He turns to face me before I get the chance to look away. ‘You’re up,’ he mouths. Emma is dancing her way back to Chris, another strike played. Chris looks bemused, but – by my reckoning – quite taken with her. I let out a sigh, feeling out of place, then get up to take my shot.

‘I’m going to the bar, I’ll get you a colder drink in,’ he shouts over to me. ‘But if you miss this one, it’s your round next.’

I lift and feel the weight of the bowling ball in hand, focusing my eyes on the pins. Arm back, swing, release. And, following the line down the centre of the lane, amazingly, my ball takes out all the pins. I turn, arms aloft in victory, to see… Daniel.

Chapter Thirty-Four

KAT

My arms drop slowly, taking with them my all too briefly lifted spirits. ‘Daniel…’ He looks around, then back to me, looking me up and down as if I shouldn’t be here. Or as if he doesn’t want to see me. Or perhaps both, just to make me feel even more insignificant.

‘Well done,’ he says, nodding at the large X on the screen behind me. ‘You weren’t much good at stuff like this when we were together.’ He says it with that sneer he always had when making a joke at my expense, and yet it’s also a sneer that makes him look his hottest, like he’s pushing me, challenging me to react, which was always when sparks flew at their most intense. He looks over his shoulder, then back to me. ‘Thanks,’ I say, surreptitiously pulling my jeans up to give a better silhouette. He always hated my muffin top. For the second time tonight I feel awkward in my clothes, in my skin, just awkward in general. Maybe I should have gone for that PVC shift dress he bought me last Christmas. I rejected it on the basis it was too short to bowl in. And also PVC. It might have been better for bumping into your ex and wishing you looked smoking hot though. Not that it should matter.

Mark comes back with two bottles, stopping when he realises I’m talking to someone. I smile to encourage him to join us, not really wanting to be totally alone. I take a swig from the bottle he passes me, glad that he hasn’t put his arm around me, but sort of wishing for the very briefest of moments that he had. That I could look like I was with someone, like I was happy. Not that it should matter. Again.

‘This is Mark,’ I say, intentionally not expanding.

‘Hi,’ says Mark, his arm outstretched. Daniel shakes his hand, eyeballing Mark, and I know, because I know Daniel, that he’s doing so in the hope of an explanation as to who he is. I cross my fingers Mark won’t give it. There’s a hung moment as the three of us stand there, just looking at each other. Mark glances at me, apparently misreading the situation.