Chasing the Sun: The laugh-out-loud summer romance you need on your holiday!

For the love of God. ‘Cole, please. I’m on the phone, just wait a minute,’ I barked, then plastered on a smile that Simon couldn’t see. ‘Simon, I am so sorry about this, things are a little hectic my end. What was it you were saying? Some concerns you have?’

Simon cleared his throat. ‘Well, one of them is that we’re worried we won’t receive your full attention, as you clearly have an awful lot going on and …’

Ah, balls. First my phone interrupts the pitch and now I’m engaged in biscuit bartering with an impatient toddler. I can see how bad this looks.

‘Well, I will stop you there as I can one hundred per cent promise that if we were to receive your generous investment we would be committed to ensuring that you have our utmost attention and …’

I clasped my hand over the receiver and loudly hissed at Cole to let go of my leg. He thought it was hilarious and gripped on tighter.

‘Miss Green?’

I tried to angle my body away from the excitable toddler currently using my thigh as a climbing frame and focus on what I was saying.

‘And … and we will make sure that you feel involved every step of the waaaaaaaaay!’ Cole had used all his weight to leverage his body onto my leg, causing shooting pains of cramp to seize up my thigh. Cole found this hilarious. Simon did not.

‘I think this call has only reinforced our concerns, so I am sorry to inform you that we will not be taking your application any further. I’ll let you get on to whatever it is that you are occupied with. Thank you for your time.’ He hung up.

We’d lost the pitch. That investment had slipped through our fingers. I felt numb. To top it off, Lily was now crying for some unknown reason, Cole was dancing on the crumpled cushions, my leg was in agony and, at the exact time when I realised he had somehow opened the jar of Nutella and had thrust a pudgy palm into the thick spread, the front door swung open.

CHAPTER 5 (#ulink_b2a273a6-c5c3-5940-949d-d53c57d2ec6c)

Chagrin (n.) – A feeling of mental unease; annoyance; embarrassment caused by failure

‘What the …?’ Marie was standing open-mouthed at the mess of her usually pristine front room, her smallest child screaming (I’m sure she notched up the volume just for extra effect), her oldest smearing chocolate spread on the sofa, and sticky orange juice puddling at her feet.

‘Uh oh,’ Cole whispered.

‘Cole! Get off that sofa this instant. What on earth are you doing with this?’ Marie pulled him to stand in front of her so she could scold him.

‘You’re back! How did it go?’ I asked, hoping to divert her attention from what a terrible job I’d done both here and in my professional life. Ben and Kelli were going to be crushed when I told them about the bank’s decision.

‘Fine. I didn’t get it,’ she mumbled, and grabbed the jar of Nutella from her son.

‘What? Oh, I’m sorry. I was sure you had it in the bag.’

Marie shrugged dejectedly. ‘Nope. Apparently not. It’s fine, it was silly of me to go in the first place. I’m obviously not what they were looking for, what any casting director appears to be looking for.’ She tugged at her hair, pulling it out of its previously neat style and messily piling it on her head.

‘Well, there’ll be other auditions—’

‘Cole!’ Marie barked, ignoring me. ‘What have I told you about eating between meals? You know that this is not for you.’

‘I’m so sorry. I hadn’t realised he’d picked it up or even knew how to open it. I don’t know how you do it, Marie!’ I laughed weakly, hurrying to chuck toys into a large wicker basket as she went to pick up Lily in one smooth and effortless move. She had thankfully stopped crying, but, judging by her wavering bottom lip, a repeat of the waterworks could happen at any second. Marie continued to berate Cole as she marched him out of the bombsite to wash his hands. I hastily cleaned up as much of the debris from our play fight as I could and straightened up the seat cushions, hoping that a quick flash of cleaning spray would get those jam and Nutella stains off, before my shoulders sank once more.

‘Oh my God. What’s happened in here!’ I heard her cry from the kitchen.

I winced. I’d had the bright idea of making cupcakes, but it turned out neither of the children had the patience to calmly bake a surprise for Mummy. Instead, I’d burnt the mixture, as Lily had done an explosive poo in her nappy that had needed urgent attention; I’d had to wrestle an egg whisk from Cole and spilled icing sugar on every visible work surface as the bag burst in my hands. Judging from the noises Marie was making, I hadn’t done the best job in cleaning them all up.

‘Oh, we did some baking, didn’t we?’ I said, still in that irritating sing-a-long style as I rushed into the kitchen. She was right to have a face like thunder. It looked like the place had been ransacked and dusted with cocaine.

