Free The Sisterhood by Emily Barr Page A

stereo. Matt looked at us, and did a small double take.
    'Happy New Year,' he said, uncertainly.
    'Happy New Year to you, too, Matthew,' Steve replied, too jovially. We took a table in the furthest corner. It was not the table where I had sat with Rosa.
    Coffee made me sick, so I ordered mint tea. Steve raised his eyebrows.
    'Given up the hard stuff?' he asked, clearing his throat.
    'Just for today.'
    'Good night last night?'
    'Fabulous.' I looked at him, and saw that he believed me. 'Are you having a croissant?'
    'Sure.'
    Steve shouted our order over to Matt, who pushed his blond fringe aside and got to work. We sat in silence for a while. To my annoyance, I cracked first.
    'Were you coming to see me?'
    Steve sighed and looked down.
    'I want to apologise,' he said quickly, fiddling with the sugar. 'I'm sorry about everything I've put you through. It's shitty.'
    I thought of the tiny embryo and tried to rise above this.
    'It's OK,' I said as casually as I could. My voice betrayed me with a wobble. 'It's in the past.'
    He looked up and frowned. 'Not very far in the past.'
    'What is this?' I demanded. 'New year, new, caring Steve? Suddenly realised that sauntering off down the fucking street with a teenager's hand on your arse wasn't your finest moment? Come back to say a pathetic sorry so you can start to feel good about yourself again?'
    He nodded slowly, acknowledging my point with a grimace. 'Something like that.'
    I tutted and rolled my eyes, because I knew that he hated it. He sighed and ran both hands through his greying hair.
    'It's Miles,' he said, eventually. 'He's spent the holidays at home. With his parents. And it's rather struck me, since we've been apart, that he's seventeen. And I'm thirty-eight. I've been infatuated, I'll be the first to admit that. I'd never known anything like it, when I met Miles. Sorry. I feel like a fool. I mean, bringing him to the flat and everything. It wasn't the greatest behaviour on my part.'
    I swallowed. 'Seventeen-year-olds are young and stupid and they think they own the world. I see too many of them at work.'
    'Good thing I'm not in your line of work.'
    'You'd be in prison.'
    'What do they call it — the nonce's wing?'
    'So you and Miles?' I was numb. I was trying not to care. I was pretending to myself that Steve and I had no history, that he was just someone I'd met in the street, or a friend of a friend. I wanted to yell at him, 'I might be having your baby!' but I didn't. It did not seem appropriate.
    'I might call it a day.' He looked at me quickly. 'But I'm still gay.'
    'I see.'
    'So, that's it really. Sorry that I've been such a bastard.'
    I considered letting rip at him, but I lacked the energy. 'It's all right,' I said. I chewed my croissant. Over the past few weeks, I had discovered that it was possible to be nauseous and starving at the same time, and I ate quickly before the sick feeling caught up with me.
    We sat in silence. Steve tried to start a couple of conversations.
    'How's your dad?' he asked.
    'Fine.'
    And Sue?'
    'She's all right.'
    'How about Kathy? She must hate me.' Kathy was my best friend at work.
    'Pretty much.' In the end I turned on him. 'Steve,' I said, wearily. 'I appreciate your coming over and trying to be nice. But if you're thinking we can "still be friends" or anything like that, please fuck off. You go and live your life. I'll live mine.' I opened my mouth to tell him I was pregnant. I closed it again. I needed him away from me.
    'That's it?'
    'That's it.'
    He looked at me for a while, then stood up and went to pay at the counter. From the corner of my eye, I was aware of him pausing, wondering whether or not to kiss me. I didn't look round, and he went.
    As soon as he'd gone, I went to the counter and sat on a tall stool.
    'Jeez,' said Matt, flicking a croissant crumb from his black T-shirt. Matt was tall and burly, and he had very annoying hair. He always wore black. 'What was going on there?'
    I shrugged. 'Steve was trying to feel better