Rules for Dating a Romantic Hero by Harriet Evans

Author:Harriet Evans [Evans, Harriet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Rule Eight:

Jane Austen heroines never had to use buses.

Safely installed on the top deck of a bus, rumbling painfully slowly into town, Laura ignored her feelings of guilt and slid her phone out of her bag. She stared for the millionth time at Nick’s text, as if it might suddenly come to life and talk to her. Who was it for? Can we meet? I need to see you.

She’d left Chartley three days ago and she hadn’t replied to the text. At first she’d been too angry, then she hadn’t known what to say. But she’d had enough of being passive. She rang him. If it was going to end, it had to happen some time, didn’t it?

‘This is Nick. Please leave a message.’

‘Hi. It’s me. Give me a call, can you? We should talk. I want to … talk. OK. OK, bye.’ She threw the phone back into her bag with a cry of frustration. It was Nick – Nick – and what the hell had happened to them that she couldn’t even leave him a normal message asking him to call her?

‘Please don’t let it be true,’ she whispered under her breath.

But she could see, with a kind of weary acceptance, that it probably was. He was having an affair, and when you thought about it, with everything that had been going on lately, it made sense.

The bus juddered to a halt on the Edgware Road and Laura’s knees knocked against the seat in front. It was a hot day, especially hot on the top deck, and it wasn’t even nine o’clock. Her fellow commuters sat in silence, music blaring from their headphones. Already she felt sweaty and grimy, and a feeling of delayed anger, of queasiness that hadn’t left her since Sunday began to bubble within her.

She looked at her phone. She tried to read, but couldn’t concentrate. She looked at her phone again. The bus remained static. A trickle of sweat ran down her armpit into her waistband.

After a few minutes, Laura couldn’t stand it any longer. She went downstairs, into the fleshy pack of commuters. The next stop was less than ten metres away. She stood next to a slim, small man with a backpack who was humming under his breath.

‘Could you open the door please?’ someone asked the driver. He ignored them.

Someone else said, ‘Please, can you just let us out? We’re only a few yards from the stop.’

Nothing. Laura could feel another trail of sweat sliding between her shoulder blades. Let us out, she wanted to scream. Her head, which was already aching, started to pound. Her inner London rage began to bubble. Give us a break. We’re ten metres away!

The passengers hummed and harred, muttering to themselves, but no one did anything. Laura crossed her arms, trying to stay calm. She didn’t feel calm. She had a meeting at nine thirty.

Someone started ringing the bell, a constant ding ding ding that wormed into Laura’s skull. The driver ignored it. A lairy-looking thickset man yelled at no one,

‘He can’t let us out.

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