‘The fuck should I know?’ His tone was terse, and there was something accusatory in the way he wouldn’t meet her eye. It wasn’t as if she’d planned for it to happen, Ross barging in like that. ‘Do you think he’ll tell your folks?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Fuck! If my dad finds out about this, he’ll have my balls!’

She felt her lip trembling, and he must have seen it, because he paused, seeming to soften. ‘Listen, I’ll call you, okay?’

‘You’re going?’

‘I’m sorry, Eva. I like you, but this just isn’t what I had in mind for this evening, you know? I’ll be in touch.’

He kissed her swiftly and then he was gone, his feet rumbling down the stairs, the slam of the front door, the shush of his bicycle wheels as he pushed away down the drive.

Ross was waiting for her in the kitchen. He looked up as she came in, and Eva noticed the half-empty bottle of wine on the counter by his elbow. The sight of it made her wince.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly. ‘I’m so embarrassed – please don’t tell anyone about this.’

She realized how self-centred she sounded, more concerned with her reputation than the act of trespass she’d just committed.

‘He just came over to hang out with me. I didn’t mean for things to get so out of hand.’

Still he made no reply and that was somehow worse than him losing his temper and making accusations.

‘Please don’t think that I’m a slut,’ she said, and his brow furrowed into a quizzical expression, and then he smiled.

‘Christ, is that what you think?’

‘No—’

‘I’m not some sanctimonious old codger. I can still remember what it was to be a teenager, grasping opportunities when you could.’

He shook his head, still grinning, but there was a faraway look about him, as if he was reminiscing on exploits in his own past.

‘You’re not mad at me?’ she ventured.

‘I’m not thrilled, but I’m not mad either.’

He scratched the dome of his head and laughed once more. ‘Seeing that young fella running out the door, his jeans practically around his knees, it reminded me of myself, getting chased out of a girl’s bedroom, half-dressed, leaving my shoes behind in a panic! I can’t have been much older than you are now.’

She wondered if the girl whose bedroom he’d been caught in was Becca, and then she thought of Ross as he might have been back then and found herself looking at him more closely.