His look is agonised, but I don’t understand why. “If I ask you to do something for me, will you do it and not ask questions? Just accept that this is how it has to be right now?”

Some kind of apprehension takes hold in my gut. “I’ll try.”

“I need you not to touch me, not to try to kiss me like you did during the movie. I know it’s hypocritical, given what’s been brewing between us lately, but it’s not in my power to explain yet. I need you to be my friend, Matilda, to spend time with me. But please don’t push for more, even if it feels like I want you so badly it hurts, even if I’m the one doing the pushing, because if you do, I might just have to be selfish and take you.” He pauses before finishing in a hushed voice, “and you’d destroy me.”

I’d destroy him? How ironic is it that it feels like he’s destroying me in this moment? “You don’t want me?”

He doesn’t answer immediately. Then he says, “You should be running in the other direction, darlin’.”

I study him, trying to figure him out. Finally, I realise what’s going on. He’s trying to let me down gently. He’s saying nice things but mixing them with bad things to make me feel less rejected, because, let’s face it, that’s what this is. A rejection.

Yesterday when we were together was a lapse of judgement on his part. He was satisfying a need, and that’s all. I allowed myself to get carried away, I guess. I gather my reserve, blinking back the tears that want to come out.

“So, you’re saying you just want to be friends?” The tears are in my throat now, too, and it’s impossible that he can’t hear them.

He takes my hand in his and squeezes it tight. “I want you to be my best friend.”

Steeling myself, I say, “Okay, I get it. You don’t have to lessen the blow.”

He squeezes my hand to the point of pain now. “I want you to be my best friend, darlin’. I’m not lessening the blow. That right there is the truth.”

I want to just stay quiet, but I can’t help it. The verbal diarrhoea comes spewing out. “Is there….” I stop and take a breath, biting back more tears. “Is there something wrong with me?”

“Jesus Christ, Watson, no. You’re perfect.” He pulls me into his arms and hugs me so hard it steals the air from my lungs.

I’m not perfect. He’s lying. If I were perfect, then this conversation wouldn’t even be happening. I hate how much I love the feel of his body wrapped around mine, and then comes the anger. Abruptly, I push away from him and get to my feet.

“Who brings a girl to see a movie like that and then tells her he doesn’t want to be with her? That was really shitty of you, Jay.”

“Can’t,” he says, standing up, too, and walking toward me. He stops when his chest brushes mine, completely invading my personal space.

“What?” I ask, my voice snappy.

“Can’t, not doesn’t.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“I will one day.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, can you just be straight with me for once? On second thought, forget it. I’m going home.”

At this I turn and stomp away from him, but he catches up to me, stopping me in my tracks when he forcefully grabs my elbow. “You’re not going home alone at this time of night,” he growls in my ear.

“Watch me.” I yank my elbow out of his hold and make a run for it. In this moment I’m so consumed by feelings of embarrassment and hurt, and I just don’t want to look at him. I don’t want to look at a person I want this badly but who doesn’t want me back.

A minute later I’m airborne as he catches me and grabs me around my middle, lifting me up and throwing me over his shoulder.

“Jay! Let me down!” I squeal, wiggling in his hold. He doesn’t put me down until he reaches his car and sets me in the back. I’m about to crawl out when he slams the door shut and locks it. I try the handle, but it won’t budge.

“It’s for your own safety,” I hear him say through the glass as he goes back inside the park.

Oh, my God, I couldn’t be any more pissed off right now. He just locked me inside his car. My anger trickles away after a minute, though, being replaced again by hurt feelings. I feel hideous. It’s the worst time for me to dwell on the fact that Owen still hasn’t called, which is the cherry on top of Jay’s rejection cake. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with me that men just don’t seem to want me?

Maybe I’m just too boring? Okay, self-pity, I’m going to say good night.

Soon Jay returns, sliding into the driver’s seat and throwing the packed-up duffel bag in the back. He doesn’t say a word.

I hate him not talking to me even more than I hate him not wanting me.

Liquid leaks from my eyes, unable to hold back anymore. I dab at the tears with my sleeve and try not to sniffle, not wanting Jay to know I’m crying. In the end it doesn’t matter, because he looks at me through the overhead mirror and lets out a gruff breath.

“Darlin’, don’t cry.”

Now I do sniffle. “Don’t call me darlin’. I’m not your darlin’. I’m your friend.” I put as much animosity into the word as I can muster.

A tiny smile shapes his lips, and I feel like smacking him for it. “Really? It doesn’t sound like you’re my friend. It sounds like you hate my guts.”

I make eye contact with him, and everything inside me deflates. It’s my own fault for thinking there was something big between us. I’ve just never met anyone like him before; he got under my skin so quickly. I think he might have ruined me for all other men already. How sad is that?

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“Nothing to be sorry about, Watson,” he says, turning the steering wheel as he rounds a corner.

“There is. I shouldn’t have thrown a tantrum. I just — I really like you, and you hurt my feelings. I’ll get over it. I’m your friend.” I pause and add, “I promise to be your friend.” Because even though he’s made me feel like shit, I sense something desperate in him, some part of him that needs me as his friend more than anything, even if we have only been in each other’s lives a short time. It’s odd, but it feels like I’ve known him forever. He fit himself so perfectly into my and Dad’s lives, like he’d always been there.

The look he gives me is startling, equal parts self-loathing for himself and affection for me, but that can’t be right. It confuses me.

“Thank you, darlin’,” he says after a long stretch of silence. “I need a friend like you.”

Twenty

A couple of days go by. Dad returns from his golfing break looking refreshed, which makes me happy. There’s an atmosphere between Jay and me, though, and that doesn’t make me happy. I just feel so exposed with him now. It was fine before when I could go around all blasé and pretend like I had no interest in him, but now he knows I like him, and it’s just so mortifying. I feel like a little kid at school whose crush has been exposed.

I wish nothing had happened between us at all, because it’s even worse knowing what I’m missing.

I’m just waiting for the day when he brings a girl home. I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle it if he does. I overhear him telling Dad he’s organised a new place to live, but he won’t be able to move in for another fortnight. Air catches in my lungs. That’s all I have left. Two weeks, and he’ll be gone. I know I’ll see him around, but it just won’t be the same.

Most evenings he and Dad lock themselves away in Dad’s tiny home office, discussing the particulars of Jay’s case. Dad’s decided to take on most of the admin work himself, so that Will and I can focus on the rest of the firm’s cases. One good thing about all this is that it seems to have injected a whole new lease of life into Dad. It’s like he’s twenty years younger, a reflection of the man he was before Mum was stolen from us so violently.

And that’s why I’m grateful to Jay and so glad he walked into our lives, even if he has hurt me. I haven’t seen Dad so invigorated in a long time.