Me, You and Tiramisu. Charlotte Butterfield

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      She nodded and took one of the essays out, but deciphering the swirled swags and tails of teenage penmanship didn’t really cut it as a distraction technique, particularly as she was only pretending to read. Her eyes began straying to the side, at exactly the same time as the man looked up from the page of his book.

      ‘You know, reading shouldn’t really be so much of a chore,’ he teased. ‘If your forehead got any more furrowed you’d start to lose things in there.’

      ‘Is it that obvious?’ she smiled, ‘Here I am trying to earn an honest living and all I get is mockery.’

      She could sense his mouth turning up at the edges at her feeble attempt at being affronted, and he held his hands up, ‘Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to cast aspersions on your obvious dedication to education; it quite literally seeps out of you.’

      ‘I hate the word ‘literally’,’ Jayne rolled her eyes, ‘Like it literally kills me. And ‘seeps’, now you come to mention it.’

      ‘I’m like that with ‘gusset’.’ He shivered theatrically. ‘Eugh.’

      ‘I have a theory about that, actually.’

      ‘This’ll be interesting. A theory about gussets.’

      ‘Indeed. I think, in the case of gusset, it’s purely because of what it describes, so if it swapped its meaning with a nice word, it would be okay – like if Judy Garland had sang ‘Somewhere Over the Gusset’ it wouldn’t be a horrible word.’

      ‘Okay, so by that reasoning, and I grant you, it’s a valid theory, we’d be sitting here saying ‘I loathe the word ‘rainbow’, bleurgh. Vile word. Yuck’.’

      ‘Exactly!’ They both sat back in their seats smiling. The room had relaxed; it felt lighter, more convivial.

      Jayne started to feel butterflies building inside, a sensation she hadn’t really experienced since she was a teenager. It was quite an achievement to get to the age of thirty-three and to never have experienced anything resembling a light storm, let alone a thunderbolt. She’d even tried match.com recently, at Rachel and her friend Abi’s insistence, which she thought should really be renamed lookingfor‌aquickbonk.com because every bloke’s interest had evaporated once she’d made it clear that she wanted dinner first. She didn’t think it was too much of a hardship for a man to endure a meal with her if mediocre but enthusiastic lovemaking might be on the menu after, but it turned out that it was.

      ‘Okay, Mister, I’m going to enter into the spirit of this because, well, we’re clearly not getting our teeth seen to any time soon. Quick-fire round. Favourite character of all time?’

      ‘Huckleberry Finn. You?’

      ‘Jane Austen’s Marianne Dashwood.’

      ‘Predictable, but it’s your call. Favourite book from childhood?

      ‘The Magic Faraway Tree.’

      ‘Excellent choice. I loved Moonface. And Mr Saucepanhead.’

      ‘Saucepan Man.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘His name was Saucepan Man, you said Saucepanhead.’

      ‘You say tom-arto, I say tom-ay-to.’

      ‘Well, no, we both say tom-arto, because we are not from the Land of the Brave.’

      ‘Speak for yourself,’ He comically puffed out his chest and affected a deep baritone voice, ‘I am incredibly courageous.’

      ‘I don’t doubt it,’ she quipped back without missing a beat, ‘but just to prove it, what was the last macho thing that you did?’

      Still in character as Johnny Bravo he said, ‘well, I asked an attractive stranger sitting next to me in a waiting room for her number so we can meet up and celebrate our clean teeth by drinking red wine and coffee.’

      The invitation had been so unexpected Jayne almost had to sit on her hands to stop them from applauding. Quickly composing herself, she replied with what she hoped was a tone of flirty sarcasm, ‘Wow, you are a charmer.’

      The elderly lady next to Jayne who had been following their exchange with a barely concealed smile reluctantly left her seat after being called by the clipboard-wielding receptionist, but not before giving Jayne a little wink.

      Jayne moved her coat and scarf off her lap and onto the warm vacant seat. ‘I need to save this for my twin, she’s meeting me here after my appointment,’ she felt the need to explain.

      ‘Oh my, there are two of you?’

      ‘Yep, non-identical. The only thing we share is a birthday, though, so you can put your seedy thoughts back in their box.’

      ‘Seedy thoughts, indeed. Jeez, a second ago I was a charmer and now I’m a pervert. How did that happen?’

      ‘It’s a delicate tightrope you walk. Right, back to books. What’s your favourite last line of a book?’

      ‘Oooo, good question, but very easy. ‘The president of the immortals had ended his sport with Blank.’ Who’s Blank?’

      ‘So simple you’re embarrassing yourself – and the answer is Tess of the D’Urbervilles.’

      ‘She shoots, she scores. Okay, maybe that one was too easy, how about …’

      He was cut off mid-sentence by a woolly mammoth smothering Jayne in a bear hug. ‘Oh my God, Jayney, I’m so sorry I’m late!’ Rachel shrugged off her huge fake-fur coat, and plonked herself down on the spare chair. ‘Rubbish day, didn’t stop, so sorry, were you waiting long? She suddenly stopped, aware that she’d interrupted a conversation. ‘Oh Jeez, sorry, who are you?’ she stuck her hand out over Jayne, and he slowly took it.

      ‘Will.’

      His name was Will. They’d been talking for a quarter of an hour and her sister had managed to get this information in under a minute. It had never even occurred to Jayne to ask him his name; maybe this was why she was still single. Finding out his literary preferences seemed much more important than what his parents had decided to call him.

      ‘I know you – I’m sure I do,’ Rachel was peering at him, eyes narrowed.

      A little part of Jayne started to wither and die inside. Please, please let Will not be one of the multitude of men she had seen making the walk of shame from her sister’s room as she was leaving for work in the morning. The trouble with having a flatmate whose aim in life was to horizontally rumba with all of London’s bachelors, and much to Jayne’s disgust and Rachel’s annoyance, some who were bachelors only in mind and behaviour, but not in the eyes of the law, was that it didn’t leave many men who were untouched for Jayne. Not that it had ever bothered her before, but at that moment, it really, really did.

      ‘Will? Jesus, it’s Billy!’

      Oh God.

      Jayne decided that she didn’t want any part in their cosy reunion, so started to fidget СКАЧАТЬ