kissed my palm, her face flushing pink, as if underneath all that bravado she was still uncertain whether I’d reciprocate.

But reciprocating was the only thing on my mind.

I smiled– was this really, truly about to happen?

– and brought my face slowly towards hers.

But just a moment before our lips met, she hiccupped, and I could smell the booze on her breath. I pulled away slightly and looked over her shoulder at the pitcher of Pimm's, which had still been mostly full just before Chloe had left, but was now down to the dregs.

I dropped my hand. “Fuck.”

“What?” Amy asked, her voice sharp with surprise, and she recoiled from me.

“I can’t do this.”

Those had apparently been the worst possible words to say, because Amy reacted instantly to them, jumping up from the sun lounger and wrapping her arms around herself as if to hide from me.

“You’re such a dick, Phil,” she said as she hunted around for her shoes, which she’d kicked off at some point.

“Why?” I asked, sitting up and watching her in disbelief. “Because I don’t want to take advantage of you?”

She stopped what she was doing and turned on me, flinging her arms out to the sides so forcefully that the one shoe she had found went flying again.

“Is that what you think? Fucking hell. What do I have to do to get you to see me differently?”

She said the last part almost as an aside, already moving towards the door, abandoning her shoe hunt.

“Well, never mind,” she said as she reached the door, stage whispering, presumably so the others inside wouldn’t hear her. “Just forget this summer ever happened, okay?” And then she was gone.

* * *

I spent a lot of the next few years wondering what exactly had gone wrong that night.

My best guess was that she’d thought I still viewed her as a kid or something because I’d said I didn’t want to take advantage.

But she never gave me the chance to correct her.

Almost overnight, our relationship whiplashed from hot and heavy to complete strangers, and I didn’t speak to her at all for the next year.

She moved home after uni once Jack was back, and I started to see her every now and then again, but true to her word, she acted like that summer had never happened, so I tried my best to do the same.

At the worst of times, I wished I hadn’t stopped. I wished I’d kissed her anyway, trusting that I hadn’t misinterpreted the signals she’d sent me over the preceding weeks. But most of the time, I felt like I’d done the right thing, even if it hurt like hell every time I saw her.

Then she’d moved to Manchester, and I only heard second-hand updates about the asshole she was dating.

Plus, Ethel had her fall at around the same time, and a relationship felt like the lowest possible thing on my priority list. So I tried to wish the best for Amy, even if it was far from home. Far from me.

And then she’d moved home again, after the messiest breakup I’d ever been privy to, and yet again it was like she was a different person.

Though this time it wasn’t necessarily for the better; everything that had happened in Manchester had clearly knocked that confidence I’d loved to see in her.

We still bickered, and to my chagrin I still felt high every time she was around.

But where she’d always been happy to insert herself into whatever the rest of us were doing, it was like suddenly she needed an engraved invitation to everything.

It was why I’d made Fatima invite her to play D no matter how many times Jack, Chloe, and I mentioned it, she never seemed to understand that we were inviting her along. That we wanted her there.

* * *

I was pretty sure she’d forgotten all about that night together; maybe she had been wasted and it was lost to the haze of uni blackout nights, or maybe enough had happened in the intervening period that it didn’t even register anymore. And if she could pretend it hadn’t happened, so could I.

But now I was kissing her, and it was everything I’d ever dreamt it would be.

Not the part about doing it in front of her ex-boyfriend, or on the street, obviously.

But her lips were soft and warm just like I’d imagined, and my hands fit perfectly just above her waist where her top rode up slightly, and her fingers wound through my hair at the nape of my neck as she arched into me, and…

oh god, I was gonna need to stop this soon, or she was going to feel just how much I wanted this.

In the end, though, it wasn’t that which stopped us.

It was someone clearing their throat. I assumed it was Chris, desperate to have the last word, but as Amy and I jumped apart, I was mortified to see that Chris was long gone, and it was Jack and Morgan standing there, eyes wide and smiles splitting their faces.

“Oh my god,” Amy said, turning her back to all of us and covering her mouth with her hands.

“Hey, mate…” I started, but I actually had no idea what to say, so I just trailed off awkwardly.

There was a long moment of silence before Morgan screeched and lunged at Amy, wrapping her in a hug, and Jack laughed.

