“They’re gorgeous,” I told him. “Bring them here to me and I’ll measure them for a lovely new bra.”

“Fuck off, you.”

“If I had those I’d never leave the house again.”

“Fuck off and die. What’s wrong with them?”

“Are they meant to be all squishy?” Julie wanted to know.

“Give us that back,” Ger demanded, waving a hand at Mandy for his T-shirt. “If yous don’t appreciate these, I’m putting them away again.”

Mandy dangled the T-shirt from one finger and looked at him under her lashes. “Might hang on to it for a souvenir.”

“Janey Mac, the smell off that,” Imelda said, batting it away from her face. “Mind yourself: I’d say you could get pregnant just touching that yoke.”

Mandy shrieked and threw the T-shirt at Julie, who caught it and shrieked louder. Ger made a grab for it, but Julie ducked under his arm and jumped up: “’Melda, catch!” Imelda caught the shirt one-handed on her way up, twisted away from Zippy when he got an arm around her and was out the door in a flash of long legs and long hair, waving his shirt behind her like a banner. Ger went thumping after her and Des held out a hand to pull me up on his way past, but Rosie was leaning back against the wall and laughing, and I wasn’t moving until she did. Julie was tugging down her pencil skirt on her way out, Mandy threw Rosie a wicked look over her shoulder and called, “Hang on, yous, wait for me!” and then all of a sudden the room was quiet and it was just me and Rosie, smiling a little at each other across the spilled bonbons and the near-empty cider bottles and the curls of leftover smoke.

My heart was going like I had been running. I couldn’t remember the last time we had been alone together. I said—I had some confused idea about showing her I wasn’t planning a lunge—“Will we go after them?”

Rosie said, “I’m grand here. Unless you want to . . . ?”

“Ah, no; no. I can live without getting my hands on Ger Brophy’s shirt.”

“He’ll be lucky to get it back. In one bit, anyway.”

“He’ll survive. He can show off his pecs on the walk home.” I tipped one of the cider bottles; there were still a few swigs left. “D’you want more?”

She held out a hand. I put one of the bottles into it—our fingers almost touched—and picked up the other. “Cheers.”

“Sláinte.”