Page 51 of It's Now or Never

I fumbled with my bag again and pulled out the envelope, wondering if I was being disloyal even talking to Angie about it. I stroked the envelope, my finger tracing around the outline of the big, expansive handwriting.

‘You’re not to breathe a word of this. Not even to Tom. Do you promise me? I don’t want Alex thinking I’ve been talking about him behind his back and he probably won’t want people knowing about something he did over a year ago.’

‘I promise. Girl guide’s honour,’ she said, giving me a three-fingered salute. ‘Just read the bloody thing, would you.’

I carefully prised open the letter and pulled out the paper, unfolding it in front of me.

‘Blimey,’ said Angie, noticing the writing on either side of the paper, ‘that’s not a note, that’s a bloody novel. What can he possibly be saying? Read it before it kills me.’

I took a deep breath and started reading.

Saturday 19th April

Dear Jen,

Today I met the woman I’m going to marry. You think that’s mad? Well, just think how I feel! You can probably imagine thiswas a pretty momentous occasion for me and I hope it will come to mean the same to you one day, as you, Jen, are the woman I’ve fallen so unexpectedly, so suddenly, in love with.

Now, I suspect if I told you this outright, at this moment, as we sit sharing a rather nice of bottle of wine together, after only knowing each other for a matter of hours, that my disclosure would send you running in the opposite direction. You would quite rightly think me a madman or a drunkard at the very least and while it’s true that I have had far too much to drink today, I know that this thunderbolt that has struck me hard on the head and in the heart has nothing to do with the amount of alcohol I’ve consumed.

Funny really, I’ve heard other people talk about meeting that special someone, maybe even just picking them out across a crowded room, and knowing, almost instantly, that that person is the one; the one they are going to spend the rest of their lives with. I never really believed those things could happen so to find that it’s actually happening to me, here and now, is mind blowing to say the least.

I’m tempted to come clean, to tell you now in this nicely mellow mood we’ve created together, exactly how I feel, but I know it would be foolish. There’s no doubting the chemistry, the simmering tension between us, but, to me, it’s much much more than that. I’m surprised you can’t tell the effect you’ve had on me by the way I can’t keep my eyes off you and the way a stupid smile has fixed itself to my lips. I’m not arrogant enough to believe that you could be experiencing the same strength of feeling as me, but I really hope you like me. I think you do.

No, I have to bide my time and hope to goodness that you like me enough to want to see me again, that we can start dating and get to know each other better. Do things theproper, accepted way, although if it was up to me I would take you home with me tonight and never let you go so we could start the rest of our lives together right now! I want to know every single thing there is to know about you, Jen, all the depths and secrets that are hidden behind those beautiful green eyes of yours.

So you see, Jen, your future is all too clear to me. I don’t need to look at your hand to see what’s in store for you because it’s already written in the stars, but much more importantly it’s etched into my heart too. Your future is with me. Forever. Together.

Obviously I can see there will need to be some areas of negotiation. I always imagined having four children; two girls and two boys, but I must admit you looked slightly shocked at that suggestion. Still, these are mere incidentals, we can thrash out the detail at a later date;)

I really hope you get to read this letter one day and that my predictions come true. If I was laying money on it, then I would say it’s a dead cert, but obviously I realise it’s not only me involved in the decision making process and there is the possibility that you might actually hate me and choose never to see me again. If that’s the case then obviously I would have to accept your decision, but at the risk of sounding scarily stalkerish, I really hope and believe that won’t be the case.

But if it is, then this letter will be redundant, and you’ll no doubt forget you ever met me. One thing is for sure though, Jen, I will never forget you. And I hope I will never have need to because if things go the way they’re destined to then you’ll be at my side for the rest of our lives.

So, Jennifer Faraday, will you please marry me?

Lots of love, today, tomorrow and always,

Alex xxx

I took another big breath but this time neatly folded the piece of paper in half, returning it to its envelope.

‘Well,’ said Angie, clearly impatient now. ‘What did it say? You’ve gone all blotchy up your neck.’

‘No, I’m fine,’ I said, fanning myself with the envelope. I knew I’d gone all blotchy from the tingling on my skin and the hot fire burning in my veins. My head was doing a merry dance too. ‘I’m really sorry, darling, but I can’t tell you what it says. Not until I’ve spoken to Alex and then once I have, I promise, I’ll tell you everything about it.’

24

‘Hello, Jen, it’s Polly here.’

‘Hi Polly!’ After a rocky start, my relationship with Ms Powers had moved on to a new level of understanding. In her own sweet way, I think she almost quite liked me now.

‘Listen, I’ve had a brilliant new assignment come in this morning and immediately I thought of you. Would you be interested?’

‘Oh God!’ I groaned, the words slipping out before I had a chance to stop them. A huge ball of dread lodged in the centre of my chest. I hardly dared ask. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s a six-week assignment working for an electrical contractors. They want someone to go in to take an inventory of items that have come back into stock from different outlets around the country. Then the information would need to be transferred onto their internal database system. It sounds very straightforward.’

Straightforward, but incredibly boring.

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