I remember this precipice of excitement from long ago. Not knowing if he feels the way I feel, knowing I could fall from a huge height, if not. Even though you could be utterly destroyed by hitting the rocks below, there’s no feeling like it.

We talk easily, having enough in common now that it’s effortless. He tells me how he hated university too, didn’t want to do his business degree.

‘Dad wanted us to take over the family firm, end of story, no other ideas tolerated or indeed, funded. It was a glove-like fit for Dev, but … I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but I didn’t want to run bars.’

‘What would you have liked to do?’

‘I quite fancied teaching, actually,’ Lucas says, batting his glass from one hand to the other.

‘I can see you as a teacher!’

‘Is that a jibe?’

‘No!’ I grin. I am incapable of objective judgement, but it feels like we’re flirting to me.

‘You could still retrain?’ I say.

‘Yeah, I could. But I’m quite long in the tooth to begin again now and I’m used to this income, so. Look, I didn’t say my problems were worthy of sympathy.’

He gives me a sly grin from under his brow and I think we’re definitely flirting, surely.

‘Are you loaded then?’ I ask, curious as to whether he’ll be honest.

‘Errrr. What’s the tactful response to that?’

‘Honesty.’

‘Yeah, I am. We are. The Faustian pact with my dad: do as I say, it’ll all be yours. He was quite the bully, to the point of not entirely respecting the law in his dealings with the fruitier side of Dublin nightlife. We cleaned all that up. I’m relieved he’s retired.’

‘How did you and Dev turn out so well?’ I say, unguardedly, and Lucas looks genuinely gratified.

‘That’d be my mum.’

I know glorying in wealth is unseemly and that Lucas isn’t more valuable as he’s worth a lot, on paper. I still allow myself a brief flight of fancy, imagining being his. The men I’ve dated have been fairly inert and hapless, borrowing off me before payday. Ugh, Georgina, no, stop this. You’re not an Austen heroine, make your own money. Think of your mum and Geoffrey.

We talk about Robin, and I tell Lucas my side of catching him in bed with Lou, and he boggles and guffaws and gasps in the right places and I see us bonding, from the outside, and quite like who I am, for a change. I might’ve dated an idiot but I can take it to the metaphorical Cash Converters and turn it into something of entertainment value.

Bottle gone, Lucas asks if I’ve tried a cherry liqueur they’ve been sent and we do sticky shots, smacking our lips together and debating whether it’s delicious or saccharine. The illuminated clock over the bar says half one. My mind is fuzzed by drink but I know a moment of reckoning is drawing near.

‘Look at the time! Best call your cab,’ Lucas says.

‘Luc,’ I say. The nickname is deliberate. I take a risk. A premeditated risk. ‘So you know when you hired me? I … overheard you saying to Dev you didn’t want the pub to turn into Hooters.’

Lucas startles.

‘Did I say that?’

‘Uh … I thought you did. I was having a fag outside the kitchen window, after the wake.’

‘Oh, I was probably pissed …’ He looks awkward and I worry I shouldn’t have pushed my luck.

‘I didn’t think I had the dumb blonde, big rack look.’

‘You don’t!’

‘Robin called me “Topshop Diana Dors”.’

‘Wow. He looks like Leo Sayer.’ Lucas pauses. ‘I was … probably just putting Devlin in his place for jumping in and hiring when he was half cut.’

‘Right.’

‘… I’m really sorry if it sounded like I was passing judgement on your appearance. It came out flip and rude because I was jibing at Dev. Oh …’ he rubs the back of his head, ‘I feel like such a wanker now.’

It was always a risky gambit, confronting Lucas with this, and right now it’s deservedly backfiring. He’s uncomfortable and I’ve damaged the easy-going mood.

‘No, I know you’d never insult me. It’s just – sometimes I worry that I don’t attract the right sort of man. Robin was surprised I’d read books. Maybe I should dye my hair dark and ditch the pink coat.’

That’s better, Georgina, I think. I mean, creakingly manipulative compliment-fishing, but just about getting away with it.

‘Any man who doesn’t recognise an intelligent woman because of her hair colour isn’t worth knowing.’

