Page 41 of Did My Love Life Shrink in the Wash?
‘You alright?’ I ask.
‘Tough day at the office, that’s all. I am beat.’
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
He pauses for a moment. See, I do try and be the good girlfriend and ask him about his day. He always used to do the same for me after a particularly bad school day. He’d make me tea and remind me they were just children. Their awful judgement and inability to listen was more about bad parenting than me. He hardly speaks to me about his architecture woes though. He once told me it was because the dramas were usually down to printers not working, or someone had laid the wrong sort of concrete.
‘Then maybe we can bail on this. Grab some food elsewhere, go home?’ I say.
He grabs my hand. ‘I need to tell you…’
But before he can tell me, one of the doors swings open again and we crane our heads around trying to work out who’s joined us. It’s Yasmin texting on her phone.
‘That’s the one I went to school with,’ I whisper to Will, pointing in her general direction. He goes in for the second glance. I try not to act offended but with her looks she warrants it. I join him. How have her legs just got longer as she got older? Mine look like they are turning into rhino stumps. I should probably try to moisturise mine better, try and do something to smooth out my knees.
‘Is your house free? I could try and get there later tonight,’ a voice pipes in from the other side of the corridor. Oh, that’s Harry, the dad she was flirting with.
‘I can’t. We could try a hotel?’ Yasmin replies to him.
My eyes widen. Hotel? Will looks at me. ‘Not her boyfriend. Massive flirting,’ I mouth, trying to pull a weird seductive face. He puts a thumb up at me. We sit here in silence trying to work out their story. Joe still attached to me, I realise we need to stay put, don’t we? To suddenly emerge from this little nook will look a little strange. Ta-dah! Carry on, don’t mind us!
‘Come here…’
There’s silence. Should we poke our heads around again? I don’t think he’s told her to come and look at a funny meme on his phone, has he? Will pops his head around the corner and retracts it back in again, making smoochy faces at me. My hand goes straight to my mouth trying to stifle my laughter. How has this girl not changed since school? I heard she was at a party once and charged boys to kiss her. Lucy just told me she has a boyfriend as well. And I am pretty sure that man told me he has a wife. That’s not right. It’s bordering on scandalous. OK, now that’s a proper snog. We can hear it. Urgh. Will’s eyes widen and I know exactly what he’s thinking. Don’t have some hot, spontaneous sex session now because if we can hear the snog, the sound levels of anything else will be horrific. A door suddenly opens. We guess they’re not kissing anymore.
‘You looking for someone?’ Yasmin asks.
‘Have you seen that mum with the baby? Kimmie is leaving, she wanted to say goodbye,’ someone replies.
‘There were lots of babies.’
‘You know, the one with the chubby mum?’
Neither of them reply. I won’t lie. The words stake through deep into my psyche. But I see Will’s face and he immediately looks angry. He stands up. What are you doing? We’re hiding in the shadows. Yasmin and her snogging partner will know we were round the corner, listening. We’ll look like pervs. I try to pull at his sleeve.
‘Hi, we’re here,’ Will says, waving. He stands in the middle of the corridor eyeing them up, looking annoyed at the choice of words that that person, whoever they are, used to describe me. I am less bothered by the random words of a stranger. They will always sting a little bit but it’s part and parcel of how people talk, no? I am rounder, curvier, fuller than the norm. I’m not bloody Yasmin King, that’s for sure. I am also mid-feed though. Crap. I pull Joe off my boob and rearrange myself clumsily, standing to attention. Yasmin and Harry do not look impressed. Well, don’t kiss people in corridors, right?
‘Yes, sorry. We just needed a quiet corner to feed the baby. We’ll be there in a minute.’
‘I think you owe my girlfriend an apology,’ Will blurts out. I look at him curiously and shake my head.
‘It’s fine,’ I reply.
‘It wasn’t. That was rude. She’s a person, with feelings.’
The assistant who was sent to find me can hardly look at me and mumbles some half-audible apology before scuttling through the door. I bow my head, mortified. Yasmin and Harry continue to glare at us.
‘Who are you?’ Yasmin asks Will, casually.
‘This is Will Cooper, he’s my boyfriend. Joe’s dad,’ I reply.
‘Oh…’ she says, almost disappointed for one of us. There’s a pregnant silence, like some sort of stand-off where she obviously thought we were spying, and we know that both of them have got up to no good.
‘Will, I went to school with Yasmin. We were in the same year.’
‘I thought I was in the same year as the other one? Emily?’
‘Emma?’
