Page 28 of How To Not Need You

“This is going to be an experience,” I say to nobody.

Tilly beams like I’ve just declared this the finest seating arrangement in human history. She shoves a paintbrush into my hand. “We’re doing portraits. I’m doing you.”

“Am I allowed to say no?”

“No.”

“Thought so.” I’m arranging my prints on the table, when I feel a change in the air around me. I look up.

Jake is standing in the gym doorway. Still in his jacket. Hands in his pockets. He must have dropped Tilly off earlier and been waylaid by the sheer volume of activity, because he looks like a man who has walked into a situation he wasn’t prepared for and is now trying to recompose himself.

His eyes find me. His whole body seems to lock up as he takes in my presence. His eyes find me. He stops.

Well. Apparently this wasn't part of his morning plan either.

Then he lifts a hand. A quiet wave. Not a big gesture. Just fingers raised slightly, the kind of hello that says I see you without making a production of it.

I give him a short nod back. The kind that says, I acknowledge your existence. Please don't make this weird. Also, let's both pretend the last time we saw each other wasn't in a café where your friends practically organised our first date.

Which somehow led to several days of increasingly flirty texts and plans for our official first date.

Not that I've been thinking about it.

At all.

Jake’s mouth curves. A small, warm smile that does something to my chest that I refuse to examine. He crosses the gym, weaves between tables and crouches down beside Tilly’s chair. He says something to her that I can’t hear over the general din of thirty children discovering the joys of acrylic paint.

Tilly waves him off. “Bye, Dad! We’re busy!” Jake laughs at her dismissal.

"I should probably head back before the organiser remembers I exist."

"Probably wise."

He pushes himself to his feet, but lingers for half a heartbeat. His eyes meet mine. There's something appreciative in the way he looks at me. Something that makes my stomach do a thoroughly inconvenient little flip. Then he smiles.

"I'll see you later."

"You will."

He gives a small nod before slipping through the gym doors and disappearing back towards the corridor. I turn back to the table. Tilly is elbow-deep in purple paint.

"Now I'm doing your hair," she announces. "It's supposed to be red but I don't have red anymore, so now it's orange and purple, which is basically the same thing."

"Obviously."

She nods, pleased that someone finally understands. The afternoon unfolds without me really noticing. At some point I stop feeling like a guest. I refill paint pots before anyone asks. Untangle aprons. Rescue water cups that have somehow become every colour except water.

One little boy looks horrified when all his paint turns brown.

"It's ruined," he whispers.

I crouch beside him. “Nah." I rinse his brush.

"Rule number one." I swish it through the water.

"Every colour gets its own clean start."

His eyes widen. "Oh." He tries again. This time the blue stays blue. He grins like he's just invented electricity.