The First Date

by Zara Stoneley

  The First Date

  ZARA STONELEY

  One More Chapter

  a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

  Copyright © Zara Stoneley 2020

  Cover design by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

  Cover images © Shutterstock.com

  Emojis © Shutterstock.com

  Zara Stoneley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780008363185

  Ebook Edition © 2020 ISBN: 9780008363178

  Version: 2020-03-25

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Zara Stoneley

  About the Publisher

  For my fabulous sisters – who are, simply, the best. With love.

  Chapter 1

  There are so many things I’d imagined might go wrong with this date (and when I say many, I do mean many) but this was not top of the list.

  He has NOT TURNED UP!

  This was not even on the list.

  I thought I’d actually been quite comprehensive:

  Don’t recognise the guy because his profile picture is at least twenty years old – dating back to the time when he had hair.

  Has a totally squeaky voice (think David Beckham on helium – sorry, David, I do totally love you, even my mum does) that is so off-putting it makes me feel judgy even though I really don’t mean to be.

  Is wearing so much aftershave it makes me gag. I hate too much aftershave; Dad used to spray it on liberally when I was a child and I’d get an eyeful if I was within 100 metres.

  Hasn’t got socks on. Sorry, the trousers, shoes and no socks thing speaks to me in all the wrong ways. And feet, you’d end up seeing bare feet at inopportune moments. Not everybody has nice feet.

  Goes for a kiss on the cheek as I go for a handshake and it turns into a weird dance and ruins the whole thing.

  I am unable to speak. At all. This has happened before.

  He will hate me on sight and head off to the loo within two seconds of meeting me and never be seen again.

  My list is actually longer than this, these are just the highlights.

  So he’s knocked point 7 right out of the ballpark.

  What is wrong with me? Why is it so flaming difficult for me to find a guy?

  I mean, everything is in roughly the right places and in reasonable working order. I do not turn into a blood-sucking vampire after nightfall and don’t think I have any totally gross habits. Several minor, slightly annoying ones according to my ex, Robbie. But who hasn’t?

  I’m just your average girl. Enjoy my job, but sometimes hate my boss. Have an on-off relationship with the gym (more off than on if I’m honest). Have bad hair days more than good. Worry about whether my best life is escaping me, and really, really want to work out how to buy a house. Can’t take a decent selfie where both eyes look the same and I don’t look constipated or leery. And am quite often too exhausted in the evening to do anything but curl up with a good movie or book and something to nibble on. And before your mind takes you somewhere rude, I’m talking nuts of the ready salted (not hairy) type, or a nice bag of popcorn.

  That is normal, right?

  And I’m not being overambitious and setting the bar too high.

  I’m not looking for a mate for life (though that would be nice), just a date. And movie star looks are optional.

  For heaven’s sake, I just want a date with a normal guy. One with a nice smile, regular job, sense of humour and decent table manners. One who I don’t mind keeping my eyes open to snog, and who I wouldn’t mind introducing to my mates. He doesn’t even have to be parent-friendly. Or like small children. Or have a five-year plan.

  Okay, I admit, some of that stuff was on my original list, but I’m lowering my standards. Needs must.

  I check my watch again. It would also be nice if he could tell the time. Because it is so bloody obvious to everybody here: I have been stood up.

  I resist the urge to bang my head on the bar, and instead launch Tinder for what has to be at least the eighty-seventh time in the last thirty minutes, just in case I’ve missed some kind of last-minute ‘sorry but I’ve had an emergency’ type of message. Like I said, I’m not after the perfect guy; I can quite happily accept that something more important than a date with a girl he hasn’t even met yet could have happened.

  I might even forgive him totally forgetting he had a meet-up if his mum/dog/hamster/car has had some kind of gruesome catastrophe befall them.

  Okay maybe not the last one, or last two, I’m not a complete pushover.

  I stare at his photo. We’ve swapped so many messages and he seemed nice, sweet, caring, interesting. Not the type of man to stand somebody up.

  Was he?

  Who’d have thought you could actually find your soul mate (or at least a great date) hidden amongst all the swipe-left losers on Tinder?

  I did.

  I am telling you, the flick-left forefinger on my right hand had been developing a nervous twitch until two weeks ago, when it kind of froze mid-air and I had to work out how to swipe right. It doesn’t come naturally – swiping right or thinking somebody might just be ‘the one’.

  He zoomed straight onto my ‘possible’ list. Well, he was the list.

  He was, is, gorgeous. Totally. Gorgeous Gabe. And when we swapped messages he seemed as nice on the inside as the outside. Kind. Thoughtful. Funny. Self-deprecating.

  Definitely a possibility.

  The perfect guy to help ease me back into the dating game.

