Essex Girls. Laura Ziepe

       CHAPTER 1

      The irritating sound of the alarm was instantly switched off.

      Jade stretched lazily in bed and turned to her boyfriend, Tom, who was about to get up.

      ‘Oh, stay a bit longer,’ she pleaded. ‘Please.’

      Tom sighed, glancing at the clock on the wall. ‘I’d love to, but you know I can’t be late.’

      As he pulled himself up, she tugged at his arm playfully and he collapsed beside her, laughing. ‘Okay, you win. Just for a minute though.’

      Cuddling under the covers, Jade began to kiss his neck.

      ‘Oh no, not my weak spot,’ he groaned. ‘You know I’ll never leave and I have to.’

      Jade held on to him tightly until he pulled away from her warm embrace, reluctantly.

      ‘I’ll be back before you know it. Keep the bed warm, gorgeous.’ He winked at her and then left.

      It was the same every Saturday morning. They would spend Friday nights together, Jade would stay at Tom’s parents’ house and then he’d have to get up early to coach a kids’ football team. He didn’t really need to as he had a full-time job in a bank, but he loved it. Jade had always thought it was really sweet. She could picture him running around in the back garden with their own future sons, teaching them how to play. Though of course she didn’t tell Tom that; she didn’t want him to get scared and run a mile.

      Jade tried to doze back off to sleep, it was far too early to get up. Besides, she had nothing to do until he returned. Thoughts of Tom were keeping her awake though; she was so happy with him. She’d been worried when she first started university three years ago. It was a massive change in her life – and leaving her best friends Kelly and Lisa in Essex for a life in quiet Bath hadn’t been easy. Embarrassingly, she’d even cried when she waved goodbye to them and saw their sad faces through the window of the car.

      ‘Sugar Hut won’t be the same without you,’ they’d shouted. ‘Don’t forget about us!’

      Of course she hadn’t, and at first she went home to Essex every other weekend. But when she met Tom the visits home decreased. She still managed to rack up an eighty-pound phone bill from time to time, often going over her free minutes allowance because she was talking to her best friends for too long. Her friends were happy she’d met Tom; Jade had never had a serious boyfriend until she’d met him, and now to her delight they were planning on renting a flat together in Bath. As much as Jade loved her home town Chigwell, she also loved how different Bath was. The people were friendly, a lot more down to earth and low maintenance, and though it had taken her a long time to get used to it, she had to face the fact that fake tan just wasn’t an option here. When she’d first arrived on campus, the other girls had looked at her like she was from another planet. She’d had her nails done and a spray tan for her first day; after all, she’d been single and on the lookout to meet some new hot men, and surely there was no better place than university, swarming with gorgeous guys in football and rugby shorts? To this day, she could have sworn the girls singing the Oompa Loompa song were aiming it at her. Okay, so she did look a few shades darker than everyone else, but she most certainly was not orange. She’d only had one spray, not her usual two, and the colour was called ‘Bronze Beyond’. She’d made friends quickly enough and realised it was probably better to fit in with the pasty crowd, despite the fact she preferred her sunkissed look. It took