Page 66 of Textbook Romance

Ed looks absolutely mortified. ‘Did you at least enjoy the room? I’d have understood if you felt it appropriate not to stay. Did you stay?’

‘I stayed.’

‘Then that’s a good thing… isn’t it, Mia?’ Mia looks like this isn’t the information she wants but there’s a sliver of satisfaction in stringing her along, to make her think she’s not as clever as she thinks she is.

‘And did anyone stay with you?’ she asks me, impatiently.

‘What? No. You got me that room for myself, didn’t you? I mean, I went down to the bar to meet you for that drink, but I may have missed you, no?’ It’s only then that I can’t seem to control the smile emerging and Mia comes over and hits me across the arm, a joyous emotion creeping across her face.

‘You are hilarious. So it worked? The plan worked? ED! IT WORKED!’

Ed shakes his head. This does not bode well for Ed – Mia will be incorrigible now. It’s like we’ve unleashed a criminal matchmaking mastermind into the world.

She pulls me to the sofa and asks me to sit down.

‘You have five minutes before I have to go to my room and set up for the day,’ I tell her. ‘We met, we chatted. It was lovely.’

‘Lovely? I didn’t put that plan together for lovely,’ she says, wrinkling her nose.

‘He’s lovely.’ She sits there and shakes her head. ‘I’m not sure what you want to hear?’

‘Did he at least make you come?’

‘MIA!’ Ed says.

‘She said I only had five minutes.’

I sit there laughing, watching them argue over me but my eyes are secretly wandering around the room looking for Jack. I don’t think he’s in yet. It feels a bit schoolgirly to be searching him out, to feel all that excitement in my bones to want to see him again. I realise the great irony in this and laugh to myself.

‘Zoe, I can only apologise,’ Ed says, turning to me.

‘Ed, it’s OK. Your friend is lovely,’ I say, putting a hand on his arm. Ed smiles back at me, relieved. I sling my bag over my shoulder.

‘We’ll get more details later, yes?’ Mia asks and I shake my head, laughing.

‘But thank you, you crazy, wonderful woman,’ I say, hugging her.

And Mia does a little dance as I head off to my classroom, the magnificent sound of her whooping with joy echoing down the corridors.

As I walk across the courtyard to the maths block, I try and get my head around what’s happened in the space of just a few days. I feel a little disoriented to think of all the things that transpired. This isn’t what my weekends used to be about; they used to be about watching football matches on cold pitches, laundry, marking, planning the groceries for the weekend. Now I feel like I’ve played out a full four-part series in mere days. It started with me as a single parent crying over the absence of her kids; it moved on to highly explicit scenes of me shagging someone over ten years younger than me, and it ended with me killing demons. Demons called Brian who wear terrible chinos. As a young Year Seven child smiles and waves at me as I walk past, I wonder if it all happened to another person. I smile to myself in disbelief.

‘You look different.’ It’s a voice that weaves in from the end of the corridor as I enter the block. It’s Drew. Do I dare tell Drew? He’ll think me mad.

‘Good different?’ I say back to him.

He nods. ‘Good weekend?’

Drew, I came so hard on Saturday morning that I thought my nipples were going to fly off. I smirk to myself. That’s not Monday morning maths talk.

‘It was alright. We still having that departmental meeting?’

‘No, Sharon is stuck in traffic. You just look… I don’t know the word… I think it’s rested.’

I don’t know how to reply to that so put a thumb up in the air. As I walk in the room, though, someone is sitting at my desk, in my chair, waiting. It’s that cheeky relaxed stance he always seems to take, sleeves rolled up, bag slung across his shoulder, that look in his eye which shows he knows exactly where he should be. I bite my lip to try and hide my glee in seeing him.

‘Mrs Swift. Good morning.’

I look down at my desk and see a shiny red apple. ‘Is that for me?’

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