The Love Shack Read Online Free PDF

thoughtfully. ‘Keep going.’
    Sadie swallows and looks at me for help. ‘Um . . . Keith Chegwin,’ she splutters. He raises an encouraging eyebrow. ‘Peter Sissons, Prince Philip . . .’
    Pwthw— ‘The Archbishop of Canterbury!’
    He grins and looks at both of us. ‘Ladies, I like your way of thinking.’ He stands up, removes the scamps and flings them across the desk at us. ‘Take another week on this one. You’ll come up with the goods, I know it.’
    I am trying my best to think of a diplomatic way to protest about this in the strongest possible terms, when something else does it for me.
    PWTTHWWWTHTH!
    The condom disengages itself from the door handle and performs a spectacular loop-the-loop across the floor before landing slap bang on the desk in front of Sebastian, who is so stunned he appears to have lost the motor skills in his bottom jaw.
    And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how to make an impression with your new boss.
    When I get back to my desk, my phone is ringing. I see that it’s Dan and decide to take the call in the corridor.
    ‘How’s your day going?’ he asks.
    ‘I’ve had better.’
    ‘You’re not the only one.’
    ‘Why, what’s happened to you?’ I ask.
    ‘My mother’s agreed to let us stay.’
    ‘Ah, brilliant!’ I gush.
    ‘Isn’t it?’ he deadpans.
    ‘Oh, come on, you know it’ll be worth it.’
    ‘I know, I’m only joking. Sort of anyway. You do realise however,’ he adds teasingly, ‘that before I met you, there was no woman on earth I’d have made a sacrifice like this for.’
    I hesitate, suppressing a reflex action to return the sentiment and assure him that there’s no man I’d have done it for either. But that wouldn’t exactly be the truth.

Chapter 5
    Dan
    I’ve spent the morning getting to know a twenty-one-year-old alcoholic who’s been out of prison for eleven months and has a mental-health file as long as your arm.
    This might not be most people’s idea of fun, but it’s an average day – in that there’s no such thing – in my job at a homeless charity called the Chapterhouse Centre.
    My role as a supported housing worker is to keep people off the streets before they get there. Our team helps vulnerable people from all walks of life to climb out of their deepening hole and build something you or I might recognise as a normal life.
    Not all of them have drink problems like Gary, the twenty-one-year old, although I’ve helped my share of alcoholics, as well as sex workers, ex-cons and drug users. They all have a different story to tell. And while in lots of cases those stories involve abuse, dysfunctional childhoods and substance misuse from a stupid age, some have simply fallen on hard times.
    I’d never claim it’s an easy job, but I’d never want to do anything else.
    After a bus journey from Gary’s temporary accommodation, I arrive at the administrative office where I’m based – a renovated Victorian school house half a mile outside the city centre. It’s a beautiful building, although I can’t claim it’d win design awards once you’re through the door.
    If ASDA Smartprice did offices, this’d be what it would look like: functional, but bright, clean and notably no frills (the day we got a microwave capable of emitting more than 400 watts was the source of significant celebration).
    It’s a long way from the workplace I left four years ago, when I was a stockbroker for a firm called Emerson Lisbon. I earned three times as much as I do here, and while I miss the salary, the same can’t be said for the job.
    I’d been volunteering at the Chapterhouse Centre since university – at our enablement centre, where rough sleepers go for a solid meal and help from a support worker – when the chance of a fulltime job came up. I couldn’t bring myself to say no.
    I’m in the hall, heading towards the stairs when our administrator Jade pops her head round the door.
    Jade’s in her early thirties and is on her own with two young