The First Time We Met: An utterly heart-warming and unforgettable love story

by Jo Lovett

  ‘Wow. Your grandmother sounds awesome.’

  ‘Yes, she was.’

  ‘When did you lose her?’

  ‘Three years ago.’

  ‘Still miss her I’m sure.’

  ‘Yep. But, you know, I was lucky to spend as much time with her as I did and she was a good old age, eighty-eight.’

  ‘Someone having lived a good long life is little consolation when you miss them.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  And then Sam reached across the table and squeezed Izzy’s fingers. She’d been right. It wasn’t like squeezing her girlfriends’ or Rohan’s hand. None of her friends caused her to wonder whether you could actually dissolve with lust and longing for closer physical contact. She was going to be able to feel where they’d touched long after he let her fingers go when the waiter came over with their main courses.

  They talked through a lot of exceedingly good food about films, cooking, fantasy holiday destinations, worst birthday presents ever (Izzy being a clear winner with her mother and her wife’s sex manuals).

  ‘Yes, climbing again tomorrow evening,’ Izzy said in response to a question from Sam, as they ate too many delicious cassatelle, fried crescents of dough filled with sweetened ricotta.

  ‘I haven’t asked you how painting was last night.’

  ‘Well. Interesting question. Painting was a lot of fun. We did the Mona Lisa. Badly.’ Izzy got her phone out to show him a photo of the finished disaster. ‘But it was a strange evening, and a bit worrying, because Rohan didn’t babysit. Emma brought our friend Geeta instead.’

  ‘For the first time since you and Emma started painting?’

  ‘Exactly. And I don’t think it was because Rohan had anything else on. I think he’d blocked out Wednesdays for us. He didn’t say last week that he wouldn’t be coming, and Ruby loves seeing him. They play Harry Potter Dobble every Wednesday before she goes to sleep. I think that if he’d been planning not to come he would have said, and I think if something last minute had come up he would have said. I think the reason he didn’t come is this coldness between him and Emma. They’d already been at each other’s throats for a while, but since Ruby and I came back from Dorset they’ve barely been talking.’

  ‘After she talked about meeting someone else.’

  ‘Yep. Very weird. She’s single, so she’s obviously free to do what she wants.’ Izzy wondered if Sam slept with a lot of people. Nothing to do with her, clearly. ‘And Rohan’s really nice, never judgy, never sexist, really laidback. I don’t know what’s happening and I’m worried that it’s the end of our friendship, the three of us.’

  ‘You know what I think?’ Sam poured more wine into both their glasses. ‘I think that Rohan has a thing for Emma. I think that’s what’s happened.’

  ‘You said that before. And normally I would agree, given the signs. But we’ve all been friends for eighteen years. No-one’s friends for this many years before starting to like each other.’

  ‘Maybe he’s always liked her. Or – you mentioned that they shared a flat for a few months – maybe something happened then.’

  ‘No, surely not.’ Although. That would make some sense. That was when the bickering had started. ‘Nooooo.’ Woah. Izzy’s mind was boggling. ‘They have always got on very well. Like they just get each other.’

  ‘And.’ Sam filled their water glasses. ‘How often are straight men and women just close platonic friends?’

  ‘A lot. I will prove it to you. Rohan and me. I love him but I have genuinely never fancied him and I’m sure he’s never fancied me. Ever.’

  ‘But is your relationship, in fact, more like that you might have with your best girlfriend’s boyfriend or husband? As if, for example, he were Emma’s partner?’ Sam raised his eyebrows like he’d made a very clever point.

  ‘Nope. We met at university and we became close friends almost immediately, before he met Emma. Totally platonically.’ Izzy took her final mouthful of pudding. So delicious.

  ‘Hmm. I realise as I say this that it sounds very old-fashioned, and maybe it’s just the way my life has panned out, but I don’t have close, straight, female platonic friends. Can’t think of a single one. Friends’ partners, yes, women I know less well, yes, but, no.’ Their gazes caught. For ages. ‘I mean, other than you,’ Sam said eventually. ‘You’re a good friend. I probably just haven’t been meeting the right women. Women like you.’ They were still looking at each other. Izzy swallowed, super-aware of Sam’s face, shoulders and chest, and of her own body. Sam’s eyes moved to her mouth. And back to her eyes. And then back to her mouth.

