time his arm was in a sling, he wasn’t able to get it ready for me.
‘You deserve more,’ he said on the phone. But I didn’t care where we met by then, I just needed to see him.
I jumped up onto him as I opened the door, wrapping my legs tightly around him, breathing him in, not wanting to ever let go.
‘Steady on,’ he laughed. ‘Watch the arm.’
‘I love you,’ I whispered, in between kisses. His mouth broke into a wide grin, and all the pent-up emotions I’d unknowingly held within were released. Like a flock of birds taking flight.
I’d prepared dinner, but knew that our sexual appetite would probably need to be sated before our desire to eat kicked in. Without breaking our kiss, and somewhere between his T-shirt coming off and my jeans being unbuttoned, I guided him into the kitchen and deftly turned down the temperature on the oven.
‘You are incredible,’ he said afterwards, as we lay spent on the bed.
Still out of breath, he lifted himself off the pillow and leant in to give me the softest of kisses. ‘I love you and don’t ever want to be away from you again,’ he whispered.
I felt a knot in my stomach as I realized I’d have to remind him that I was about to go away for five days. I wondered if there was any way I could get out of the school trip. For the first time in my life, I seriously considered throwing a sickie. My yearning to be with Thomas clearly overrode my normally resolute conscience.
‘You haven’t forgotten I’m going away on Monday, have you?’ I said quietly, not really wanting him to hear me. Because if he didn’t hear me, I still had time to think of a reason not to go.
He pulled away from me. ‘Shit!’
It was hard enough as it was, I didn’t need him to make it even more so.
‘But it’s only for five days.’
‘Shit, I’d forgotten all about that.’ He leant back heavily on the headboard and ran a hand through his hair.
Don’t say it. Please don’t say it.
‘Do you have to go?’
He said it.
‘I can’t let the kids down, can I?’ I didn’t know who I was trying to convince.
‘But there are other teachers going?’
‘Yes, of course, but there’s a very strict adult to child ratio and I’m supposedly the team leader, so it’s not easy to pull out, especially when I haven’t got a valid reason.’
His brow furrowed. ‘Aren’t I a valid enough reason?’
I couldn’t tell whether he was being serious or not and swung my legs off the bed in a bid to change the atmosphere.
‘It killed me being away from you this week,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to do it again.’
I knelt on the bed and kissed him. ‘It’s only five days,’ I said, half laughing. ‘You’ll manage.’
He sat himself up even straighter. ‘Listen, I’ve been thinking.’
This sounded ominous. I sat back down next to him.
‘I want us to live together,’ he said. ‘Because when I’m away from you, all I can think about is how quickly I can get back.’
My heart felt like it was about to jump out of my chest. ‘Seriously?’ I squeaked. ‘What, here or at yours?’
‘I can work from anywhere,’ he said, ‘and Mum’s not too far from here – it’s manageable. But you’ve got your whole life here and if you came to live with me in Maida Vale, you’d have to change jobs and be further away from your friends and your mum. It makes sense for me to live here. I’ll contribute towards your mortgage – assuming you have one?’
I nodded. ‘Yes, unfortunately I don’t share my mother’s school of thought on debt. Well, I would if I had the choice, but . . .’
‘Okay, so I’ll pay the mortgage and we can halve the bills and food – what do you think?’ He sounded excited, but unsure – as if he didn’t want to show too much emotion in case he’d called it wrong. I couldn’t wait a second longer to put him out of his misery.
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ I screamed, straddling him and kissing him deeply. If I’d ever been as happy, I couldn’t remember when. ‘When shall we do it? As soon as I get back? What about next weekend?’
He laughed and rolled me over, his weight pinning me down on my back. ‘I’ll move some bits in whilst you’re away if you don’t mind. And when you come home on Friday I’ll