  Okay, let’s be honest here. He was the only guy after several weeks of swiping who seemed remotely normal. Wow, who knew so many people existed who wanted to thrust their appendages into a woman they don’t know? In fact, I had no idea some of the things I was messaged about were legal, or even possible in one case, until I entere
d the murky world of internet dating.

  So why am I here? Why did I sign up on dating apps, which we all know is more likely to be a route to a total self-esteem crash, than total satisfaction?

  Because I am crap at finding a date. I cannot do what my mate, Bea, does and just stroll up to any guy she fancies and openly flirt.

  Eurgh. I mean, flirt, with a total stranger? Okay, I admit it, I did try it once in the coffee shop up the road, when I was in the queue for a cappuccino, and finally plucked up the courage to say something to a guy who I regularly saw in there. We were kind of on nodding terms, but for the first time ever he smiled at me as he picked up his coffee and waved! I waved back and said I loved his new scarf. He gave me a funny look, then stepped past me to the woman behind and kissed her! OMG, the embarrassment. I couldn’t go in there again, just in case I bumped into either of them. I now have to buy inferior coffee from a place further up the street, which is ridiculous, and more expensive, but necessary.

  And then there was the guy in the pub (okay, I have tried to flirt more than once – this time it was with Bea’s encouragement after three drinks, which made it worse). I mean, he could have been a mass murderer, married or thought I was a total weirdo and pretended he’d not seen or heard me. But I did it anyway. And he did. Pretend he hadn’t seen me. Yup, it happened; it’s never happened to Bea.

  Then there was the guy Bea fixed me up with, who just wanted to talk about Bea, and after I winked at him suggestively asked if I’d seen a doctor about my nervous twitch.

  So this is why I needed a different approach.

  The issue here is that I’ve only ever dated one person. Robbie. We kissed for the first time when we were fifteen, started to see each other seriously (in a groping and proper snogging kind of way) when we were sixteen, had sex at seventeen, shared a holiday at eighteen, and it all developed from there. Until he left the country at thirty to find himself, and never came back. Thirty, I ask you? Which bits haven’t you discovered by the time you’re thirty?

  I’m not sure if he’s still looking, or if he just found out he was a different person than he expected. Or if he actually just found a totally different person who he decided he wanted to shack up with. The details aren’t clear.

  But shortly before he left I think we both realised that this wasn’t ‘it’. And we still had time to say so and get out before it was too late. So he did. And I’m a bit cross I didn’t have the guts to do it first.

  It took a while for us to admit it, because it’s hard and scary to take the leap of faith. But we’d grown up and grown apart – matured into two individuals with different expectations and desires. His evolving man-buns (cool), tantric sex in a tepee (from the photos I could see on his Facebook page after he’d set off on his travels, but OMG what if people were listening?), green tea (yuk) and mung beans (not tried them, not going to try them), and looking after the planet.

  I’m all for looking after the planet but I want a house of my own (with proper walls and curtains) to have sex in, lots of coffee with the odd smoothie, and Deliveroo at my fingertips. Oh, and Netflix.

  See? Totally incompatible. How did we never see that happening, and go our separate ways earlier?

  Even though it was right that it was over, it was still sad. Like scooping out a section of my heart and watching it dissolve, leaving a small hollow that ached with nothingness. Like closing the door on a part of my growing up that I’d loved. The carefree, happy, hopeful anything-can-happen part.

  I had lost a part of my naïve optimism. A part of my joy.

  It had made me doubt that happy-ever-afters actually exist.

  Up until now I’d ignored some of the shitty love experiences that my nearest and dearest had had to deal with; I had told myself that they were the exceptions and what I had – happiness – was totally possible if you went about it in the right way. I thought I was special, we were special. Admitting to myself that Robbie leaving was the right thing shot that theory totally in the foot.

  There was a gaping hole in my soul (and the flat) after he reappeared briefly, all tanned, tousle-haired and sheepish, and packed the rest of his stuff into two very large rucksacks and a couple of bags for life.

  That was the moment the sticking plaster was ripped off with stinging finality.

  Saying goodbye was admitting we’d changed, that we weren’t those optimistic kids anymore. That we had grown up and had learned tough love.

  Yuk.

  But once I’d wallowed briefly in self-pity, and eaten a lot of carbs, I agreed with Bea that I had womanly needs and that I needed to ‘get out there’. I was going to date.

  Easy eh? Not, it would seem!

