Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

J ust as she flicked the kettle on, her mobile pinged. Pulling it from her back pocket, Bea smiled as she realised it was from Fleur.

Fleur: Hope you're not curled up alone with your nose in a book. You should be partying!

Bea: Haha, no partying from me, but not reading, unfortunately. Scott has popped round.

Fleur: Ooh, tell me more!!!!

She laughed. Yes, even she had to admit that with his dark stubble and deep blue eyes Scott was cute, but, nope, she wasn't interested in anything romantic at all, and he definitely wouldn't be interested in her.

Bea: Nothing to tell. I'm showing him my old workbook.

Fleur: Oh, disappointed, but hey you never know what might happen!

Bea rolled her eyes. Just because Fleur had finally met a good guy, it didn't mean that everyone else automatically had to. Did she and Lindsey have some sort of pact going to see who could be the first to marry her off or something? She text back quickly in an attempt to change the subject as the kettle boiled.

Bea: How's the date going?

Fleur: Perfect! Will tell all tomorrow but I want some gossip from you too!

Bea: Haha. Enjoy!

Bea completed her message with an eye roll emoji. There'd be no gossip from her side, that was for sure. Gregory's homework definitely wasn't something to spark anything in anyone, that was for sure. She finished making the coffees and carried them back through. ‘Here you go. Do you want any sugar with that? Sorry, I probably should have asked before I made it.'

‘No, all good thanks.'

Bea nodded as Scott took the mug, his fingers brushing against hers. Quickly blushing, she looked away. What had Fleur done to her? Messaging her like that and putting thoughts into their head?

‘Is it your birthday? Please tell me I haven't come barging around here demanding you spend the evening of your birthday going through Gregory's notes?' Scott ran his palm across his face.

‘No, no. It's not my birthday.' Putting her mug down on the counter, she picked up the gift Lindsey had given her and turned it over in her hands before shaking her head and putting it back down again and picking up her laptop instead. ‘It's a present form my sister to mark my divorce-iversary believe it or not.'

‘Your what?' He picked up the workbook and followed her as she made her way across to the table.

Placing her mug and laptop on the table, she pulled the hairband out of her hair and wrapped her hair back into a messy bun. ‘Just that. It's been a year since my divorce came through.'

‘Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that.' He slipped into a chair opposite her.

‘Don't be. It's all water under the bridge. I'd forgotten what date it was, to be honest, but I wasn't lucky enough for Fleur and my sister to forget.' She shrugged as she pulled her laptop towards her.

‘So I haven't ruined any celebration plans?' He shifted in his chair. ‘r should I say commiseration plans?'

Looking across at him, she shook her head and laughed. ‘You've not messed anything up. And if anything it'd be congratulation plans not commiserations.'

‘Okay. Glad to hear it but boot me out if you suddenly get the urge to down a bottle of bubbly.'

‘I will.' Bea opened up her laptop and glanced over the screen at him. Maybe this mentoring lark wouldn't be so bad. He seemed a nice enough guy. And there was no question he was gorgeous with it too. Averting her eyes, Bea focused on the screen again, trying to put Fleur's words out of her mind. Why had she had to suggest anything could happen between the two of them? That's all she could think about now.

‘You okay? You look a bit…' Scott shrugged. ‘Warm?'

Darting her eyes to him and back to the screen again, she felt the fierce flush of embarrassment course across her skin. Well, that had just made things a thousand times worse, hadn't it? She probably couldn't have made it any more obvious than she was doing right now. She clicked on the mouse pad, navigating her way to opening the memory stick and muttered, ‘I had the heating on earlier for my book club, must have forgotten to turn it down.'

Nodding, Scott leaned forward over the tables and pulled open the workbook Gregory had forced upon him.

‘Here we go.' Placing the laptop on the table, Bea turned it so the screen faced him and scrolled down the screen. ‘A choice of suitable answers to question one, and then question two, and so on.'

Leaning back in his chair, Scott grinned as he stretched his arms above his head. ‘Wow, a choice of answers. Someone really has put some thought into this.'

‘That's Ruby for you. She's not one to do anything by halves.' Bea grinned. Ruby was one of those people who would go out of her way just to make someone else's life that little bit easier and this memory stick proved it.

‘And Gregory hasn't twigged people are cheating his precious induction system?'

‘Not yet, and hopefully he won't. The last thing I needed when I opened this shop was to have that to deal with.' She indicated the stack of texts. ‘I know it's different for you, that you've been in retail and ran your own shop before, but it was all completely new to me, so I was navigating my way around learning everything I needed to keep the shop open and profiting and then he sprung all that on me.'

‘Huh, I can imagine that'd be tough going. It's the last thing I need too, so thank you for your help and for this.' He peered over towards the laptop as she swung it round to face him.

‘No problem.'

‘So now we've got this covered?' Pulling the laptop towards him, he scrolled through the answers. ‘And you're sure I can just copy one of these answers? Change a few words here and there so as not to raise any suspicions with the lovely Gregory?'

‘I'm sure.' Leaning back in her chair, she picked up her mug, hugging it towards her chest and watched whilst he began scribbling down answers. There was that funny feeling in her stomach again. The one which almost made it flip as she watched him tap the pen against his bottom lip as he thought before sticking his tongue out in concentration and feverously scribbling in his own workbook. With each answer he wrote, she could see he was thinking hard about what he was to change. He was thoughtful. Ruby had told her that in the past she'd caught other newbies copying word for word, not caring if Gregory twigged their system, but if he did, then that would be the downfall of it for all newbie shopkeepers to come, the downfall of their system, which sounded dramatic, but saved so much time and effort whilst keeping the town's busybody on side and content.

Looking up, Scott met her eyes and ran his hand through his dark hair, leaving tufts sticking up this way and that in an awry fashion. ‘Sorry, I could do this at home and let you get back to whatever you were doing.'

‘Don't worry. I don't mind.' And she didn't. She could quite easily sit here for the evening, whiling away the time. Ha, Fleur would be happy she'd spent her divorce-iversary with a man! Even if it had been to help him with his mentoring.

‘No, I'll go. If I can take this, of course?' He picked up the memory stick workbook and held it aloft.

‘Yes, yes, of course.' She waved it away and stood up, waiting until he'd gathered his things before pulling the door open.

‘Thank you for this. You're a lifesaver. Or a time saver at least.' He chuckled as he slipped through the door.

‘You're welcome.' Closing the door behind him, Bea made sure to lock it before leaning her back against it. What had those feelings been? Why hadn't she been able to take her eyes off him? Fleur, that was. It was down to her.