She was afraid to ask him what any of this meant. She was afraid that she had rattled on for so long about how she didn’t need anyone, how she was quite self-sufficient, thank you, and how, what with her work and the two kids and the dog, there was no room for anyone else in her life, that he might have taken her seriously.

Because she wanted Ed Nicholls. She wanted to wake up with him, to drink with him, to feed him toast from sticky fingers. She wanted to wrap her legs around him in the dark and feel him inside her, to buck against him as he held her. She wanted the sweat and the pull and the solidity of him, his mouth on hers, his eyes on hers. They drove and she recalled the previous two nights in hot, dreamy fragments, his hands, his mouth, the way he had to stifle her as she came so that they wouldn’t wake the children, and it was all she could do not to reach across and bury her face in his neck, to slide her hands up the back of his T-shirt for the sheer pleasure of feeling his skin against hers.

She had spent so long thinking only about the children, about work and bills and money. Now her head was full of him. When he turned to her she blushed. When he said her name she heard it as a murmur, spoken in the dark. When he handed her a coffee the brief touch of his fingers sent an electric pulse fizzing through her. She liked it when she felt his eyes settle on her, something distant in his gaze, and she wondered what he was thinking.

Jess had no idea how to communicate any of this to him. She had been so young when she met Marty, and apart from one night in the Feathers with Liam Stubbs’s hands up her shirt, she had never had even the beginnings of a relationship with anyone else since.

Jess Thomas had not been on an actual date since school. It made her sound ridiculous, even to herself. She just wanted to show him.

She ached with it.

‘We’ll keep going to Nottingham, if you guys are all okay,’ he said, turning to look at her. He still had the faintest bruise on the side of his nose. ‘We’ll pitch up somewhere late. That way we’ll make it home in one run on Thursday.’

And then what? Jess wanted to ask. But she put her feet up on the dashboard, and said, ‘Sounds good.’

They stopped for lunch at a service station. The children had given up asking if there was any chance they could eat anything but sandwiches, and now eyed the fast-food joints and upmarket coffee shops with something close to indifference. They unfolded themselves, and paused to stretch.

‘How about sausage rolls?’ said Ed, pointing towards a concession. ‘Coffee and hot sausage rolls. Or Cornish pasties. My treat. Come on.’

Jess looked at him.

‘I need some trash food. Some calorific greasy junk. Who wants some greasy carbohydrate, kids?’ He motioned to Jess. ‘Come on, you food Nazi. We’ll eat some fruit afterwards.’

‘You’re not afraid? After that kebab?’

His hand was above his brow, shielding his eyes from the sun so that he could see her better. ‘I’ve decided I like living dangerously.’

He had come to her the previous night, after Nicky, who had been tapping silently away at Ed’s laptop in the corner of the room, had finally gone to bed. She had felt like a teenager sitting there on the other sofa to him, pretending to watch the television, waiting for everyone else to go to bed just so she could touch him. But when Nicky finally sloped off, Ed had opened up the laptop rather than move straight to her.

‘What’s he doing?’ she had said, as Ed peered at the screen.

‘Creative writing,’ he said.

‘Not gaming? No guns? No explosions?’

‘Nothing.’

‘He sleeps,’ she had whispered. ‘He has slept every night we’ve been away. Without a spliff.’

‘Good for him. I feel like I haven’t slept for several years.’

He seemed to have aged a decade in the short time they had been away. Jess wondered if she should apologize, if spending too much time with her chaotic little family would do that to any man. She remembered what Chelsea had said about her chances of having any kind of love life. And then, as she sat, suddenly unsure what to do next, he had reached out a hand to her and pulled her into him. ‘So,’ he had said softly, ‘Jessica Rae Thomas. Are you going to let me get some sleep tonight?’

She studied his lower lip, absorbing the feel of his hand on her hip. Feeling suddenly joyous. ‘No,’ she said.

‘Excellent answer.’

She thought they might have had three hours. It was hard to tell.

Now they changed direction, walking away from the mini-mart, weaving their way through clumps of disgruntled travellers looking for cashpoint machines or overcrowded toilets. Jess tried not to look as delighted as she felt at the thought of not making another round of sandwiches. She could smell the buttery pastry of the hot pies from yards away.

The children, clutching a handful of notes and Ed’s instructions, disappeared into the long queue inside the shop. He walked towards her, so that they were shielded from them by the crowds of people.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Just looking.’ Every time he stood close to her Jess felt like she was a few degrees warmer than she should have been.

‘Looking?’

‘I find it impossible being close to you.’ His lips were inches from her ear, his voice a low rumble through her skin.

Jess felt her skin prickle. ‘What?’

‘I just imagine myself doing filthy things to you. Pretty much the whole time. Completely inappropriate things. Disgraceful things.’

He took hold of the front of her jeans and pulled her to him. A bolt of such heat went through her that she was amazed nobody could see it. Jess drew back a little, craning her neck to make sure they were out of sight. ‘That’s what you were thinking about? While you were driving? All that time while you weren’t speaking?’

‘Yup.’ He glanced behind her towards the shop. ‘Well, that and food.’

‘My two favourite things, right there.’

His fingers traced the bare skin under her top. Her stomach tensed pleasurably. Her legs had become oddly weak. She had never wanted Marty like she wanted Ed.

‘Apart from sandwiches.’

‘Let’s not talk about sandwiches. Ever again.’

And then he placed the flat of his hand on the small of her back, so that they were as close as they could decently be. ‘I know I shouldn’t be,’ he murmured, ‘but I woke up really happy.’ His face scanned hers. ‘I mean, like, really, stupidly happy. Like even though my whole life is a complete disaster, I just … I feel okay. I look at you, and I feel okay. I feel like we’re going to get through this.’