  So, anyway – taking a deep breath and pulling my big-girl pants up – I have now been single for eight months and nine days, and the closest I’ve come to scoring was when D. B. Tricket hesitated at the till after paying for his book. He comes into the bookshop very regularly. So regularly that I know the name on his payment card. He’s quite shy and has a, shall I say, unusual taste in reading. He hesitated so long this time I was about to jokingly say ‘move along’ when he coughed twice and then a load of words came out in a rush. He had a couple of tickets for a gig, and did I fancy it? It was a well-cool local band, and I couldn’t believe my luck! I told him to drop the tickets off any time cos I was sure Bea, my mate, would be interested.

  D. B. turned bright red, stuttered that he would and crashed out of the shop forgetting to take the book he’d just bought with him.

  I mean, why? Why did I say that? Why did that bit of my brain responsible for dating not click in and realise he was asking me out?

  He has not been in the shop since, and he was actually our best customer by a long way.

  Bea thought it was hilarious, then sobered up and said if I didn’t get myself sorted soon and learn to read the signals, she’d take me out for a proper night on the pull. She’s not a euphemism type of person – she’s pretty direct and blunt, even when it comes to dates. Which is why she goes on lots, and I don’t get any. But we are so different. The idea of a manhunt with her is bloody scary, so I knew I had to prove I was at least trying to find my inner date detector.

  I don’t want to hook up with somebody for a one-night stand because we’re both pissed and our standards, morals and possibly good-judgement have gone AWOL for the evening. I also don’t want to date ‘my best mate’s friend’s brother’s mate who never seems to get a second date and can’t stop talking about his crush on the girl he saw at the bus stop’ (that entire sentence explains it all). I don’t want a pity shag. Or a blind date with somebody who shares my interest in finding the perfect beef jerky (yes, I did meet him at a party), but absolutely nothing else. Or newly divorced Dennis who comes in every Thursday to check out our sci-fi books and has declared he’s open to dating anybody providing their boobs are bigger than their stomach and they’re up for a curry and beer night. To be honest I think his best bet is to date his buddy Steve; they make the perfect couple.

  Anyway, even if they don’t, I don’t want him.

  So, there are a lot of don’ts, and I am normally more of a do person. But I just want a date with a normal guy.

  My big problem is I don’t know: a. where to find him, or b. what to say if I do, or c. how to tell if he’s interested (as D. B. Tricket will confirm).

  So, finding a date online had seemed like a good idea. I thought I would have some control, and also wouldn’t have to rely on my dodgy ability to read body language. Normally I don’t have an issue with this. I can tell if somebody wants me to piss off, sit down, leave them alone or help – which is why I love working in a shop so much. But my wires just seem to get crossed, or totally fused together, in a potential-attraction situation. Or, well, any one-on-one with a man in a social situation. I get flustered, I panic, I lose my ability to string together sentences, I cannot act like a normal human being.

  It is beginning to annoy me.

  Using an app, though, I thought I coul
d check for compatibility at least, get the basic niceties out of the way, and we’d both turn up for our first date because we wanted to be there.

  Seems I was wrong.

  I am now even more annoyed.

  ***

  This bar is a bit like a hotel, with a steady trickle of customers coming and going – but not staying for long. Which leaves me feeling even worse. It isn’t the type of place I’d normally come on my own (to be honest I don’t do bars on my own), it isn’t even the type of bar I’d come to with Robbie, or Bea. It’s a bit brash, loud, trying a bit too hard to impress.

  Trendy shiny stools and uncomfortable seats that don’t let you slump, carefully dimmed lights that are supposed to create ambience but just feel false. Not me at all. I’m more a chilled, take me as you find me type of person.

  My prosecco, like me, has lost its bubbles. I knock back what is left, and stare at Gabe’s profile and have to admit it feels a bit like I’ve been kicked in the gut. He’s not shown up for our date. Our first date.

  Second date I might have been able to stomach (unless I’d really been into him), but first date? Really? He hasn’t even given me a chance.

  Bastard.

  It’s that feeling you get when you’re six years old and can’t see your mum in the audience at the school Nativity.

  He has ruined my master plan. He has let me down, just when I thought I was about to make some progress and come out of what Bea calls my ‘hermit shell home’. I’ve been trying, I really have, and I thought this was it.

  Gabe Stevenson. Blue eyes, dark hair. Age 32 and ¾ (I’d thought that was cute; who doesn’t like a guy with a sense of humour?).

  Not famous, a film star or millionaire, but play the guitar (badly), sing in the shower (not quite as badly), cook a mean curry. Like dogs, kids, chocolate and cake. Scrub up okay.

  Cute. Slightly serious, but fun. Honest, presentable, can laugh at himself. Perfect. I thought.

  Grrrr. Being stood up is bad enough. But this has just got even worse, even more humiliating. I have been ghosted. He will not answer my messages! What kind of inconsiderate moron won’t even reply to a simple ‘Running late? ’ text message?