  Izzy swallowed again. Apparently she’d lost all power of speech or saliva control.

  ‘Why don’t we skip coffee here and find a pub to have a drink? I miss your London pubs.’ His voice sounded a bit croaky, even deeper than usual, which did all sorts of things to Izzy’s insides.

  ‘Good idea.’ If his voice sounded odd, hers sounded ridiculous. Squeaky. Not a voice that would do anything sexual to anyone’s insides. She focused hard on speaking normally, and said, ‘I’ll have to be home by midnight. My neighbour’s seventeen-year-old daughter’s babysitting and she has school tomorrow.’

  ‘So you’re on a Cinderella schedule.’ Sam was already nodding to the waiter. He had his credit card out by the time the bill was on the table, and they were out of the restaurant very quickly.

  It was one of those London evenings where the day had been warm but as night had descended the temperature had fallen too, even though it was still August. Izzy was shivering within a minute or two of leaving the restaurant. And also tottering in her shoes. She hadn’t factored in a walk anywhere. These were strictly house-to-venue-in-a-taxi-and-straight-back-home-again shoes, and her dress wasn’t made for a freezing evening.

  ‘You’re shivering.’ Sam was already taking his jacket off. ‘And those shoes don’t look totally practical.’ He put the jacket round her shoulders and held his arm out for her to take. ‘Want some support?’ The jacket smelled of Sam’s aftershave, something foresty and masculine. The same scent that he’d had every time she’d met him. She took his arm. If she didn’t, she was genuinely at risk of falling over.

  ‘Thank you.’ She put her arm through his. She loved his forearms. ‘I have history on the falling-off-high-heels front. I ran across a road once in platforms, tripped over and tore ligaments in my ankle.’

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘Yep. Took ages to get back to normal.’ She looked up. ‘It’s a lovely evening.’ There was a full moon, and a lot more stars were visible than usual in the London sky. They were both looking heavenward now. Sam pointed to a couple of constellations and they stopped walking.

  And then he stopped looking at the sky and looked down at Izzy. Their arms were still linked.

  Slowly, very slowly, Sam let go of Izzy’s arm and encircled her waist with both his arms instead, and pulled her very gently towards him. Izzy had her hands on his chest, his splendidly solid chest. He bent his head towards hers and she raised hers. They paused for a moment with their lips not touching, but so close that their breath mingled. It was a long moment. Izzy looked at his face, his lovely, kind eyes, his beautiful mouth. The very bones of him were amazing.

  Something was going to happen.

  And then, suddenly, somehow, they were kissing, very gently at first, and then ridiculously urgently, like this might be the only kissing left until the end of time. Izzy’s arms were round Sam’s neck now, her hands in his hair. He had one arm still round her waist, under the jacket, and the other on the back of her head, his fingers in her hair too. Their bodies were pressed against each other, Izzy’s legs against Sam’s hard thighs. It was the most amazing kiss she’d ever had, as though everything she’d felt for Sam from the moment she saw him in the greasy spoon was encapsulated in that kiss.

  Twenty-One

  Sam

  The kiss went on for a very long time. Probably the best kiss of Sam’s life. Fu
lly clothed, hands not really going anywhere they shouldn’t, really very chaste, and yet so damn erotic.

  When they eventually stopped kissing, after who knew how long, they stood together for a while longer, not speaking, Sam’s arms round Izzy’s waist and her arms round his neck. She was smiling gorgeously at him. And he was smiling foolishly back at her, he was fairly sure.

  ‘So, wow,’ he said. Yeah, he was sounding pretty foolish, too.

  ‘Yes.’ Izzy’s voice was at whisper-quiet level.

  He couldn’t suggest that she come back to his hotel because she had to get home to Ruby and her teenage babysitter. She clearly wasn’t going to ask him to go back to her house because of Ruby and the babysitter and the possible neighbour gossip. He really didn’t want the evening to end though.

