“You’re a star, thanks Peter.”
He’d chosen red wine and they tapped their glasses together in a toast.
“Thanks again for today,” he said. “You were brilliant. I’m sure there are plenty of kids who are now thinking about taking their language classes more seriously after what you said in your talk.”
“I’m glad you think it was useful. They all seem like nice kids.”
“We’re lucky to have great students in the school. There are the inevitable troublemakers, of course. That comes with theterritory. Today’s careers fair was voluntary for the kids, and most of those who came along were already switched on and eager to engage.”
“You mentioned there are other careers events you’re in charge of organising too?”
They chatted for a bit about his school responsibilities and Peter was happy to do most of the talking while Gaby enjoyed her wine and recovered from the guest speaker gig and the onslaught of student questions she’d generously answered.
Once he’d talked for a while about the school and his job, he asked about her Aunt Jill’s recovery and the conversation moved on from there. The evening had turned drizzly since they arrived, and it was cosy sitting at the window as the rain fell outside. The candlelight flickered on the table as they sipped their wine and enjoyed each other’s company.
It was so easy talking to her. There were no awkward moments, no strained silences.
Peter had feared there might be.
They’d already got together for a drink for old times’ sake and he’d wondered if they might already have said all they had to say to each other.
When he’d asked Gaby to step in to cover the careers fair guest speaker spot and then invited her to dinner as a thank you afterwards, it hadn’t occurred to him until later that they might be pushing the boundaries of what two people might find to talk about when they hadn’t seen each other in fifteen years and had led wildly different lives since then.
But none of those fears were founded. As they drank their wine and talked and laughed, there was only one thought at the back of Peter’s mind, a dawning realisation that came slowly at first and then with the force of a runaway freight train.
He felt more comfortable and at ease in Gaby’s presence than he had with any other woman he’d ever dated.
The thought was so stunning, so impossible to believe, that he had no choice but to ignore it to begin with, convinced it was simply his mind playing tricks on him or the effects of the glass of wine he was enjoying after a long day at work.
But the more the thought swirled the more he wondered if it might actually be true.
Talking with Gaby was easy and relaxed and fun and being with her was like being with a close friend, as if the last fifteen years hadn’t been spent apart and with no contact between them.
How could that be?
The answer wasn’t hard to find when Peter looked back.
When they’d first met as kids, their relationship had sparked off from the moment they set eyes on each other. Their attraction had been immediate and so too had their connection. They’d been inseparable from the start and every minute and every hour they spent together had been… bliss.
Parting at the end of that summer hadn’t been easy. In fact, it had been torture. But they’d been teenagers with their whole lives ahead of them and they’d never been under any illusions that a long-distance relationship was either possible or desirable.
Peter had returned to his university degree in Manchester and Gaby had gone off to start hers in London. They’d kept in touch a little and then that contact had fizzled out and they’d moved on with the many other exciting things that had happened in their lives.
But now that they’d unexpectedly crossed paths and were once more spending time together, Peter realised that the connection they’d had all those years ago felt as real now as it did back then.
As Gaby chatted away, Peter decided he could quite happily sit here for hours listening to her.
The soft candlelight that danced between them on the table made her eyes sparkle and caught the burnished highlights in her auburn hair, making her look even more beautiful than she was already.
She reached the amusing punchline of a story she’d been recounting from her time working abroad and the bright pitch of her laughter made his heart somersault inside his chest.
Nope, he told himself.You can’t think that way. You can’t feel that way either.
They were just two old friends catching up after years spent apart. Gaby was leaving in a week. The idea he could let himself feel the things he was feeling right now was completely ludicrous.
His romantic life might be non-existent but that was no reason to let himself get carried away just because the pretty girl from his teenage summer dreams had reappeared in his life.
“Shall we get another drink here?” Gaby asked as she finished the last of her wine. “My treat this time.”
