Читать книгу A Hope Christmas Love Story - Julia Williams - Страница 7

I’m walking to English and a guy I haven’t seen before stops me in the corridor and asks where our class is.

“It’s Melanie isn’t it?” he says, looking a little nervous and flicking his fair hair out of his deep brown eyes. It’s a fatal combination.

I clock that he’s good looking, but squash that thought instantly. After Andy, who got me pregnant and dumped me pretty quickly, I’m taking no chances. Lou Lou and I can survive perfectly well on our own. I can’t afford any more setbacks. When our future is secure, then I can maybe think about a relationship again. Not now though. Life is far too complicated.

“How do you know my name?” I ask a bit more belligerently than I intend to. I normally put out so many negative signals, boys have worked out that I’m a no go area. I’m nervous that this one doesn’t seem to know that.

“Stood behind you in the queue to register on the first day,” he says cheerfully and his grin does funny things to my stomach. Oh stop it, Mel, don’t go all weak at the knees because some random guy has a cheeky grin. “It’s not a crime knowing your name is it?”

“No, I suppose it isn’t,” I say reluctantly.

He does have a nice smile, and I like the way his eyes dance as he speaks. Suddenly feeling a little confused and overwhelmed, I point him in the direction of our class, before fleeing to the loos to compose myself before facing him in English. This will never do. I’m completely entranced by a total stranger and I don’t even know his name.

***

I’ve made progress; I actually spoke to Melanie today. Even if it was only to ask where our English class was. Seems like this is quite a traditional college, and I’m one of the few guys doing English, and History, though it seems about equal in Law.

Melanie disappears to the loo, so I enter the classroom alone. None of the girls pay me any attention and the dozen or so guys in the class all seem to know each other well and are sitting together. So I end up at the back of the class with two other newbies, one of whom is clearly gay and dressed up in such flamboyant clothes he’s clearly waiting for a reaction, which I don’t give him. The other has his head down in a copy of The Catcher in the Rye, which isn’t even on the syllabus. He grunts at me; clearly he’s making a different kind of statement.

Melanie slips in just before the lesson starts and sits at the front on her own. She seems to be alone a lot, though I have noticed her sometimes with a group of girls in the common room.

I can’t take my eyes off her. She is quietly enthusiastic and answers questions intelligently. I’ve barely known her a week and I think I’m half in love.

I’m determined to speak to her at the end of class, but she seems like a woman on a mission and vanishes before I can say a word. There’s something about her that intrigues me. I have to find out more …