  ‘Shall we get that drink?’ He indicated with his head the pub on the corner of the road.

  ‘Good idea.’ Her voice was still pretty quiet, as if she was a bit stunned. Understandable. He was in shock himself.

  He held his arm out again, Izzy took it and they started walking.

  The pub was one of those olde worlde traditional English ones, that looked as though it had been there for hundreds of years. Probably had. It was one he’d been to a few times when he lived in London. It had never felt like this before. It was as if this was one of the most special, significant evenings of his life.

  There was a table free in a corner.

  ‘Why don’t you sit down and give your feet a rest, and I’ll get the drinks?’ he said.

  ‘Thank you.’ Izzy was already settled on the two-seater sofa next to the table, and had slipped her shoes off. ‘I’d love a lime and soda.’ Sam would probably be wise to join her in something non-alcoholic, after what had just happened. It felt huge.

  Too huge, actually. This evening shouldn’t have been this special. Sam started walking over to the bar. He didn’t want to lose Izzy’s friendship. It was so important to him. He honestly loved talking to her as much as he loved talking to Luke, and he cared about her as much as he cared about his other close friends. Although with Izzy there was this intense sexual attraction thrown in. Yeah. It was pretty obvious that Sam would struggle to be just platonic friends with Izzy. But romance? No. He wasn’t doing serious romance, for so many reasons. And obviously a fling was out of the question. Liv. Barney. And they’d lose their friendship afterwards and Sam would be bereft.

  So he was going to be just friends. Starting right now.

  Sam put Izzy’s lime and soda down in front of her and his own drink on the table and sat down next to her awkwardly. The sofa was really too small for two people. In a furniture store, they’d probably describe it as a ‘love seat’. Not a phrase that sat well with him right now.

  ‘What are you drinking?’ Izzy seemed keen not to talk about what had happened. She inched herself sideways, away from him, right against the arm of the sofa, maybe also regretting the kiss. Their thighs were still touching though. He loved the softness of her.

  ‘Virgin Mary. Bloody Mary without the vodka.’ Definitely not a time to be drinking alcohol.

  ‘Sounds good. Thank you so much for dinner.’ Izzy sipped her drink. ‘The food was amazing.’

  Sam opened his mouth to thank her for her company but it sounded too odd, given what had just happened.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I really like that restaurant. One of those hidden gems.’ Yes, this was good. A restaurant conversation. Very uncontroversial.

  ‘I love eating great food in restaurants,’ Izzy continued. ‘Obviously it’s lovely in the moment, and it’s nice afterwards, for ideas for things to cook at home.’

  ‘That does not happen to me. It is lovely in the moment, yes, but there’s literally zero chance that I could create anything at home that would be inspired by food as good as that.’

  ‘Not true.’ Izzy shook her head and her beautiful auburn hair shimmered in the light. ‘You could totally have made that pudding. You successfully made profiteroles, so you could definitely make those.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right. I am an incredible baker now.’ Sam nodded. ‘I mean those chocolate profiteroles only took the three of us about five times as long as you said they’d take one person. And while they tasted fantastic, they were a little oddly shaped. Now, would you agree that those ham and cheese pastry things were essentially puffy cheese and bacon crisps?’

  ‘Yes, I would. And yes, I do remember you saying that if they existed they’d be a bestselling savoury confectionery item. Very good flavour-predicting skills.’

  ‘Yep. That time we had coffee.’ Sam was strangely pleased that Izzy remembered their long-ago conversation as well as he did. ‘That seems like almost a lifetime ago.’

  ‘Yeah. A lot’s happened since then.’ Izzy wasn’t wrong. ‘Big things and small.’

  ‘If you had to sum up your life since then in one paragraph what would you say? The headlines.’ As he said it, Sam regretted his question, because it was taking the subject matter right back towards the personal, but he couldn’t really immediately say No, scrap that, don’t answer.

