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

Mike’s mam hadn’t talked to him for a month, furious at her only child running off to get married in secret instead of having the big wedding she’d hoped for. Stephen’s mother had turned her nose up and said it was just one of those silly things that students did, he was acting out against his father after the argument, and he’d be divorced again in a year.


“Your mam. Saying we’d be divorced again within the year.”


Stephen wrinkled his nose. “Jesus, yeah. She went mental.”


“Can’t blame her. Cream of the Black crop, eloping with some fat biology teacher.”


“We were living in the same flat,” Stephen said sceptically.


Stephen rolled his eyes, picking at a stray napkin on the table.


A slow smirk spread across Stephen’s usually impassive features.


Chapter 8