‘Of course!’ he replied, stirring his sauce once more before turning off the heat. ‘So, this is your last day? Got anything else lined up after this?’
‘I do actually,’ she replied. God, his eyes were so green. Like little emeralds—
‘And…’
‘Oh, sorry.Rocky Horrortour. I’m really excited.’
‘More corsets,’ he said. ‘Interesting.’
‘Mary Ronan, you’re up.’
Erin waved towards the assistant. ‘Shit, OK, I’d better run. Really nice to meet you!’
‘It was really nice to meet you too, Mary Ronan.’
‘Erin,’ she replied, grinning. ‘My name’s Erin.’
* * *
Erin awoke to the sound of her friends laughing in the garden. Five-thirty in the afternoon; she’d been asleep for nine hours. She sprang out of bed, chastising herself for being a terrible host.
That’s right, just you sleep the entire weekend away and leave your guests to starve.
Pulling on a cardigan, she scurried down the hall to the kitchen where she was reminded that her guests were grown adults, capable of finding food in a fully stocked fridge. Panic over, she poured herself a drink and stepped out on to the patio.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, pulling up a chair. ‘You must think me so rude.’
The weather was still unreasonably warm for half past five. The cardigan was immediately removed.
‘No, we think you so tired,’ Alex replied with a smile. ‘Please don’t worry about us, we’ve been catching up on old times… some of them less worth remembering than others, I might add.’
‘Really? Anything interesting?’
‘Aaron Keating,’ Becky mouthed behind Alex’s back.
Erin snorted. ‘Aaron Keating? I ran into him a few years back.’
Alex spun around to throw daggers at Becky.
‘I was doing some god-awful play in Mayo or Galway; I can’t remember but he was there with his wife! I seem to remember he was quite high up in soil science or something.’
‘Did he ask after Alex?’ Paul enquired. ‘Maybe a longing look off into the distance at the mention of her name. A small tear of nostalgia shed? Anything?’
Alex snorted. ‘Did his wife at least have both of her feet intact?’
By now Erin was laughing too hard to reply, all she could do was shake her head. Eventually, she calmed down enough to ask about dinner.
‘I was going to do salmon,’ she suggested, ‘with a spicy veggie stir fry for Christine, Becky and Aiden? I should still have some bread for—’
‘No bread.’ Tara interjected. ‘We got peckish. And you might be out of hummus too.’
‘And soft cheese,’ Paul confessed.
‘Oh no worries, I get an extra delivery in the morning anyway.’
‘Salmon sounds delicious,’ Aiden remarked. ‘I’m pescetarian so fish is fine with me too. Don’t go to too much trouble.’
‘It’s no trouble at all,’ Erin replied. ‘We can eat in an hour, oh and feel free to use the shower in my bedroom, I’ve popped some extra towels in there.’
