Page 43 of Someone Like You

I exhale a frustrated sigh. Freya’s about as subtle as a sledgehammer.

‘What? Oh, er, it was fine, I suppose. Most of it was common sense. Just glad to be done with it.’

‘And how many other people were there?’ I ask, pretending to be enthralled.

‘About twenty of us, I’d say.’

‘Cool.’

We sip our drinks in silence.

‘And what’s the age range for that sort of course?’ asks Freya, finally playing ball and asking a decent question.

‘Quite broad, actually. I’d say between sixteen and sixty.’

‘Fascinating,’ I reply.

It’s not, which makes it a stupid thing to say, and I’m not surprised when Raff squints at me curiously.

Then he starts laughing. ‘There was thisonewoman…’

I exchange a quick glance with Freya, then look back at Raff. This might be it.

‘She wouldnot stop talking.’

‘What do you mean?’ asks Freya.

‘I mean, we’re all there for this intensive course and none of usreallywant to be there… It’s just, you know… go, learn the content, do the test, get the certificate. But she wanted to chat the entire day – and so many questions. Where do I live? What do I like to do at the weekend? That sort of thing. I had to ask her several times to please be quiet, as I’d missed what the instructor was saying.’

‘Sounds really annoying,’ I say, mentally crossing my fingers that her name wasn’t Jane. Although, this sounds exactly how I would behave if I was supposed to meet a guy ‘by happenstance’. And it’s not like Jane is a trained actor.

‘Did you catch her name?’ Freya asks.

‘I didn’t have a choice – she plopped down next to me right as we were about to start and introduced herself. Why do you ask?’ His question comes with a confused expression, but Freya merely shrugs and takes a slug of her cocktail.

Think, Gaby.

‘Sounds like this gal I used to sit next to in Chemistry my senior year. Total chatterbox. Would not shut up.’ I pretend to try and recall her name, then snap my fingers. ‘Calliope, that’s right.’

‘Well, at least she had an interesting name. This woman was called Jane. Nice enough butreallynot the time or the place for a chat.’

Shit.

Freya catches my eye, our two-second look conveying a myriad of thoughts, the primary one being:Back to the drawing board.

But the thing is, even though I’m disappointed that Jane was a swing and a miss, there’s also a niggling feeling of relief. What the hell is that about?

Poppy

‘Bugger,’ I mutter to myself after I hang up from Gaby.

‘What’s happened?’ asks George, his head popping up above his monitor three desks away.

‘Seriously, how did you hear that?’

He comes over, even though I didn’t ask him to, and props himself on the edge of my desk. ‘I’ve told you before, I have outstanding hearing. So, what’s up? Why “bugger”?’

‘Potential number one didn’t work out.’

---