His 'n' Hers Read Online Free Page A

then I look over at the guy who I’m supposed to be talking to on the other side of the room. He’s still smoking a cigarette and he’s still looking as gorgeous as ever.
    ‘Cool,’ says Jim. ‘Does that mean you’re going to be an English teacher?’
    ‘I’m going to be a novelist,’ I tell him, which is sort of true. I do want to write a novel some day.
    ‘Cool,’ says Jim. ‘I’m doing business and economics. I don’t want to work in business, though.’
    ‘So why are you doing it, then?’
    ‘Everybody needs a plan B.’
    ‘And what’s plan A?’
    ‘I’m in a band. I’m the lead singer.’
    ‘What are you called?’
    ‘We haven’t got a name.’
    ‘I see. Well, are you any good?’
    ‘There’s only me in the band at the minute.’
    I can’t help but laugh. ‘Then how is that a band?’
    ‘I’m going to recruit some more members. You don’t play any instruments, do you?’
    ‘No. Nothing. I’m completely tone-deaf.’
    ‘That’s a shame. You’d look great with a guitar.’
    I smile but I don’t reply. Instead I hope that the long, awkward silence currently flourishing between us will grow large enough for me to escape, but he doesn’t seem to want to go.
    ‘You should be careful, you know,’ I say, after a few moments, because I feel uncomfortable standing there saying nothing.
    ‘I should be careful of what?’
    ‘Having a plan B.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because if you’ve got one you might use it.’ I smile politely at him. ‘Well, it was nice to meet you.’
    ‘Cool,’ says Jim. ‘It was nice to meet you too.’ He leans towards me as if he’s going to kiss my cheek, which is odd. I decide it’s easier just to let his strange behaviour go without comment, but at the last minute he moves his face around so that we’re eye to eye and then kisses me directly on the lips.
    ‘What are you doing?’ I say, outraged.
    ‘I thought you fancied me.’
    ‘What could possibly have made you think that?’
    ‘You were talking to me.’
    ‘You think that every girl who talks to you fancies you?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘So why pick on me?’
    ‘You were giving me vibes.’
    ‘Look,’ I say, unable to believe my ears, ‘let’s just forget this ever happened because, as embarrassing as it is for you, it’s even worse for me.’
    ‘Fine,’ says Jim, and heads off in the direction of the dance-floor.
    ‘Fine,’ I retort, and spin on my heels in the direction of the gorgeous boy across the room. It’s too late, though. He’s gone.
    ‘Well, that’s that,’ I say, on my return to Jane.
    ‘Maybe you’ll see him another time.’
    ‘I suppose.’ I sigh. ‘But in the meantime it looks like I’m going to have to get my own cigarettes.’
    11.05 p.m.
    I don’t let the girl from Norwich get me down. Instead I set my sights elsewhere and my romantic overtures are rejected by Liz Grey from Huddersfield (two As and a B at A level), Manjit ‘My friends call me Manny’ Kaur from Colchester (who’s ‘into’ New Model Army and the Levellers), and Christina Wood from Bath (who is really pleased that she didn’t get into Cambridge, and is not in the slightest bit bitter that Katie, her best friend from school, has). It’s not until I try it on with Linda Braithwaite at the end of the night that I get ‘lucky’. Linda is a semi-Goth from the East Midlands, who has the hair, likes the music, wears the clothes but has yet to make the transition into full-Goth mode, with the white makeup, black nails, love of rubbish horror films and quaint belief that she has joined the ranks of the undead. All in all, as we kiss in the corner of the students’ union bar, I consider it a result.
    Thursday, 28 September 1989
    8.30 a.m.
    The morning after the night before, I’m walking towards campus to attend my very first university lecture. This being something of a momentous occasion for me, and desperate to give the impression that I’m a proper student, I’m wearing tartan trousers, Doc