‘Yeah. True.’

Well that trap failed.

‘I’m not tanned enough for Hooters anyway.’ Argh, let it go, Georgina. Can you hear yourself.

‘I really wouldn’t worry about it. You’re lovely as you are.’

WOAH. Scored in injury time. Lovely. Lucas McCarthy thinks I’m lovely. Of all the faces to ruin. That meant something. It had to. My heart is pounding so loud I’m surprised the neighbours haven’t knocked on the wall to ask me to turn it down.

‘OK.’ Lucas glances at the wall clock. ‘Taxi.’ He gets up to call from the phone behind the bar.

Make a move, make a move.

‘One for the road?’ I call, as Lucas puts the phone back. I’m not sure why pubs still have landlines, really. I shouldn’t have let him call it. I could’ve pretended I was getting one on my app.

‘Ack, go on,’ Lucas says.

Gleefully, I pour out more as he comes back to our table. He picks up the glass, clinks with mine, the back of his fingers making the faintest contact against my own. Our eyes meet as we down it. I unconsciously lick a drop from my lips and his eyes flick towards this movement so briefly, I can’t tell if I saw it or saw what I wanted to see.

Car lights sweep up to the window and Lucas stands up and says, his tone impossible to read: ‘Oh, that was quick.’

I think no no no no, getting to my feet. The lights travel onward and Lucas says ‘False alarm.’

I’m right by him, and I’m looking up at him as he’s looking down at me and the world is holding its breath and I know that it’s now or never.

‘Lucas?’ I say.

‘Yeah?’ he replies.

‘I feel a bit drunk,’ I say. ‘I should go. But …’

‘What?’

‘I don’t want to.’

He reaches out and brushes a stray hair away from my face because touching each other now seems to be a thing we do, and I think: signs won’t get stronger than this.

Before I’m even fully sure I’m going to do it, I close the distance between us, put my arms around his neck and kiss him.

37

It’s still terrifying, but inebriation makes it slightly less terrifying to tough out the seconds of not being sure if he’ll respond. Never mind dancing on your own, kissing on your own’s the truly lonely activity.

The moment I worry it won’t happen, suddenly Lucas is kissing me back, with equal passion, his hand on the back of my head, fingers wound into my hair.

No one kisses as well as this. I’d thought my teenage memories were rose tinted, but if anything they had faded like an old photograph. Everything he used to do to me is still there. It’s like my body remembers him and lights up in response, a ping-ping-ping of recognition and lust travelling the length of my body. I’ve had dozens of kisses-with-grappling in the years in between, and they were all pale shadows of this: the push of him, the pull of him, the whole effect of him.

I’d told myself: well yeah, but you mythologise your first love, don’t you, it’s nostalgia playing tricks. It wasn’t. My God, it wasn’t.

He needs to know how much I want him. Since I’ve not had the courage to tell him, I throw my efforts into this mode of communication instead.

Not only am I making it a deep and quite filthy kiss, I slide my hands under his t-shirt and on to bare flesh underneath, hopefully making it clear this is not a ‘let’s have a quick snog at the end of the night’, this is a full on, ‘take me to bed’ bid.

Lucas slides a hand under my top in response – yes! – and I put my hand over his and move it straight up to my breast, my hand over his. I am certainly not playing hard to get. The euphoria of the moment is carrying me. He squeezes me gently and tugs at the lace of my bra cup and his fingertips brush my left nipple. We’re miraculously back at that same second base (I never understood the bases) we dexterously managed to achieve undetected in the Botanical Gardens. Only this time, we don’t have to go home separately, aching with unfulfillment.

When I fumble around his flies, he grabs my hand and says: ‘Stop.’

I step back an inch, getting my breathing back.

‘What?’

‘We can’t.’

I look at the windows. I suppose he’s right, the blinds won’t be foolproof and there’s still enough light in here we could be seen.

‘OK. Upstairs?’

My clothing is rumpled and my face is hot.

‘No. I mean, best not do this.’

I don’t understand. He steps back a little further and it feels like a million miles.

‘Wh— what? Did I do something wrong?’