As the night went on she became a bundle of awkwardness. Unable to concentrate on anything, she passed the same table three times before remembering she was supposed to be clearing it of empty glasses. She’d never kissed a boy before, at least nothing you could call a proper kiss. There was that one time when she was fifteen, with Jason Miller, the cool sixth former from the local boys’ school who all the girls fancied. Shuddering, she recalled that encounter. Although he claimed to be St Michael’s High School’s very own answer to Brad Pitt, he appeared to have no idea what he was doing. His tongue felt like a slimy fish, and he just stuck it in there. She’d almost choked. It had not been a pleasant experience. Grace had a feeling that kissing Nathan would be entirely different, and she couldn’t wait.

It was just before midnight and Nathan continued laughing and drinking with his friends. Grace began to wonder again whether the elusive kiss would happen. Why hadn’t he come over to her yet? Was it all a joke? Shifting from one foot to the other as the ten second countdown started, she was still alone in the crowd when she was suddenly grabbed by the waist. Turning around, there he was, that handsome face and those amazing eyes, looking right at her.

‘You’re fucking beautiful, do you know that?’ he said.

Before she could respond, he kissed her, and it was everything that she’d hoped it would be. She could taste the whisky he’d been drinking, and she wondered if it was that which was making her head spin and legs wobble. She swore, even if she never saw him again, she would remember that kiss for the rest of her life.

Chapter Eight

Present Day

Nathan stretched his muscular body across the cool cotton sheets as he admired the naked body of his girlfriend, Kayleigh, while she was deciding what to wear.

He’d met her six years ago, while he was still inside. She was the younger sister of one of his many pad mates, Tony Gallagher. He’d first seen her when she was visiting her brother and within a few weeks she was visiting Nathan instead.

At twenty-seven, she was fourteen years younger than him. She had the body of a page three model. She didn’t have much else about her, but she certainly looked the part, and she gave some of the best head he’d ever had in his life. She told people she was an underwear model, but now her only ambition in life was to look good on Nathan’s arm, and let him keep her in the lifestyle to which she’d recently become accustomed.

‘What do you think about this one, Nathan?’ she asked, holding up a hideous pink dress that wouldn’t look out of place in a knocking shop on the dock road.