not been able to stop thinking about Sam since the moment I’d met him, even though I’d tried really hard. Was it possible that he could feel the same about me? The thought that he could thrilled me as much as it filled me with terrible guilt. I’ve got a pretty well-developed conscience. I’d seen my mum when Dad had gone; she’d tortured herself wondering what the other woman had that she didn’t, what she’d done wrong, and whether there was anything she should have done differently.
I traced the condensation with my finger and tried hard not to think about how Victoria might be feeling. Even so, I couldn’t help feeling a little bit sick at heart. No one should go through the pain my mother had suffered.
Knowing it was the dumbest move I could make, I picked up my phone and carried on looking at the Instagram feed I’d succumbed to peeking at earlier that afternoon. It was clear that she and Sam breaking up had not been a mutual decision. Her recent feed featured lots of pictures of happier times with her and Sam among the same group of friends. The numbers varied, but the same faces recurred in different groupings: lounging on the field at a cricket match, dressed up and posing for the camera at a wedding, a group selfie on a sun-drenched beach that looked somewhere exotic and well above my paygrade, in Barcelona at the Sagrada Familia. It was a gloriously technicolour, detailed documentary of their history together and an indelible testament to how intertwined their lives had been.
I snapped off my phone and pushed it away. Instead, I gazed up at the leafy canopy above and wondered how the leaves managed to stay so crisp and green when the grass had given up the ghost. The hillside view was probably normally rolling verdant field; today it was brown scrub.
‘Jess!’
Sam appeared
‘Hi.’ I stood up. He smiled at me, his eyes dancing as they met mine, mischief and warmth brimming in them, and like magic, the dragging frustration of my day and the wearying feeling of guilt vanished.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he walked right up to me and put his arms around me, his hands resting in the small of my back. He kissed me full on the lips, putting a marker in the sand straightaway. No messing about, but also no assumptions. No tongues and no lingering snog. It was a kiss that stated his intent, but he hadn’t carried it through. It was an offer, but it gave me a choice. It was honest and straightforward. A man after my own heart.
‘Hi,’ he said, his voice husky and raspy. ‘I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time.’
My heart banged in my chest and I must have looked like a right dorky idiot because all I could do was gaze breathlessly up at him like some dozy heroine in a black and white film. Luckily, I don’t think he noticed or cared because he was grinning like an idiot back at me.
‘Me too,’ I admitted.
‘Want a drink?’ he asked.
I watched shamelessly as he walked back into the pub. He looked good in smart-casual gear, but I preferred him in shorts and a T-shirt. Like this, he looked slightly constrained and buttoned-up. It was a uniform – appropriate, but not really him.
When he came back with two Cokes, as soon as he sat down beside me, he ripped off his tie, a bland grey knitted affair that looked as if it belonged to a geography teacher circa 1950, and stuffed it in his pocket, undid a couple of buttons on his shirt, and rolled up his sleeves.
‘Better?’ I teased.
‘Tie day. I bloody hate them. Had to meet some parents. The head likes us to look professional.’ He shook his head as he took a long swallow.
With the avid attention of a lovesick puppy I stared at his Adam’s apple and felt my hormones flicker like a light bulb in a bad horror film.
‘You look lovely and cool and sort of floaty in that dress.’ He grinned. ‘I wonder what the head would say if I turned up in one. So much cooler than trousers.’
We slipped into a seamless and quite deep conversation about stereotypes, gender, sexism and #MeToo. It wasn’t all serious; we laughed and joked as well.
Before I knew it, I’d drunk excessive amounts of Coke but had not wanted to waste a minute with him in order to get up to