Mini Break

There were flakes of croissant all over the sheets and next to the bed was a tray full of jam-smudged plates and cups with puddles of coffee. But Jo didn't have to care because she was in a hotel.

 

The bed would be re-made, the tray cleared, the bathroom cleaned, even the end of the toilet roll would be sculpted into one of those silly little peaks… to make it easier to find? She wasn't sure.

 

It was spoiling and luxurious, but it didn't feel very real. And as she looked over at the man beside her, damp from his shower, wrapped in a white hotel robe, poring over the Sunday papers, she wasn't sure if any of this felt very real.

 

Jo had met Rob for the first time just five weeks ago - he was Susan's friend, in fact this had all been Susan's idea - they'd gone out for drinks, then dinner, always laughing together, connecting, then kissing, then more.

 

And now they were plunged in at the deep end of a weekend away in a pampering country hotel.

 

She stole another little sideways glance at him, although she was willing herself not to look at him all the time. He had honey-coloured hair and honey-coloured skin, actually, she thought with a little smile to herself, he was a honey. That was the word that suited him perfectly. He was just so nice and she was falling in love with his hands; warm, capable hands, which could cut bread into unwaveringly straight slices, tie shoelaces with a precise firmness and massage every last little kink out of a tensed up shoulder. Hands that held her afloat when they kissed and touched and moved together.

 

She didn't have the slightest doubt that her little daughters, Lynn and Peggy, would absolutely love him but she felt a prickly blush spread out all the way to her ears with that thought. Because he didn't yet know that she was a mother of two and now she had no idea how to tell him.

 

‘Promise me you won't mention your girls? Not just yet,' Susan had insisted before allowing her to meet him.