Page 33 of A Smart Girl's Guide to Second Chances
‘Okay, we’re doing this,’ he said.
‘We’re doing this.’
‘For me, it’s only one really serious one,’ he said. ‘Jess. We met here, actually.’
‘So, she was your uni girlfriend?’ I asked.
‘Yeah. And then after that,’ he said.
‘How long were you together?’ I asked.
‘About six years,’ he said. I took a short, sharp breath and felt a sting of jealousy at the idea of Matt being in a substantial relationship with someone else. Though I guess time wasn’t always an indicator of depth. But still, six years wasn’t nothing. I quickly did the maths – Matt would have been single for a few years before we met.
‘What about you?’ he asked.
‘No one serious, really,’ I said. ‘I didn’t date much in my twenties.’
Why?I waited for the inevitable question, but it didn’t come.
‘Why did you agree to go on a date with me?’ he asked instead.
‘I almost didn’t,’ I said. I’d never told him this. ‘But then I changed my mind. I think I... I don’t know... I think I instinctively knew you were a good guy or something,’ I said.
Matt looked thoughtful as he led us down a long path through manicured lawns.
‘Alex and I were together for less than two months. The word “boyfriend” or “relationship” hardly feels legitimate. Maybe “situationship” is better,’ I said. ‘He promised he wouldn’t hurt me, and then he did. But we were kids – well, Alex was thirty – but I was pretty young. It was forever ago.’ The words tumbled out.
‘Short relationships can still be heartbreaking,’ Matt said.
‘Yeah, I guess. There was no clear beginning and no clear end. I guess... I don’t thrive in the land of uncertainty. And because it was such a short amount of time, everything was heightened. I didn’t know what was real or what was just a fantasy,’ I said.I’d wanted to tell him about Alex, but now I’d started I couldn’t seem to stop talking.
Luckily I was saved from myself by people streaming into the quad in cocktail dresses and dark suits. And at the back of the group were a bride and groom.
‘Oh wow,’ I said. I always loved stumbling across a wedding in the wild. Though this wasn’t exactly a public garden – we’d sort of barged our way into this college, and it was clearly a private event. Though we were far enough away from the crowd that they wouldn’t notice us.
As if we’d both had the same thought, we turned towards each other. Our lips met and I shivered in the best way – feeling ripples as his fingers ran down my neck and my back. His lips were soft, the kiss slow and gentle. There was no urgency. We had time – we had our whole lives to kiss each other. So, right then, we could kiss like we were students. I wound my arms around Matt and held him tightly.
The kiss stopped my mind from whirring. I stopped thinking about all the mistakes I’d made the day before. I stopped thinking about everything on our wedding todo list. I stopped thinking about the email I needed to send to Miranda to tell her that I was more than happy to stay on the case. I tried to stop thinking about tomorrow, when I’d be at an offsite with Alex. And I especially stopped thinking about the night Alex and I had spent in a quadrangle almost identical to this one.
Chapter 16
It was not a normal Monday. To make sure that our project team and the client team would work effectively together, the powers that be (Miranda) had decided that we’d spend the first official day of the case at a team-building day. Personally, I thought that more progress would be made if we did less bonding and more work.
Apparently, money was no object, because the offsite was being held at Jackalope, an incredibly bougie hotel, an hour out of the city on the Mornington Peninsula.
We all caught a minibus from the office together because... bonding. I practically hurled myself onto a seat next to a member of the client team to avoid Alex. He walked past, heading to the back of the bus, noise-cancelling headphones on. He predictably gave his backpack a seat so that he didn’t have to share with anyone, and I could have sworn he was laughing at me.
I spent the next hour learning far more than I’d ever expected to about the various stages of med-tech approval, thanks to my new, very earnest colleague. But, in her defence, I had asked. The bus ride seemed to take forever, and I wondered if I could invent a crisis and spend the day working on my laptop in a quiet corner. But Miranda was there, wearing burnt orangeand looking improbably rested after her camping trip, evidently ready for us to make a good impression.
The hotel was impressive. It was arguably more suited to an Instagram-friendly proposal than a corporate awayday, but I wasn’t complaining. A cheery facilitator, Fiona, who had the upbeat energy of someone who regularly finished their workday at 5 pm, met us in a conference room.
We were directed towards tables that ominously contained nothing but butcher’s paper and markers. I waited until Alex had picked his seat, again at the back, before I sat down at a table on the other side of the room.
‘Now, for our first session, we’re going to focus on working effectively with different personality types,’ Fiona said.
I tried to look enthusiastic, but at that point in my life I’d had more personality tests than birthdays. When I’d received the link on Friday to complete ‘a short questionnaire’ I’d almost been tempted to go rogue and try to conjure up another personality type, just to keep things interesting. But in the end, I’d dutifully filled it out, answering questions to situations that I knew almost by heart.
I pretended to look interested when the facilitator’s assistant placed my results in front of me. I knew what it would say:INTJ.
