‘You’ll find me on Facebook. I’m not trendy enough to deal with Instagram or TikTok and Twitter scares me.’

‘I’ll send you a friend request,’ he said as he opened Facebook on his phone and found her name.

The notification pinged on her phone and she instantly clicked into the app to accept his request. She couldn’t help but notice the little email icon in the top corner of her phone screen letting her know she had a new message.

‘There! I’ve got you,’ she said, doing her best to ignore it and focus on the moment she was in.

She looked up at Lorcan and he smiled, before he pulled her into a quick hug and said his goodbyes, leaving her surprised to feel disappointed that a hug was all he offered.

Doing her best to ignore the very strange feelings that she was experiencing towards Lorcan, Jo focused instead on the mysterious email. It was time to see what it was, and who it was from.

She felt the colour drain from her face and she sobered up immediately. There, in her Gmail, was a message from Ewan McLachlan. Subject: ‘Your work’.

12

Men in Black

Jo stared at the email and reread the subject line at least twenty times. Each time she tried to interpret what those two words could mean. There was no exclamation mark, so maybe he wasn’t enthused. But there was no sad face emoji here. Your work, she read and then repeated it. Your work. Your work. Your work?!!??

If her life was an episode of a sitcom, this was where it would cut to a dreamlike sequence, replete with canned laughter as a devilishly handsome, cravat-wearing author raised a perfectly preened eyebrow and either told her that her words had ignited a flame deep within him and he’d love to get to know her better… much better, or he shook his head and cried in an overly dramatic Frazier Crane-style voice that her work was ‘a travesty and an insult’. In the sitcom, she would either rush round to find Ewan at her door and fall into his arms, or in the second scenario, she would gather with her friends and they would talk about making voodoo dolls or similar.

But this was real life and her nerves at what he might say were very, very real. If someone had told her a week before that she would be receiving an email from Ewan McLachlan she would have laughed but opened the message without hesitation. But this wasn’t just any email from Ewan McLachlan. This was a message about her work and that was a very different kettle of fish altogether.