New Zealand Listener

Blackjack

By the time she got up to her room she’d decided she wasn’t going to stay. First thing in the morning it would have to be, because it was too late to leave now. She would have missed the last flight back down, and facing that long train ride again …it was out of the question. So it would have to be tomorrow. But first thing. Because she couldn’t stay here. She couldn’t.

Checking in, she’d wondered for the umpteenth time what she was doing even being in this situation in the first place – thinking about it all day on the train for that matter. Letting the kids talk her into it, a date with a stranger, staying overnight and all the rest of it. What kind of a madcap idea was that, at her age? Brendan had said everyone does it, Mum, and had set the whole thing up, with Kit agreeing. That

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