Eleven years before Now.

  Paul grunted and rolled onto one side. Something stuck him again, a jabbing sensation in his ribs. He brushed away his assailant with one wave of his arm and refused to open his eyes. “Get out of here,” he heard a hoarse woman’s voice demand as a third strike, this time a dull smack on the shoulder, hit him. “Get up, you idiot,” the voice continued, and Paul finally opened his eyes.

  The pale beginning of daylight stabbed at his eyes, and he saw stars. His vision throbbed in unison with his banging head, and he was sickened by the scent of stale beer that lingered on his breath. Oh fuck, he thought, I hope this was worth it. “Come on, you need to get out of here,” the woman said as Paul’s vision slowly cleared and her blurry form became focused. Who the fuck are you? He wondered.

  “Hurry up, my husband’s gonna be here any minute!” the woman was shouting now, as she frantically moved around the room, recovering Paul’s clothes and other possessions, throwing them at him. As different items struck him, Paul’s memories of the previous night began to from.

  “You didn’t say you were married,” Paul mumbled as he clambered out of the stranger's bed. What is her name again? he asked himself, Sammy? Sally? Sadie? Something with S and E right?

  “You never asked,” the woman said, replying to Paul’s statement. “Now get up and get out of here. I can’t let him see you.”

  “No,” Paul agreed, “I imagine he wouldn’t be happy about that.” He picked his boxers up off the floor and slipped them on, losing his balance and falling back onto the bed as he did.

  “Hurry up!” she hissed.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m going,” Paul replied, trying to conjure her name again. Maybe with a T, Tammy, Tally, Tilly? He found his jeans next and fell from the bed as he tried to pull them up. The thud as he hit the floor rocked his brain, and he felt bile build in his throat. Probably not worth it, he thought as the first of the hangover shakes assaulted his body.

  “Please,” the woman started to beg, “just get out of here.”

  Paul got to his feet unsteadily and looked at the woman. Clearly, her marital status wasn’t the only thing she lied about last night. He didn’t know her name, but he clearly remembered her saying she was twenty-two, something he readily believed under the influence of alcohol. Seeing her now, though, she was clearly thirty at least. Maybe thirty-five? Still, she was pretty good-looking for her age. If I were your husband, I’d be pretty pissed to find out you were cheating too, he thought.

  He threw his shirt over his shoulders and began to button it. “Just pass me my socks, and I’ll get out of here,” he told the woman. Shirt button, he patted his jean pockets, phone, wallet, keys, headphones, everything was there. He smiled at the woman as she passed him one sock after the other and sat down on the bed to put them on. As he did, he looked at her and had to admit she was clearly distraught about what was happening.

  “I have to ask,” he spoke in a soft but raspy voice, “If you are so afraid of your husband finding out, why did you do it in the first place?”

  She tutted and shook her head, but then her shoulders dipped, and she answered. “He just makes me so mad. I love him, but he's controlling and gets paranoid. He’s always checking my phone to see if I’m texting other men and hates it when I go out so much that I have to wait for him to be away on business to get a night out. He’s convinced I’m cheating on him and won’t let it go.”

  Paul looked at the woman funny. Don’t say it, he thought, but he rarely took his own advice. “In fairness,” he said, and her eyes turned hateful the instant the words formed on his lips, "he isn’t wrong, is he?”

  “Get out!” she screamed and threw the nearest thing she could get hold of at him. A bar. Paul was up like a shot then, chuckling to himself as he escaped the bedroom and made for the stairs. The front door to the house lay at the bottom of them, and his shoes before it. He sat on the bottom, took a few steps, and started to put them on. Maybe it's with a J, he thought, Jenny, Jessy, Julie?

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  He got to his feet, and the front door opened.

  Shit.

  Both Paul and the man who entered froze as they came face to face. He wasn’t the most intimidating of men, but he was broad-shouldered enough that Paul knew a fight wasn’t guaranteed to go his way. Think of something, he thought desperately, but nothing came to mind.

  “Ashley!” the man bellowed up the stairs, suddenly coming to life.

