It's the summer break, and for the first time in his life, Mike would rather stay in the bloody classroom.<br><br>It's wedding season, and Mike is doomed to spend all summer sipping cheap champagne and pretending he likes tiny portions of posh food. From the passive-aggressive torment of Mike's mother-in-law to the insulting incredulity of his colleagues over what his mysterious husband actually looks like, Mike would voluntarily teach sex education to fourteen-year-olds for the rest of his life if it would only get him out of one more wedding. Even his husband in a kilt isn't going to save this one.<br><br>But there's nothing like watching someone else get hitched to remind him of where he's come from ... and where he's determined to go from here.

Married Ones

Stephen could have levelled a small country with the glare he gave her, but Jo—a maths teacher—was perfectly immune to such things. She simply beamed, asked after their days, and got a round in.


“Forgiven,” Mike said when her fiancée, Jez, returned with the aforementioned round.


“I’ll get you an extra half of cider later, sweetheart.”


Stephen grumbled, but was suitably pacified. He and Jez talked fell running, while Mike and Jo exchanged last-lesson horror stories, and then the others turned up.


Chapter 4