Free The Wedding Date by Jennifer Joyce

with him, can’t I?
    ‘She seems nice enough but she’s a bit young for me. How old is she? Twenty, twenty-one?’
    ‘Nineteen.’
    Adam’s eyes widen. They’re a beautiful, rich brown framed by thick, dark lashes. I’m not paying particular attention to his eyes (or any other body part) but they’re hard to miss when they’re popping out.
    ‘Wow. Nineteen.’ Adam gives a sigh. ‘To be nineteen again.’
    I can’t help but laugh at his serious tone. ‘You sound like you’re a pensioner. You’re still young. Relatively.’ I stick my tongue out at Adam and he whips me with his towel. ‘Seriously though, you’re what? Early thirties?’
    ‘Very early. Thirty-one.’
    ‘See. That’s barely out of your twenties.’ I finish washing the ice cream maker equipment and empty the water out of the washing up bowl. ‘There’s plenty of life left in you, I’m sure.’
    ‘I hope so.’
    I grab a towel and help Adam to finish drying. Once everything is put away and we’ve wiped down the counters, we join Karen in a little room off the kitchen where she’s now sitting with a cup of tea.
    ‘All done?’ Karen asks. She’s sitting on the sofa with a magazine, her shoes kicked off to one side and her hairnet slung over the arm of the sofa. ‘Help yourself to a cup of tea or coffee. I wish I could offer you a biscuit but they’ve all been wolfed down.’ She surreptitiously swipes at a few crumbs on her white overalls.
    ‘Thanks but I should be getting back to the office.’ Adam holds up the camera he’s looped around his neck. ‘I need to get the photos and recipes uploaded on the blog. I’m hoping the cheesecake one will be ready to go live tomorrow.’
    ‘I’d better be getting back too.’ I’d have quite liked to sit and skive with a cup of tea for a few minutes, but it won’t look right if Adam returns without me. This is his project after all and I’m only assisting him.
    ‘Thanks for all your help,’ Adam says to Karen. Her eyes are firmly on her magazine and she doesn’t lift them as she raises a hand to wave goodbye.
    ‘No worries. Give me a shout if you need any more help in the kitchen.’
    The development kitchen is only a short walk away from the Portakabin office but Adam and I take our time, stretching out the time we have left before we join the others as much as possible. This is it; our little project is pretty much at an end. Tomorrow Adam will take the ice cream and rocky road out of the fridge and freezer to take some more photos for the blog but he won’t need my help for that. So it’s back to the real world of work, which for me means plenty of filing, typing up letters and emails and answering the phone while pretending Katey-Louise isn’t fluttering around the place.
    ‘Any exciting plans for the weekend?’ Adam asks as we wander across to the Portakabin.
    ‘I have plans,’ I tell him. ‘But I’m not sure how exciting they’ll be. My friend’s a PE teacher so I’m going to watch his pupils take part in a five-a-side tournament.’ This is Lauren’s idea, and not because she wants to support Ryan. The five-a-side tournament is, apparently, the perfect place for me to meet a potential Wedding Date.
    ‘I want to take a grownup as my date, not a pubescent boy,’ I’d pointed out and Lauren had looked at me as though I was dense.
    ‘I’m not expecting you to date the players. I’m talking about the spectators, you doofus.’
    So I’m going to be spending my Saturday morning on a muddy football pitch instead of hanging around the house in my PJs.
    Joy.
    ‘How about you?’ I ask Adam. ‘Any plans, exciting or otherwise?’
    ‘I’ll be looking after my nephews.’ Adam reaches for the Portakabin door and holds it open for me. ‘I might even give the rocky road recipe a go with them.’
    Hanging out with a couple of kids? Suddenly that muddy field seems a lot more alluring.

Chapter 9
    Jumping Straight Back Into The Dating Game
    Text Message:
    Ryan: Code