Free The Love Shack by Jane Costello

can put in an offer?’
    ‘Two months,’ Gemma replies grimly. ‘Assuming we stick to the budget.’
    ‘And the house remains on sale.’
    She looks at me anxiously. ‘I’ll phone the estate agent first thing, shall I?’

Chapter 8
    Gemma
    I wake up feeling disorientated, unrested and vaguely turned-on, though the latter sensation disintegrates when I open my eyes and am surrounded by Supermodels and actresses of the early 2000s. Dan is stirring, snuggling into his duvet – a jet black and silver striped affair that belongs in an advert for an aftershave called ‘Bloke’.
    His eyelashes flutter open. ‘Why are you smiling?’ he asks.
    I shrug. ‘Nothing. I just love you, that’s all.’ And it’s true.
    It’s hard to believe that there was a time when I was utterly convinced that I’d never find someone like Dan. I suppose that’s one of the downsides of discovering love too early.
    I was fifteen when I lost my heart the first time, to a boy called Alex Monroe.
    I barely think about him these days, but even now, more than a decade on, I’ll get an occasional pang of recollection, of the delirium of falling so hard for someone. Which makes me all the more thankful that I went on to find a man who lived up to it. A man who’s with me forever.
    I’m about to lean in to kiss him when he frowns, as if he’s just remembered something.
    ‘Did you get up to go to the loo last night, then come back and . . .’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Start messing with the duvet?’
    I frown. ‘What are you on about?’
    He shakes his head. ‘Nothing, must’ve dreamed it.’
    I wriggle over and lock my body into his, kissing his lips as the fact that it’s Sunday morning drifts to the front of my consciousness. There’s one thing we do before anything else on a Sunday morning – and it doesn’t involve a shave or fry-up.
    There’s a sharp knock on the door.
    He freezes and a low groan escapes from his lips.
    ‘I’ve got your brekkie on! It’ll be on the table in five minutes.’
    Dan clears his throat. ‘It’s okay, Mum, we’re going to pass on the breakfast.’
    There’s a silence. He rolls over and kisses me.
    ‘Well, I’ve made it now.’
    ‘Let’s just go. It’s fine,’ I whisper.
    ‘It seems a terrible waste to have to throw those eggs out,’ Belinda continues. ‘And the bacon’s on now. Right now . I can hear it sizzling, I’m going to have to go. Fine, if you’re not coming, then fine. Just fine. But—’
    ‘We’re on our way,’ Dan shouts, and covers his head with the Man Duvet.
    We enter the kitchen to find a cooked breakfast that could fill the buffet area of a decent-sized B&B. Sadly, size and quality do not equate. There are scrambled eggs speckled with unidentifiable brown lumps, bits of bacon that have either been incinerated or are effectively raw. She’s even managed to burn the baked beans, which I’d thought was a chemical impossibility.
    We sit down.
    ‘Dan – I got your favourite,’ she says, thrusting a pack of Cheerios at him. I’ve literally never, in the four years we’ve been together, seen him eat Cheerios. He grabs a bowl enthusiastically as my eyes dart around the cooked offerings, attempting to identify something edible.
    ‘I hope this isn’t all for me?’ I laugh nervously, eyeing up a bowl of goo.
    ‘It won’t do you any harm to fatten yourself up a bit,’ Belinda says. ‘Or you for that matter, Dan. When I tucked you in last night, I was thinking how skinny you’d become.’
    I attempt to suppress any visible horror, but it’s extremely difficult. Fortunately, her attention is diverted to Dan, who echoes my thoughts entirely. ‘You tucked me in ?’ he growls.
    She bites her lip. ‘Oh, I couldn’t resist,’ she confesses with a grin. ‘I always tucked you in, when you were living here. You used to look so cute when you were asleep. Less so now, it has to be said.’ She scrunches up her nose.
    ‘Mum, I’m twenty-nine years old so hadn’t thought this