Page 13 of The Friend Request

‘I saw you looking back at the car park when we came out.’

I glance at him sideways. ‘And you went the other way on purpose?’

‘I went the other way because you let me.’

I don’t have an answer to that. He’s right, and we both know it, and the truth of it sits between us on the wet pavement like something neither of us wants to pick up.

We continue for a while without talking. Our footsteps fall into a rhythm – his longer, mine quicker to keep up – and there’s a strange comfort in it, the two of us moving through the city at night without anywhere we need to be. Traffic rumbles in the distance, music comes from a pub on the far bank, and a siren wails somewhere towards Broadmead, but here on the river path it’s quiet.

‘This is mad,’ I say.

‘A bit.’

‘I mean it. This is completely mad. I’m a married woman walking along a river in the dark with—’ I stop, because I don’t know how to finish the sentence. With my ex? With an old friend? With the boy I kissed in a library when I was fourteen, and who over the next few years became everything to me?

‘With me,’ Ross says, gentle, almost amused.

‘With you. Yes.’ I pull my coat tighter. ‘And I don’t even know what I’m doing.’

‘You’re walking.’

‘Ross.’

‘You’re walking, Kim. That’s all. We had dinner, and now we’re walking. Nobody’s committed a crime.’

‘I told my husband I was at a work party.’

‘I know.’

‘So it’s not just walking, is it? It’s walking and lying. Which is worse.’

He doesn’t argue with that. He puts his hands in his pockets and looks out across the river. I watch his profile against the lights – the line of his jaw, the slight downward turn of his mouth – and a ripple of something stirs deep in my stomach.

We reach a bench near a set of steps leading up to the road. I stop, and Ross stops too, and we stand there facing each other with the river behind us and the mist thickening around the street lights.

‘I should double back,’ I say. ‘Get the car.’

‘How far is Keynsham from here?’

‘Five miles. Seven, maybe, depending on the route.’

‘I’ll go with you back to the car park, then.’

‘You don’t have to do that.’

‘I know I don’t have to.’

We turn around and go back the way we came. The mood shifts slightly, as if the fact that we’ve acknowledged the end of the evening has made the remaining minutes feel sharper. More loaded. I’m aware of how close his arm is to mine. I’m aware of the way his shoulder moves with each stride, the sound of his breathing, the faint scent of him that I caught earlier in the restaurant – clean, warm, faintly woody – still there underneath the damp night air.

‘Do you remember the window?’ he says.

I laugh before I can stop myself. ‘The window at school?’

‘The one round the back of the science block. The latch was broken, and you could push it open from outside.’

‘And you used to climb through it to get into the corridor after hours.’

‘We used to climb through it.’