  ‘Good question.’ Izzy took a long drink. ‘Okay. Headlines. In no particular order. Gave birth to the most amazing daughter. Lost my wonderful grandmother. Successfully combining fulfilling career and parenthood. Separated from husband. Great friends. And, almost up there with the big things, discovered that even though I hated Art at school, I love painting. You?’

  ‘Okay.’ Why had he started this? This was what happened when you kissed the woman who you used to think was The One, until you realised that life was complicated and there was no One. It addled your brain and caused you to start really stupid conversations. Because where was this going? ‘Moved back to the States. Took a great job. In car accident.’ Sam’s voice wobbled and he swallowed. Now he really wished he hadn’t started this. He should lighten things. Maybe go for a joke. ‘Discovered that I’m severely lacking in the social media, gaming and fashion skills required to parent teenagers. Who probably just really need their mother right now.’ He paused. This was ridiculous. He’d sounded bitter, not remotely jokey. Why had he mentioned Lana? That kiss had shaken him far too much. ‘And dated a succession of beautiful women with whom I have little in common.’ Why in hell had he said that? Was it because the expression of sympathy and understanding on Izzy’s face had had him wanting both to punch something really hard and cry? Her expression had changed now. He’d seen hurt in her eyes before she smiled, a bland, fake-looking smile. There was a long, uncomfortable pause.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Izzy said eventually. Sam wanted to say sorry too, but he didn’t.

  ‘Yeah, you know, we all have our crosses,’ he said. He couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice.

  ‘Could I say something? As a friend?’ Izzy always looked and sounded confident. But not now. She looked hesitant.

  ‘Sure.’ He flattened his voice to try to discourage her from continuing.

  She waited a few seconds, and then said, ‘You seem completely overwhelmed by everything in your life at the moment. You don’t get to see the twins as much as you’d like to, you don’t get to exercise as much as you want to, you’ve mentioned that you don’t get to see your friends, you have to sacrifice sleep to fit things in, and it all seems to be because of your job. Have you ever considered just… leaving? Taking a career break for a couple of years?’ She was right. His life was a shitshow at the moment. Totally messed up. But there was nothing he could do about it.

  ‘My job pays the bills. It’s a bit of an all-or-nothing career. People don’t take career breaks.’

  ‘But, at the risk of being too personal, do you need the money to pay those bills? Someone like you, with your CV and at your age and, just, you, surely could get a different kind of job in due course, maybe full-time lecturing, or something else, one that would give you more time to live the rest of your life? More time with the kids?’ She thought he was a bad parent. He was a bad parent. Although, she wasn’t a judge
mental person. Nonetheless.

  ‘You think I don’t spend enough time with the kids.’ She was right. He didn’t.

  ‘No. I think that you’re an amazing dad who’s doing his best in really difficult circumstances but who would benefit from having more time in his life both to spend time with his kids and do other things.’ Of course he would, but there was no way that he could see to get off the treadmill of his life. And it would be ridiculous. The hours he’d put in, the sacrifices he’d made. Now he and the kids were supposed to be reaping the rewards of his hard work.

  And she was wrong on the first point. He was not an amazing dad. A lot of the time at the moment, the twins effectively had no parental input. Recently, there’d been many weeks where he didn’t see them from Sunday evening to Saturday morning. Mrs H was fantastic, but teenagers needed a parent to talk to, and he was letting them down. In fact, right at this moment, they’d be arriving home from school, and instead of video calling them, he was here with Izzy, a real betrayal of Liv’s trust, in particular.

  ‘You think I’m letting my kids down.’ He knew that she didn’t think that but she should think it, because it was true.

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t. I think you’re always there for them emotionally but sometimes it’s really hard to be there for them physically. I think you’re a wonderful father. I mean, so much more devoted than both my parents, to name but two examples.’ She shifted her position and her eyes didn’t hold his, like she regretted making the comparison. She should regret it. Sam didn’t want to be compared to her parents. She’d told him enough that he knew that they’d both been physically and emotionally absent from her life and, frankly, very uncaring.

  ‘So now you’re comparing me to your uninvolved parents.’ Wow. That sounded too vicious out loud. He couldn’t apologise, though. He had too many emotions warring inside him to be able to find the words.