‘Okay, well, great, thank you.’
Now that they didn’t have the quiz to talk about, silence stretched between them as he reversed out of his parking space and into the road. On Dan’s part, he was suddenly – ridiculously – thinking about Vegas again. Should he mention it, to break the ice? No, maybe not.
‘So that was a great evening,’ he said eventually. ‘Good to know that we’re quizzing superstars.’
‘You were very impressive on your weird niche sports,’ Evie said.
‘Ice hockey is not weird or niche. I will admit that bossaballisniche. As is knowing the names of every celebrity ever who’s had twins by a surrogate, though.’
‘Niche in a good way. I’mproudof my celebrity twins knowledge. And also my rice knowledge.’
Dan nodded. ‘That was seriously impressive.’ Their table had been the only one in the room who’d got full marks in the ‘Name what type of rice grain this is’ round, courtesy of Evie.
Dan slowed down for a red traffic light and the conversation slowed too. Stalled completely in fact. They’d never struggled to talk before.
‘I should have congratulated you before now on your baby news,’ Evie said after a few moments.
‘Um, thanks. Yeah. It was a bit of a surprise. But I’m obviously delighted now.’
‘Yes, wonderful news.’ More silence. Then Evie said, ‘What’s the due date?’
‘Late July or early August.’ Dan negotiated a right turn onto a main road followed by a sharp left.
‘Wow, so… wow.’ Her voice was suddenly very cold.
Dan could say nothing, or he could say something. It felt like this was another one of those make or break moments in terms of a friendship. If he said nothing, maybe Evie was going to think he’d still been with Hannah when he was in Vegas. He actually couldn’t let her think that.
‘Hannah, the baby’s mother, and I went out briefly in the autumn,’ he said. ‘We split up before I came to Vegas.’
‘Great,’ Evie said, very over-brightly. ‘I mean, I wasn’t suggesting you hadn’t.’
Dan gripped the steering wheel. He shouldn’t react to that.
He was going to react to it. He didn’t like the implication that she would think that he might do that.
‘You know, I would never cheat on anyone,’ he said. ‘Never have, and I’d really like to believe that I never will.’ When your father had cheated on your mother alot, you knew you never wanted to be that kind of arsehole yourself.
‘No, I really wasn’t suggesting that you would.’ They’d slowed down for more lights, so Dan was able to turn to look at Evie. She was staring straight ahead. ‘I suppose I was a rebound thing.’ She turned slightly and looked at him for a moment before resuming her straight-ahead stare.
‘No.’ Dan shook his head. ‘No. Definitely not. No rebound. Hannah and I weren’t serious. I mean, we’re having a baby and that’s serious, but we weren’t serious as a couple. I wasn’t upset when we split up. There was no rebound. You weren’t a rebound.’ He eased forward as the lights went green. ‘You, our night in Vegas, that was…’ What was it? Amazing? Perfect? Incredibly special? A complete one-off. ‘It happened. In the moment. Because, I suppose, at the time it felt… right.’ He should really not have said that. Except, he liked Evie. He liked her a lot. She was a lovely person. He’d known her most of his life and she was Sasha’s best friend and he didn’t want things to be awkward. ‘I mean, that was a great night. I really enjoyed it.’ Oh, God. What was wrong with him? Was he making things better or worse?
‘Yep.’ Yeah, she sounded very clipped. He’d made things worse. ‘Yep, no, it just sounded as though it was very soon after. But obviously you and Hannah had split up first.’
‘Yes, we had.’ Itreallyannoyed him that Evie had thought for even a moment that he’d cheat on someone. Especially her, actually. Because it would have been cheating on her too if he’d already been with someone. He just wouldn’t do that. ‘Frankly, I can’t see much of a difference, if any, between me splitting up with someone and then sleeping with you, and you sleeping with me and beginning shortly afterwards to go out with Matthew. Assuming you weren’t going out with him at the time.’ Of course she hadn’t been going out with him at the time; he was being ridiculous. It was like he was trying to pick an argument with her for no good reason at all. Other than the fact that he really hadn’t taken to Matthew. Which wasn’t a good reason. She could go out with who she liked.
‘I wasn’t. And, yes, sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘No worries. Nor should I.’ Dan didn’t take his eyes away from the road.
They drove the rest of the way in silence.
When they got to Evie’s road, Dan stopped the car and double-parked.
‘Thank you for the lift,’ said Evie, only half-looking at him. ‘It was really kind of you. And thank you for coming to the quiz. That was kind of you too.’
‘I enjoyed it,’ said Dan truthfully. It was just the drive back here that hadn’t been so good. He turned so that he was facing her full-on, and she turned a little bit more towards him. God, he loved the line of her neck. So elegant. ‘I’m not sure what happened during that conversation, but I’m sorry.’
‘I’m sorry too.’ She looked up at him and he saw that her eyes were glistening.