  “Oh, that’s her name,” Paul exclaimed. The man swung for him. Almost as if he were a drunken savant, Paul’s instincts kicked it, and he fell backwards, just out of the reach of his opponent’s fist. He landed with his back against the stairs, and the man tried to jump on him. With an open palm, Paul struck upward at the man’s face. He felt the crunch of bones under the flat of his palm, and the man threw himself back, trying to stem the flow of blood from his nose. Paul wasted no time, pushed past the man and out the front door, fleeing up onto the street and up the road.

  Despite himself, he couldn’t help but chuckle as he made his escape. This is what I get for going out on Wednesday, he thought.

  Forty-five minutes later, Paul opened the front door of his home share and stepped through the threshold. He headed first for the kitchen. It would have been sizable had the house been shared by the four occupants that it had been intended for, but seeing as the landlord had converted every room he could into an extra bedroom, it ended up feeling much more crowded.

  Three of the other seven occupants were having breakfast. Paul said good morning and how are you to all, and each replied with good. All three were Romanian and knew very little English. This simple exchange was the most the four had ever managed in the eighteen months Paul had lived in the property. Paul nodded to them all, retried a glass from his cupboard, filled it with water, downed it and repeated two more times. He dropped the glass into the sink, bid farewell to his three housemates and headed for the stairs.

  As he made his way, the door to the living room turned bedroom opened, and the only woman living in the property stepped into the hallway, blocking his path. “Sorry, morning,” she said as she noticed him. Paul smiled at her, stepped aside to allow her through to the kitchen and nodded as she passed.

  Paul didn’t talk to Milly. It wasn’t anything personal, but he was uncomfortable enough living with a woman whose company could be scheduled and paid for online as it was. There was no need for them to become familiar.

  He made his way up two flights of stairs to his bedroom. As he did, he passed his other three housemates—the two drug dealers, Mark and Kane, and the old man, Mr Brown. “Morning, Mr Brown,” Paul said to the old man as he passed, giving Mark and Kane both a polite but uninviting nod.

  At the top of the stairs, he opened the door to his little room, an attic space turned into little more than a cubby. The door struck the chair of his desk, as it always did, and he had to squeeze through. Once inside, he looked at his phone. Eight forty-seven in the morning. He was late for work. With no time to shower, he threw his desk chair onto his single bed so he could open the doors of his wardrobe and pulled a suit out.

  “Paul, your late,” Gary stated in a hushed whisper as Paul passed through the office doorway.

  “I know Gary,” Paul replied as he rubbed his eyes with his hands, head still throbbing.

  “You look like shit,” Gary added.

  “I know Gary,” Paul repeated. Gary was probably the only person in this office Paul liked. He didn’t take the dog's body work the local authority did too seriously, making him more bearable than most of these tools. Yet, Gary was still fifteen years older than Paul and was just as capable of being judgemental of Paul’s social life as the rest of his colleagues.

  “Jesus, Chris Paul,” Gary exclaimed as he looked Paul over, “you hungover, aren’t you.”

  “How could you tell?” Paul asked.

  “Fucking hell Paul. You know it’s the new boss's first day today, right? He’s having one-on-ones with everyone to get to know the team. I tried talking you up, but what will he think of meeting you in this state.”

  Paul looked at Gary and shrugged. " Maybe he will be happy there is at least one fun person on the team.” Gary chuckled and shook his head.

  “Come on, I’ll introduce you. In fairness, he looks a little rough for wear himself. Maybe you two will get on.” Gary led Paul to a man who stood, back turned, as he conversed with Gina, Paul’s direct line manager and a bitch. “Mr Stevens,” Gary called to the man, “let me introduce you to Paul; I was telling you about him earlier.”

  The man turned to face them. Scuffed shoes, cheap suit, stained tie, a plaster over your nose and…. Oh, shit, I shagged your wife.

  “You!” Ashley’s husband barked at Paul.

  Fuck.

  Now you may be wondering, dear reader, how exactly these two individuals, born hundreds of miles apart, with a seven-year age gap and seemingly no connection to one another, end up together. Well, allow me to clarify that for you as we introduce the wonder that is Marrow university.