“Hell yes!” he said, bringing me in for the classic man gesture of clasped hands, arm around shoulders, singular pat on back.

“It’s about time!” Morgan said, swaying Amy back and forth in their hug, and we caught eyes over our respective embraces, both equally confused by their responses.

Though perhaps we shouldn’t have been; I’d been getting a lot of wink-wink, nudge-nudges from Jack over the last year where Amy was concerned. Maybe she’d gotten the same.

“How long has this been going on?” Jack asked, stepping back and gesturing between Amy and me.

“Less time than you’d think,” I muttered.

“It’s not what it looks like,” Amy said, then cocked her head. “And what are you guys doing here anyway?”

Morgan pointed at the bar. “It’s the only good place for cocktails around here. Wanna join us? Ooh, double date!” She clapped her hands together in glee.

“We were just going, actually,” Amy said, pulling me away by the arm. “Let’s go talk, yeah?”

“Yeah, wait a minute,” Jack said, holding up his phone. “Why did you answer my rescue call?”

Just then the door opened again, and Chris and Niamh walked out. Instinctively, I reached for Amy’s hand, probably out of some ill-placed protectiveness, but she grasped for me too.

“You’re still here?” Niamh asked, rushing over, leaving Chris by the door. “You sure you don’t need a lift?” Then she seemed to notice who had joined us. “Oh, hi, Jack!”

“Niamh?” he asked, scowling at Amy now. “You were here with Niamh?” Then realisation dawned over his face as he answered his own question about the rescue call.

Amy nodded exaggeratedly, her lips pressed into a line. “Yep, and Chris is here too,” she said, pointing over Jack’s shoulder, where Chris was already walking away. “They’re getting married.”

Jack nodded back, his eyes wide, seeming to catch on. “Got it,” he said. “Well, congrats, I guess.”

“Oh, thank you,” Niamh said, placing a hand on Jack’s bicep, and he recoiled slightly at the same time Morgan’s face dropped into a frown.

“Let’s go, babe,” Chris yelled, and Niamh cantered off to meet him.

“See you both at the wedding!” she called over her shoulder to Amy and me as she left.

“Is this for real?” Jack asked, sounding almost hopeful as he looked down at our hands, which were still clasped together. Even then, neither of us dropped the other’s hand. What did that mean? “Is this what you’ve been doing on Saturday nights all this time?”

“Absolutely not. Can we just talk about this later?” Amy asked through a sigh, sounding exasperated. “I need to get home so I’m ready for that site visit in the morning.”

She turned to smile at me, stepping in to give me a hug goodbye. There was nothing weird about that on the surface; we hugged all the time these days. But she rested her head on my chest in a way she didn’t normally, then brought her lips to the side of my face.

“Can we talk about that later, too?” she whispered, then stepped away, and finally our hands broke apart.

I nodded, gulping as I did, before she turned and walked away. I watched her go for a good few seconds before Jack cleared his throat again, and I turned back to him.

“Listen, man, I get it. You wanted to feel it out between the two of you before telling me. Morgan and I did the same thing when we got together.” He looped his arm around Morgan and pulled her close. “But for what it’s worth, I love this for you both.”

“Seconded,” Morgan said, lacing her fingers through Jack’s. “Now come on, let him go after her.”

She pulled Jack towards the bar, and they both waved as they went. Then I was stood on my own on the pavement, wondering what the actual fuck had just happened.

I watched the door for a while, wondering if someone else would come out and keep the circus act going– maybe Poppy, whom I’d left inside on her own, or hell, even Ethel at this point– but it stayed shut, and my thoughts finally came back to me.

I’d just kissed Amy Evans. Like, actually. In real life. Not in my dreams. And it hadn’t been a near miss. Her mouth had touched my mouth. Her body had pressed against my body.

But she hadn’t kissed me because she’d wanted to.

She’d kissed me as a punchline to her back-and-forth with Chris.

And despite what Morgan had said, I was almost certain she didn’t actually want me to go after her in that moment.

So instead, I just started walking home, trying desperately not to let my mind fill in the gaps of what might have happened if I did go after her.

After all, I had five years of experience getting carried away imagining being with Amy; I didn’t need any more.