Page 50 of Forever, Maybe

“Just the one tonight,” he replied, a mischievous glint in his eye. “I’m a Scotsman. I can’t dance wi’out a drink in me. Down it in one?”

She lifted her glass and clinked it against his.

“To you, Danny Murray.”

“And you, Nell Murray, my young wife! Cheers!”

She watched him closely as he tipped the tequila back, grimacing as the fiery liquid burned its way down.

It had been seventeen years since he’d last touched alcohol—a decision made after a catastrophic stag weekend.

She half-expected him to keel over or launch into an impromptu rendition of Flower of Scotland. But, for now, he seemed fine.

Danny glanced toward the dance floor, where only a handful of people had dared to venture. A small group of women flailed in and out of time with the beat, while a couple clung to each other, clearly drunk well before arriving.

“We should show them how it’s done,” he said, his lips curving into a questioning smile.

Nell narrowed her eyes. She knew where this was going. He was baiting her, tempting her into the kind of smug conversation about how music, dancing, and everything had been better in their day. The sort of talk that made you sound ancient and pitiful.

“No way.” She poked her tongue out at him.

“Please?” He stroked her knee, his fingers creeping higher, hiking her dress dangerously up her thigh.

She swatted his hand away and stood. “Alright, fine. If you insist.” She extended her hand, and he took it with a triumphant grin.

The song changed, the opening notes of Jason Nevins’ remix of Rockstar by N.E.R.D. blasting through the speakers. One of Nell’s favourites and one Danny hated. Too late for him to back out now.

He stepped onto the dance floor and closed his eyes, moving his hips in time to the beat.

The subtle thrusts were maddeningly seductive, his effortless rhythm drawing her in just as it had when they first met.

Back then, dancing had been their unspoken foreplay—a prelude to what would come later, limbs entwined in ways that made the club seem tame.

As the track ended, the Pixies’ Cecilia Ann kicked in—one of Danny’s favourites. He immediately launched into head-banging, his hair flying in every direction.

“You’re embarrassing me!” Nell hissed, though her laughter betrayed her. At least Cecilia Ann was mercifully short.

Next up was Calvin Harris and Rihanna’s This Is What You Came For, a track that invited nothing more than an awkward shuffle from foot to foot. It was quintessential Trashed—an eclectic playlist that defied logic but somehow worked.

Danny screwed up his face as the song’s cheesy climax blared, and Nell gave a reluctant nod of agreement. It had defeated them. She trailed behind him back to their table, pausing at the bar where he ordered two more tequila shots.

Alarmed, Nell stepped in. “Are you sure?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, this’ll be the last one. Promise.”

Danny slung an arm around her, carelessly catching one of her dress straps. It slid down her arm, dragging the fabric with it and briefly exposing more than she’d like. The barman’s eyes darted away as Nell yanked it back into place, cheeks burning.

Grimacing, she grabbed both tequila shots. They might be small, but for someone as out of practice with booze as Danny, the stuff was a weapon. By the time they sat down, though, he’d already swiped a shot glass and slammed it back.

Dear oh dear.

Danny took himself off to the toilets, Nell sending him on his way with a jokey warning not to sniff anything while he was in there, as the loos had once been notorious for cocaine use.

She toyed with her tequila, swirling it round the glass and grimacing at the oily sheen. When Danny got back, she’d ask him to buy her a drink she actually liked. A Prosecco, maybe. Or a vodka and Diet Coke.

A couple sat at a nearby table. Early twenties, Nell guessed. They had that maddeningly fresh glow and plump skin that no serum, facial or tweakment could replicate—no matter how much money women her age chucked at them.

The woman, blonde hair in bunches on either side of her head—something only the young could pull off—laughed at something her boyfriend said, then leant in to peck him on the nose.

He was dark-haired, thickset and swarthy-skinned, which reminded Nell of Dr David Delvin’s old sex advice column in SHE magazine, long defunct now.

It had covered positions, reader queries—the funniest reply she remembered, “No, Mrs Smith, cunnilingus is not an Irish airline.”

The column had always been illustrated with cartoons: a man and woman, distinguishable only by the slightly darker tint of the man’s body.

Like the couple in front of her.

Her eyes welled up. And that —that right there—was the bit nobody had warned her about with menopause. The emotional ambushes. The way the stupidest things could crack her open.

She didn’t even know what, exactly, about the couple made her sad.

Their youth? Her distance from her twenties?

The way the girl was now gripping the boy’s thigh and whispering things that suggested they’d be leaving soon—or perhaps sneaking into the toilets, where he’d hitch up her skirt and take her right there—and how that kind of sex, the urgent, half-drunk, reckless sort, was probably over for Nell?

Or just… who knew?

She wiped the tears away with a bent-in-half finger.

Where the hell was Danny?

The irritating thing about men—and Christ, there were many contenders—was that they could vanish to the bogs and reappear two minutes later. No queue. No drama.

And yet.

She glanced at the clock on the wall opposite.

He’d been gone eight minutes now.

She was about to stand up when she spotted him—Danny—walking towards her. Not alone. A woman walked beside him.

Nell squinted. It didn’t compute. Danny wasn’t someone she associated with arriving in anyone’s company, let alone a woman’s. The sight was jarring. Off. And then—

Oh.

Oh, hell .

Her fingers tightened around her glass, knuckles blanching.

Jennifer Frazer. She met Nell’s stare with a smile that could melt steel if only to reform it into a dagger.

And suddenly, Nell remembered exactly who she was, and exactly where she’d seen her before.

Every muscle in her body locked.

After all these years, the reckoning had come and she was just as unprepared as she’d always feared.