Girls Night Out 3 E-Book Bundle. Gemma Burgess
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We walk down to the basement bar, which is small, sexy and very, very red. ‘Cool bar,’ says Jon. ‘It’s like being in a blood clot,’ I agree.
Jon barks with surprised laughter and, showing a decisiveness missing in his texts, grabs a menu. ‘You choose. I’ll order.’
I choose quickly. ‘Uh, a Russian Rocket, please.’ Our eyes meet and he nods, a little grin on his face. He fancies me, I think suddenly. I can tell, I don’t know how – the glint in his eye? – but I can. That makes things easier.
‘Cocktail aficionado?’ he says.
‘You can’t go wrong with anything with vodka and lemon,’ I reply.
‘Do you want to—’ he gestures towards the bar. Go with him? Why would I want to do that?
‘I’m good here,’ I smile calmly.
Once seated, I check my phone, more as a look-busy mechanism than anything else. There’s a text from Robert.
Remember, he could be your soulmate!
Ha. I laugh out loud, and quickly reply.
Mummy is busy. Be a good boy and hush.
Jon comes back with our drinks, and we start by talking about the only thing we have in common, i.e. my sister working with his brother. This segues easily into his job, which is in media sales (yep, I have no idea what that is either), and then my job, which I dismiss quickly with, ‘If you ever have trouble sleeping, call me and I’ll tell you all about my day’. We talk about Battlestar Galactica, which both of us loved (Peter insisted on watching it, and I discovered I loved sci-fi); and pork belly, which we agree should always be ordered if it’s on the menu, if only to encourage the restaurant to keep offering it; and Playstation and Nintendo Wii, which I have never played (and have no desire to) and which he adores. It’s a pretty easy, seamless date, in other words.
‘So, is this something you do often? Set-ups?’ asks Jon at one point.
‘Yes, it’s a hobby,’ I say airily. ‘More of a lifestyle than a hobby, actually.’
Jon laughs. He finds me a lot funnier than I find myself.
‘Right, I’m going to the bar,’ I say eventually, when our glasses have been empty for several minutes.
‘No, no,’ he replies quickly. ‘It’s mine.’
Here are my thoughts: Jon’s fine. He’s good-looking, and polite, and quite funny, and well, there’s nothing wrong with him. But I’m pretty sure I can’t be bothered to see him again. He’s failed a few tests: he hasn’t made me laugh much, I feel like I’m carrying the conversation too much, and he didn’t suggest the second drink. There’s just something a bit passive about him, something that doesn’t quite click . . . The big test, of course, is coming. Later.
He returns with the drinks, and I ask him where he’s from, and we get into a long conversation about Bristol, where he went to university.
‘When I was little, I thought Blame It On The Boogie went “I spent the night in Bristol, at every kind of disco”,’ I say. Jon grins. ‘There are two kinds of nightclubs in Bristol. The ones that are awful, and the ones that are closed.’
I laugh at this. Perhaps he is funny after all.
‘So, what’s a nice girl like you doing on a blind date?’ he says. ‘You must have guys falling – over, um—’ his confidence stalls halfway through the sentence.
‘I thought it might be fun, I guess,’ I say. ‘I’m not looking for a relationship. I just broke up with someone. So this is all new to me . . .’
‘And is it fun?’ he says hopefully.
I can’t answer honestly (I’d say ‘meh’). So I smile instead. ‘It is.’
I get us the next drink, and as we finish, I notice that it’s 10.45 pm. I think I’ll call it a night. I don’t want to ignore my self-imposed midnight date curfew.
‘I have to get up at 6 am,’ I say apologetically. ‘I must take my leave.’
‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ says Jon, looking slightly crestfallen. ‘I’ve had a, er—’
‘Best night of your life?’ I suggest, standing up to put my jacket on. He stands up to help me, a second too late. ‘I thought so. You lucky man.’
He grins again. My cocky-little-madam act works a charm on dates, I think to myself. Men have no idea what to do with it.
‘Will you escort me to a cab?’ I ask. ‘I may need your protection on the dark streets of Soho.’
This is, obviously, a lie, but he says ‘Of course!’ and escorts me upstairs. I stand back for a second, so Jon can hail an oncoming black cab for me, the way Toby and Robert and other take-charge types always do, but he doesn’t move. So I hail it myself. The cab pulls up just as Jon reaches out and takes my hand. I pretend not to notice, and lean in the front window to ask the driver if Primrose Hill is OK. (For some reason we do this in London, as though the driver might say ‘Hmm, I don’t fancy that direction’ and we’d say ‘Oh, of course, so sorry to bother you, silly me’.)
The driver nods, and I turn to Jon. His hand is very warm and ever so slightly sticky. I hope that’s from cocktail dribble, rather than from not washing it the last time he went to the bathroom.
He clearly wants to kiss me, but his nerve is failing. I smile up at him expectantly. Seconds pass. Nope, nothing. Come on, man, I think to myself. Grow a pair.
‘I think you should kiss me now,’ I say finally.
Jon grins, his face lighting up with relief, and leans forward. It’s a pretty nice kiss, as kisses go. It lasts somewhere between 10 and 12 seconds. He has soft lips and he smells of one of those watery aftershaves.
But there’s no spark. No frisson in my body, no racing heart, no excited feeling. And that’s the ultimate test.
I lean back and smile at him.
‘I’ll text you,’ he says.
‘Look forward to it,’ I reply.
I get in and close the door, and take out my phone and call Sophie.
‘Negatory,’ I say, instead of hello.
‘Already? You’ve decided already?’
‘He’s too passive,’ I say. ‘And he loves Nintendo Wii more than anything in the world.’
There’s silence on the other end of the phone, and then Sophie starts laughing. ‘You really have turned into a bastardette,’ she says.
‘I know!’ I say happily.
‘I’m not sure it’s a good thing.’
‘Don’t hate the player,’ I say, quoting something Robert said the other day. ‘Hate the game.’
‘Do you think he wants to see you again?’
‘Probably,’ I say. ‘But I told him I wasn’t looking for a relationship.’
‘Oh God, are you crazy? That’s like catnip to men,’ Sophie says, laughing.
‘Not my problem.’
‘Instead of looking for reasons not to see him again, why not look for reasons you should?’
‘Why waste my time?’
‘The Nintendo Wii stuff doesn’t matter,’ she says. ‘What matters is that spark. You need to take a risk sometimes . . .’
‘But I am looking for the spark!’ I protest. ‘That’s why I always kiss them. And there was no chemistry. I could have been shaking his hand, it was so unexciting.’
‘That’s not what the spark is,’