‘Has Lily been eating this?’ Marie asked, shaking an empty packet of sweets at me. I nodded, feeling my cheeks flame exactly like Cole’s did. I’d intended to use them for the cupcake decoration, but they’d vanished before I’d managed to save any. ‘Georgia, she’s way too young for this!’

She gave me such a horrified look, as if I’d told her we had all been dancing with flaming knives. I felt Cole flick his head between the two of us; Lily was swiping her hand over the icing sugar and sticking her powdered fingers into her open mouth.

‘Oh. Sorry. I, erm, I didn’t know,’ I sheepishly admitted.

‘Mummy, she made Liwy cry too!’ Cole piped up. It was my turn to deliver the death stare. He poked his tongue out and ran behind his mum’s legs.

‘Well, no, I … it was a game—’ I made a mental note to give Cole a shite birthday present for being such a tattle tale.

‘Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap!’ Cole sang, in between banging one of the kitchen cupboard doors, the noise making Lily giggle.

Marie flew her head to her boisterous son. ‘What did you say?’

Oh balls.

‘Crap, crap, crap,’ he continued to sing, banging more doors, making Lily laugh louder. The noise was giving me the mother of all headaches.

‘Shit! I’m sorry,’ I apologised, then clasped my hand over my mouth. What was wrong with me? ‘It’s not been the best of days, to be honest.’

Marie let out a deep sigh. ‘Cole, stop that.’ Cole nodded solemnly and slammed the door for one last time before receiving a look from his mum. ‘Now, go and pick up your toys from the lounge before Daddy comes home.’

‘I’m so sorry for the mess and my inability to censor myself. I honestly have no idea how you cope looking after them Every. Single. Bloody. Day.’ I shook my head in amazement, only now noticing her painted lips and flick of eyeliner. It was a surprise to see her wearing make-up again. My once constantly glam best friend had slowly morphed into more of a wash-and-go girl. I’d forgotten how well she scrubbed up. Her fiery, long, red hair was freshly washed and glossy and the patterned top she was wearing accentuated her slim waist and toned arms. Probably from hours of carrying her baby girl around.

‘Don’t worry, it’s my fault. I should have told you that he’s at the stage where everything and anything you say will be repeated. Last week he thought it was hilarious to shout out “wee wee farty bum” numerous times in the freezer section of Aldi.’ Marie rubbed her face, smearing her make-up. ‘Hopefully he’ll forget about it soon.’

Cole hesitated for a moment then pottered off, making truck noises and running a wooden bus over the walls as he went, loudly shouting, ‘NO,’ with every heavy step he took.

‘He’s more and more like you every day,’ I mused, catching Marie roll her eyes.

‘Don’t. I may be stubborn, but he takes it to a whole new level. He’s a terror, but you can’t help but love him.’ She followed her surly son with a look of fondness that dispelled how irritated she had been a second ago. She gently lowered Lily into her high chair, strapped her in and handed her a rusk to eat. ‘Cole’s going through a stage; well, that’s what everyone keeps telling me. I didn’t realise how hard it would be with two of them though. Luckily, Mike is amazing and pulls his weight, unlike a lot of the partners of the NCT mums I know.’

I nodded and made what I hoped were the right sort of noises, as if I had the faintest idea what NCT stood for.

‘They can be a handful but it’s all worth it.’ She smiled adoringly at her daughter. ‘Thank you so much for looking after them. Don’t worry about the mess; it’s part and parcel of parenting.’

I got up to fix us mugs of tea. ‘Any time,’ I replied, crossing my fingers that the next time would be when they were in their teens.

‘What did you mean when you said it had been a bad day?’

I shook my head, focusing on a crusty piece of cake mixture that had made its way onto the kettle.

‘Georgia? You all right?’

‘Yep.’ I plastered on a smile. ‘Well, not really.’ I sighed and plopped squashed tea bags into the bin. ‘I just found out that we’ve lost out on this really important business deal. A deal that I was in charge of and had been so sure we’d get.’ I picked up one of Lily’s baby toys, running my fingers between the soft ears of the pink, stuffed rabbit. ‘We’d worked so hard on the presentation and they seemed to love what we do, but apparently it wasn’t enough.’ I felt a bubble of sick rise in my throat thinking of how I was going to break the news to the team.

‘That makes two of us not doing a great job today.’

‘There’ll be other auditions, hun.’