The One with All the Bridesmaids: A hilarious, feel-good romantic comedy. Erin Lawless

       Chapter 2

      Cleo jabbed the magic button the millisecond the mug was in place and ready and waiting to receive coffee; after three years at this place she’d perfected the timing.

      Gray – Oakland Academy’s favourite history teacher – was also ready and waiting, holding out the plastic carton of communal milk, slipping his own mug in to replace Cleo’s on the machine’s drip-tray as soon as he could. It was pretty indecent the way they fled their classrooms at the break-bell – faster than some of the kids – but twenty minutes was a very short time to get sufficiently caffeinated of a mid-morning.

      Caffeine was required even more fiercely than normal this morning: firstly, it was a Monday, and secondly, Cleo still felt vaguely hung over from going out on Saturday night. She hadn’t even been feeling it, but by merit of Cole being both a best friend and turning thirty, she hadn’t exactly been able to take a rain check. She needed to have a word with herself about automatically going for the house wine; it was always the sulphates in cheap plonk that got her like this (she also needed to have a word with herself about going out for a nice, grown-up dinner and ending up barefoot on a sticky dance floor come two o’ clock in the morning).

      In companionable silence Gray and Cleo made their way over to their spot. It wasn’t much to speak of: two old chairs that had long ago been removed from a classroom for being unstable, and next to the equally ancient staff room printer, which gave off an alarming amount of both heat and noise. But in the grand scheme of things they were both relatively new to Oakland Academy and you had to put in at least a good decade there to get one of the chairs that still had padding.

      ‘Good weekend?’ Cleo asked without preamble, taking a determined gulp of too-hot coffee, using her free hand to check her Facebook on her phone as she spoke.

      ‘Can’t complain. Few pints. Domino’s takeaway. Liverpool won their game.’ Gray checked his phone for notifications too; they had the speedy break routine down to a fine art. ‘How was Saturday night?’

      ‘I don’t remember the last few hours of it,’ Cleo admitted ruefully. ‘Although there are some pictures on my friend’s phone of me joining in with what I can only assume was the Macarena right towards the end.’

      ‘A success, then,’ Gray grinned. ‘I wish I’d seen that. I love Drunk Cleo.’

      Cleo buried her blushing face in her mug. This was Gray’s first year teaching at Oakland and she’d managed to keep her cool for precisely one term before getting plastered, arguing loudly with her head of department about politics and up-chucking amuse-bouches all over the new guy ‘Graham’s’ novelty Christmas jumper. It wasn’t all bad, though – since then they’d been best work buddies. Everyone needed one.

      ‘Well the birthday boy had a good time, so definitely a success.’ She held out her phone to Gray, her gallery open, so he could scroll through some of the pictures she’d taken Saturday night.

      ‘Nice dress.’ Gray gave easy compliments; Cleo almost didn’t notice them any more. ‘Any tension with the Queen Bea?’ he asked. Cleo winced; she sometimes wished she didn’t tell him quite so much about her life. (At least not so much that he had nicknames for her friends.)

      ‘The Queen was on her best behaviour,’ Cleo retorted primly. ‘She hasn’t made a scene in years,’ she admitted, grudgingly.

      ‘Hmmm,’ was all Gray offered, carefully non-committal (she obviously bitched about Bea a little too often).

      Cleo sighed. Her coffee – much like her break – was half gone. ‘What have you got now?’

      ‘Cuban Missile Crisis with the Year Elevens,’ Gray answered. ‘I’m sure they’re all already queuing at the door in fevered anticipation. You?’

      ‘Factorising expressions with the Nines.’

      Gray gulped down the remnants of his drink and grinned. ‘I wonder which of our lessons these kids will actually need most in real life.’ It was his usual tease. ‘Cos, you know, most phones have a calculator on them now, love.’

      ‘Yeah, and the Wikipedia app too,’ Cleo shot back, downing her own coffee. ‘Your turn to do the washing up, love.’

      ‘Yeah, yeah.’ Gray gathered up the mugs. ‘Nag, nag, nag.’

      ‘See you at lunch?’ Cleo asked, as she swung her satchel up onto her shoulder and Gray moved across to the wonky kitchenette to swill their mugs out in the sink.

      ‘I’ll be here.’ Gray grinned at her over his shoulder.

      * * *

      Any working week that started with you pissing on your own hand and then coming in to a hundred and eighty-five ‘‘urgent’ unread emails should really be considered a write-off from the get-go, thought Sarah. She sat blankly at her desk, clicking about Outlook at random and assigning emails with varying flag colours in case anyone was watching her, but taking nothing in.

      She’d been a lot better this year. She didn’t test willy nilly any more. She’d been pretty sure this time. She’d had an inkling. When her period hadn’t made its appearance on Friday, as expected, she’d remained quite placid – her cycle sometimes varied a few days each way – but still she’d made an extra special point of not having anything to drink on Saturday night when they’d all gone out, hadn’t ordered pâté as a starter even though it was her favourite; better to be safe than sorry. She’d waited patiently throughout all of (a still period-free) Sunday, fancying she was already experiencing the mythical centred serenity of pregnancy. She’d waited until Monday morning, in fact – she’d read countless articles about how you’ve got more of the pregnancy hormone there in your urine in the mornings – before taking that little plastic stick into the bathroom with her.

      So then. Another singular line of failure. No tiny little life to avoid wine and pâté for after all. Another inkling turned out to be so much delusion. And still no period. Maybe they’d just packed in altogether. After all, what was the point of an unfertile woman menstruating at all? Sarah was only glad she hadn’t shared her stupid inkling with Cole this time, but – maybe – it was time to talk to her husband about the elephant that wasn’t in the room.

      Raina, the PA to the other CEO, sat opposite, impossibly hefty at the best of times, but currently seven cruel months’ pregnant, moaning about something – probably her back, or her swollen feet, or the fact she’d been up six times in the night to have a wee. This was going to be Raina’s third child under the age of five; she’d basically spent the entire time Sarah had known her either on maternity leave or largely pregnant. Sarah found it difficult to be solicitous to her at the best of times; today it was near-impossible. So she just sat and clicked and flagged.

      A new calendar request slid into the corner of her screen and Sarah clicked to open it on reflex: Kim the office manager was kindly reminding one and all about Raina’s baby-shower lunch on Friday via the use of a picture of cartoon baby sat atop a pyramid of building blocks