A great fat lump had risen in her throat. ‘Me too,’ she whispered.

He squinted against the sun, trying to gauge her expression. ‘So I’m not … just a horse?’

‘You are so not a horse. Well. In the nicest way I could say that you were –’

He dropped his head and kissed her. He kissed her and it was a kiss of utter certainty, the kind of kiss during which monarchs die and whole continents fall without you even noticing. When Jess extricated herself it was only because she didn’t want the children to see her lose the ability to stand. Her finger traced his lips, just for the pleasure of touching them, and he grinned.

‘They’re coming,’ he said.

Jess found herself staring at him goofily.

‘Trouble.’ He glanced back at her as they approached, bearing their paper bags aloft. ‘That’s what my dad said.’

‘Like you hadn’t worked that one out by yourself.’ Her lips tingled. Her thoughts swam sweet and sticky, like honey. Jess felt like he was imprinted all over her. She held back, watching Ed chat to Nicky, the opening of paper bags as Nicky revealed what they’d chosen, waiting for the colour on her cheeks to fade. She felt the sun on her skin, heard birdsong over people talking, revving cars, smelt petrol fumes and cheap food, and the words echoed through her head, unbidden: this is what happiness feels like.

They set off slowly back to the car, faces already buried in paper bags. Jess watched her daughter walking a few paces ahead, her skinny legs trailing behind the others and it was then that she noticed something was missing.

‘Tanze? Where are your maths books?’

She didn’t turn around. ‘I left them at Dad’s.’

‘Oh. Do you want me to call him?’ She fumbled in her bag for her mobile phone. ‘I’m sure I can get him to pop them straight in the post. They’ll probably arrive back before we do.’

‘No,’ she said. She inclined her head slightly towards her, but not quite meeting Jess’s eye. ‘Thank you.’

Nicky stopped, as he reached the car. His gaze slid to Jess and back to his sister. And something heavy settled in her stomach.

By the time they reached their final overnight stop it was almost nine o’clock and they were drooping. The children, who had been snacking on biscuits and sweets for most of the last leg of the journey, were exhausted and cranky, and headed straight upstairs to examine the sleeping arrangements. Ed carried the bags and Tanzie tugged the dog behind her.

The hotel was vast and white and expensive-looking, the kind of place Mrs Ritter might have shown Jess on her camera-phone and she and Nathalie would have sighed about afterwards. Ed had booked it over the phone and when Jess had started to protest about the cost there was a slight edge to his voice: ‘We’re all tired, Jess. And my next bed may be at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. Let’s just stay somewhere nice tonight, okay?’

Three interlocking rooms, in a corridor that seemed to double as an annex to the main hotel. ‘My own room.’ Nicky sighed with relief as he unlocked number twenty-three. He lowered his voice as Jess pushed open the door. ‘I love her and everything, but you have no idea how much the Titch snores.’

‘Norman will like this,’ said Tanzie, as Jess opened the door to room twenty-four. The dog, as if in agreement, immediately flopped down at the side of the bed. ‘I don’t mind sharing with Nicky, Mum, but he really does snore badly.’

Neither of them seemed to question where Jess would be sleeping. She couldn’t work out if they knew and didn’t mind, or whether they just assumed either she or Ed was still sleeping in the car.

Nicky borrowed Ed’s laptop. Tanzie worked out how to operate the remote control for her television, and said she would watch one programme then go to sleep. She wouldn’t talk about the missing maths books. She actually said, ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ Jess didn’t think Tanzie had ever said those words to her.

‘Just because something doesn’t work out once, sweetheart, doesn’t mean you can’t try again,’ she said, laying out Tanzie’s pyjamas on her bed.

Tanzie’s expression seemed to contain a knowledge that hadn’t been there before. And her words broke Jess’s heart. ‘I think it’s best if I just work with what we’ve got, Mum.’

‘What do I do?’

‘Nothing. She’s just had enough for now. You can’t blame her.’ Ed dropped the bags in the corner of the room. Jess sat on the side of the huge bed, trying to ignore her throbbing foot.

‘But this isn’t like her. She loves maths. Always has. And now she’s acting like she doesn’t want anything to do with it.’

‘It’s been two days, Jess. She’s had a massive upheaval. Just … let her be. She’ll work it out.’

‘You’re so sure.’

‘They’re smart kids.’ He walked over to the switch and turned the lights down, gazing up at them until he’d got it dark enough. ‘Like their mother. But just because you bounce back like a rubber ball, it doesn’t mean they always will.’

She looked at him.

‘That’s not a criticism. I’m just saying that it’s been a pretty intense week. I think if you give her some time to decompress, she’ll be okay. She is who she is. I can’t see that changing.’

He pulled his T-shirt over his head in a fluid motion and dropped it onto a chair. Her thoughts muddled immediately. Jess couldn’t see his bare torso without wanting to touch it. A little too thick around the middle to be perfect, perhaps. But that made it somehow more beautiful.

‘How did you get so wise?’ she said, gazing at him.

‘Dunno. I guess it rubbed off.’ He took two steps towards her, and then he knelt down and pulled off her flip-flops, removing the one on her injured foot with extra care. ‘How’s it feeling?’

‘Sore. But fine.’

He reached for her top. He unzipped it slowly and without asking, his eyes fixed on the skin it exposed. He seemed almost distant then, as if his thoughts were on her, yet miles away. The zip caught near the end, and she took it from him gently, her hands over his, unhitching the two sides so that he could peel it from her shoulders. He stood there for a moment, just gazing at her.