Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 108362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 542(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 542(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Setting down my phone, I decided I’d leave it a few hours before checking back to see if I’d gotten any interest. I went to shower, then set to work at my standing desk that I’d set up by the window in the kitchen. It looked out into our small back garden. I’d thought it would be good for my mental health to have some greenery to look at while I stared at a computer screen all day. I was in the middle of testing a retail site we’d created for one of our clients that specialized in selling jars of manuka honey from New Zealand, and by a process of osmosis, I was now basically an expert in the stuff. I could recite all the health benefits by heart. That was one of the nice sides to my job, I got to learn about different things depending on the kind of site I was working on.
For lunch, I put together a tuna wrap and turned on the coffee machine before checking my phone. My eyebrows shot up when I saw I’d gotten over ten matches since setting up my profile only a couple hours ago. Well. I hadn’t expected so much interest, and as I sat down to eat and scroll through the matches, I found there were actually a few decent options. One in particular stood out. His name was Rufus, and he was thirty years old, also a web developer and a divorced dad of two. His profile stated his hobbies included canoeing, hiking, and travel. He sounded a lot more adventurous and outdoorsy than me, but I imagined we’d have a few things in common career and divorce wise, although I doubted his ex-wife was a world famous rockstar.
Feeling brave, I sent him a message.
Me: Hello, how are you?
I set my phone down and continued eating my lunch. A few minutes later, it pinged with a response.
Rufus: I’m good :) You?
I put my wrap aside and composed another message.
Me: Doing well, just WFH today.
Rufus: I’m in the office. Have to go in once a week. My least favourite day, especially since I have to brave the dreaded M50 in the mornings :/
Me: Commiserations. I only have office days once a month—and thankfully, I don’t drive, so no M50 for me, although the bus can be a gauntlet at times.
Rufus: Wow, jealous. Not about the bus, though, obvi, lol.
I smiled at his hint of humour, and we continued chatting for a little while before I had to get back to work. Rufus seemed like a nice guy, albeit, a little safe. But safe was what I needed. I’d had the opposite in Jace and gotten my heart irreversibly broken.
Before I knew it, Zara was home from school, and my stomach tightened when the front door opened and shut. I was expecting Jace to appear with her, a flurry of anticipation in my stomach, but then when she came into the room, she was on her own.
“Hello, honey,” I said, leaving my desk to go and give her a hug. “How was school?”
“It was great! Everyone was talking about how good my solo was at the concert,” she beamed, and her happiness sparked my own. There was nothing that gave me more pleasure than knowing my daughter was content.
“You were brilliant. Is your dad not coming in?”
“No, he said he had to go to see Bren,” Zara replied as she went to the fridge to grab a snack.
“Bren?” I searched my memory for the name but couldn’t place it.
“Dad said he’s his sponsor. I asked what that means, and he said they basically talk a lot.”
Jace had a sponsor? Well, I guess it was good he’d found someone to help him through his recovery, but I was concerned at the pinch of disappointment in my belly that he’d left without coming in to at least say hello. God, I was completely hopeless. I’d been so determined to convince myself that I wanted to see as little of Jace as possible, but there was obviously some part of me that still craved his company, even after all he’d put me through.
4.
Jace
The curtains were twitching again. While I sat in my car outside Shannon’s house, I shut off the engine and considered knocking in on her neighbours and introducing myself. They were clearly curious about me since they were peeping through the curtains for the second morning in a row. Confronting them was the sort of thing I’d normally do since I didn’t often have much of an inner voice telling me the negatives of an action. My inner voice was more like that kid we all knew at school, the one who got overexcited whenever there was a fight, egging other people on.
I’d gotten much better at ignoring the little prick in recent years, thankfully. There was also the chance that they were just fans who’d recognised me and were building up the courage to come out and ask for a selfie. In that case, I’d be happy to pose for a picture, but no, it appeared they were going to stick to peeping.