Free Better Together by Sheila O'Flanagan Page A

But one day they might be. Marriage hadn’t been. Now it was.
    ‘I think I want a future,’ she said, after all these things had filtered through her mind. ‘A long-term future.’
    Griff exhaled sharply. ‘With me?’
    ‘That’s the way my mind was going, obviously. But not yours,’ she added as she observed the hunted expression in his eyes.
    ‘It’s not that I mightn’t,’ he told her. ‘But I’m not ready yet. C’mon, Sher. With us it’s all about having a good time and great sex.’ He grinned at her. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t think the sex isn’t great.’
    ‘Of course it’s great,’ she said.
    ‘So we don’t need the other stuff. The dull stuff. The making-plans-and-settling-down stuff. It’s way too much responsibility for me right now.’
    He was thirty-one years old. Sheridan’s father had been married with kids by then. She wondered when it had happened that men in their early thirties decided they were too young for responsibility. Then she reminded herself that, until yesterday, she hadn’t been thinking much about responsibilities herself. And that her mother had had three children by the time she was twenty-nine.
    ‘We’ve had some great times,’ she agreed. ‘I suppose they won’t last for ever. Obviously they won’t,’ she added, ‘if we’re not interested in . . . in taking things further.’
    ‘This is the best relationship I’ve ever had,’ he told her. ‘You’re one of the most brilliant girlfriends in the world. There’s no reason to mess it up by making it into something else. Not yet.’
    ‘I know. But . . .’ She sighed. ‘I shouldn’t have listened to Talia. I shouldn’t have thought about the whole living-together thing. The problem is, now that I have . . .’
    ‘You’ve changed everything,’ finished Griff.
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    Griff took his credit card out of his wallet and handed it to the waiter, who’d arrived with the bill. ‘My treat tonight, seeing as you’re one of the recently unemployed.’
    They normally split the bill. Sheridan preferred it that way. But tonight she let Griff pay.
    ‘So what now?’ asked Griff as they stood on the pavement outside the restaurant. ‘Do you want to come back to the house?’
    ‘I don’t think so.’
    ‘D’you want me to come back to your place?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Do you want ever to see me again?’
    Of course she wanted to see him again. She still loved him. But she couldn’t unsay what had been said and she couldn’t get past the fact that he didn’t want to live with her.
    ‘I’ll call you,’ he said when she didn’t speak.
    ‘OK.’
    ‘Well, good night so.’ He hesitated for a moment, then put his arms around her and drew her towards him.
    ‘No.’ She swallowed hard. ‘No, Griff, don’t.’
    ‘Come on, Sher.’ His expression was pained. ‘You’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.’
    ‘I don’t think we will,’ she said. ‘And . . . and . . . maybe it’s better if you don’t call me after all.’
    ‘Are you sure about that?’ he asked. ‘You’ve had a rough time. I’m sorry I didn’t say what you wanted tonight, but maybe you’ll see that ultimately it’s the right thing.’
    ‘If it’s the right thing, then we’re wasting our time together.’
    ‘How can enjoying somebody’s company be wasting your time?’ he asked.
    She’d once asked the same question herself. Talia had been nagging her about her habit of going out on Saturday nights with different male friends to watch the match in a pub. Her friend had asked if there wasn’t one guy that she wanted to go out with more than others. When Sheridan said no, Talia had questioned her as to why she was wasting her time with so many men if none of them mattered to her. Sheridan had responded that she enjoyed being with them. That they were friends. And, she’d asked Talia, how could having fun with people you liked be wasting your time? She’d spoken the truth then. What had happened to make her change her