Marry Me Tomorrow: The perfect, feel-good read to curl up with in 2017!

‘Sorry.’ I laughed.

‘So you should be.’ He grinned.

The song changed on the TV and Sam flicked through the channels, trying to find another one that he liked.

‘Do you want a beer or something?’

‘Oh! Okay then.’ He looked startled.

I got up to get him a beer, coming back a few minutes later to find him dozing off in the chair. He came to with a start. ‘Christ! Sorry.’

‘I told you, go to bed if you want.’

‘I might after this.’ He yawned as he picked up the bottle and I sat down with my glass of wine. Closing his eyes, he leaned his head against the back of the chair and sighed. ‘It’s so nice to be warm and dry,’ he murmured. ‘I can’t believe it.’

I smiled and sipped my wine. ‘So, you’ve been homeless for – what – a year and a half? What was your life like before that?’

He opened his eyes and blinked. ‘I was in the army for years. Went in when I was sixteen, came out at thirty-one and then worked as an engineer in Manchester.’

‘Oh really?’

‘Hmm.’ He looked across and me and laughed. ‘Go on then.’

‘Go on then, what?’

He laughed again. ‘It’s killing you, isn’t it? I can tell.’

‘What do you mean?’ I felt my cheeks redden.

‘Go on. Ask me how I became homeless.’

‘Oh, well.’ I cleared my throat, embarrassed. ‘Lydia already asked you that so I didn’t think you were telling.’

‘That was her, not you.’ He took another swig of beer, looking at me through narrowed eyes. I saw him swallow, glance at the bottle, rest it on his knee. ‘I found out my wife was having an affair with my cousin,’ he said after a moment. ‘So I left.’

I frowned. ‘You just left? What? Everything?’

‘Pretty much. I slept on my brother’s couch for a few weeks, but…’ he shook his head ‘…my head went. I was drinking too much, showing up to work late, or showing up to work still drunk. In the end they let me go, and my sleeping in my brother’s lounge started to become a big problem with his family. He’s got two teenage kids and a wife, so it wasn’t ideal. So one day, I just packed up the car and went travelling.’

‘Didn’t you try to sort things out with your wife?’

He shook his head. ‘I did go back and talk to her, but it was clear things were unfixable. She’d been sleeping with him for years. Way before I’d got out of the army. He used to go round to check if she was all right, you know, when I was away and stuff. He was like another brother to me. We were dead close.’ He gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘Just goes to show, you never can trust anyone.’

‘That’s awful.’ I bit my lip, wanting to reach out to him, wanting to make it better, but I didn’t know how. ‘What did she say? Did she say why? I mean, not that there’s any excuse, of course.’

‘She said it happened by accident, they never meant it to happen and they never meant to hurt me.’ He took another swig from the beer bottle, shaking his head. ‘Such a fucking joke. I mean, I know I was probably hard to live with when I got out the army. I’d been in there for so many years that I was kind of institutionalised. I couldn’t get used to life without the army and I wished I’d never come out when I did. But I thought that’s what she wanted, and I was working my way through it. She kept moaning about me being away, and when the baby arrived I thought it was the right thing to do.’

‘You have a child?’

He hesitated. ‘No. Turns out I don’t.’

‘Oh no.’ I stared at him in horror. It was almost too horrible to comprehend.

‘Oh yes. One paternity test later and I’m no longer the daddy.’

‘How old was the child?’

‘Nearly one.’

‘But that’s just awful. Sam! You should be having counselling for this stuff, not living rough on the streets.’

He shook his head and shrugged. ‘Nah, I don’t need some counsellor sticking their nose in.’

‘What about the house? Isn’t half yours?’

He shrugged.

‘So you’re living homeless on the streets and your wife is still living in a house that’s half yours? That’s ridiculous! Please tell me you didn’t just walk away and let him move in with your wife and child?’

‘I couldn’t deal with it back then. Besides, there’s the baby to think about. Jessica still needs a roof over her head. I still love her, even if she’s not mine. I’m not going to turf her out on the street, am I?’

I stared at him, horrified. ‘So, you just went off in your car? What did your brother think?’

‘I told him I’d got a new job in Scotland.’

‘And he believed you?’

‘My plan was to travel around and find a job. See the country. Clear my head. Pick up jobs along the way. And I did for a while. I worked in bars and restaurants, met some really lovely people. Sort of like Alexander Supertramp – do you know about him?’

I shook my head.

‘He was this American kid who left home one day and went off to live in the wild. He was trying to get to Alaska.’

‘Ohhh I remember now. There was a film, wasn’t there? Into the Wild? Christopher his name was.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ Sam nodded enthusiastically. ‘Anyway, it kind of inspired me. You know, leave all the bullshit and the lies behind. Just to get as far as possible away from it all and live as simply as possible. I wanted to find out who I really was and prove to everyone that I didn’t need anyone else.’

I frowned. ‘Where did you sleep?’

‘B&Bs at first. Or in my car. I bought a tent. Pitched it wherever. Woke up to some fantastic views. It was amazing. But then I started to run out of money. I came back to England, thought I’d get a job and sort myself out but ironically enough, that’s when it really went wrong. I came to Chester to look for a job, got a job interview with an engineering firm then went to wash my clothes at a launderette. But when I got back, my car had been nicked. I didn’t know what to do then. I’d lost everything apart from the clothes I’d just washed.’

‘So why didn’t you go back to your brother’s then?’

He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t go back. I’d lost everything.’

‘But it wasn’t your fault.’

He shook his head. ‘I’d been lying to them for months. Every time I phoned I said I was doing all right. I couldn’t face going back to them and telling them I was in an even worse position than I was when I left.’