The First Date

by Zara Stoneley

  ‘Sorry.’ He doesn’t look sorry. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you, but …’

  ‘Did you say I was funny and clever?’ I frown at him again.

  He nods, grins, and I suddenly feel awkward. So I crash on. ‘Anyway,’ I take a deep breath, time to move on to the important stuff, ‘he pissed me off, so while I was eating my sandwich I signed up for Tinder. If it’s that good for dogs, why wouldn’t the human apps be as good?’

  ‘Does Bea use it to find men as well?’

  ‘Borrow my doggy?’

  ‘Tinder!’ He laughs. A deep throaty, makes you feel like you’ve swallowed a whisky, laugh.

  ‘Oh God, no!’ The idea is hilarious. ‘Bea doesn’t need an app to find a date, she’s ultra-cool, and totally confident. Men just, well, men just,’ I haven’t analysed this before, but thinking about it now, Bea has never needed to think about finding a date because, ‘they just appear out of thin bloody air. They’re everywhere she goes! Or she just sees a guy she fancies and goes up and grabs him! Literally! I mean what if he’s psycho, or doesn’t fancy her, or is married? I don’t know how she does it.’ Actually, some of them have been a bit psycho, well bordering on it, and married. But Bea has just brushed it off and moved on.

  ‘So Bea hasn’t used an app, but she thought you should? Or it was your idea?’

  ‘Well yes, well no, we were just messing, I didn’t actually say …’ I didn’t tell her I’d actually done it. I signed up in secret, cos I felt a bit daft, and very embarrassed. ‘I told her I had a date. I didn’t tell her where I’d found him. But lots of people do it! And I mean it is just like BorrowMyDoggy, isn’t it?’

  ‘Please don’t tell me you used that line on Gabe!’

  I decide to ignore that comment. ‘It is totally similar, and it worked for her! It’s brilliant, have you been listening?’ He nods. After a few drinks it seems even more brilliant than it did the first time. ‘I mean, POOF,’ I snap my fingers, ‘Tinder is magic, it’s like ordering a pizza off Just Eat. You just pick what looks good and …’

  ‘Yeah, you can get laid quicker than you can get a kebab, but do you want a kebab you’ve not actually seen? Or do you want to go in to town, then decide to pop into Krispy Kreme and look them all over and pick the best?’

  ‘Kebabs? In Krispy Kreme?’ I’m confused.

  ‘Doughnuts! Whichever food you want!’ He laughs.

  ‘Or you could go into one of those specialist jerky places, and try them all first!’

  He raises an eyebrow. I might have lost him. But I’m very tipsy, and I do love jerky. Oh no, I can’t believe I’m sitting in a bar with a strange man talking about fast food delivery options. And jerky. ‘It’s dried beef! It’s really nice, and not too fattening, not like crisps or chocolate, or …’

  ‘Rosie.’ He puts his hands over mine. Leans in. We’re both a bit tipsy, which is why we get that perfect eye contact. Just pause for a moment, and stare. He has nice eyes. I could stare into his eyes for a while; in fact, it’s hard not to. They’ve got little wrinkles at the corners, and they’re a funny grey-blue colour. It’s hard to tell exactly. I lean in a bit closer.

  ‘Rosie!’ He jiggles my hands and I blink.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s not the way to do it, Rosie. You deserve better than some creep who’s looking for an easy shag—’

  ‘They’re not all like that! Lots of people find other people online!’

  ‘I know, I’m not saying it’s not an idea, but—’

  ‘Maybe I need to speed date. I mean all the guys are there then, aren’t they? No chance of no-shows, and how bad can it be talking to somebody for ten seconds or whatever you’re allowed before the buzzer? I’m sure I can think of stuff to say for that long! Wow, that’s a brilliant idea, why didn’t I think of it before?’

  ‘Stop!’ Noah holds a hand up in front of my face, but he’s laughing so much any minute now he could fall off his stool. It makes me giggle back. He makes an effort to pull himself together. ‘Okay, let me get this straight. You just want a first date? You want a doggy for a day that you can send home later?’

  I frown at him. ‘Yes, that’s what I said! But a man, not a dog.’ Just to be clear.

  ‘Not a husband?’

  ‘Oh my God, no, no. Not yet! I just don’t know how to date. I’ve never had to do it. I need dating practice.’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘Cool?’ I finish off my drink and wonder if another one would be a good idea, or a very bad idea.

  ‘I have the answer!’ He nods decisively and pulls a funny, excited face.

  ‘You do?’ I am dubious.

  ‘I,’ he taps his chest to make sure I understand, ‘am your man.’

  ‘What? Oh no, no, no, no. You are so not my man!’

  ‘I am, I am.’ He grabs both my hands again. His are lovely and warm. But that doesn’t matter, he definitely isn’t my man!

  ‘Listen! I’m brilliant at first dates!’ He lets go of my hands but doesn’t lose eye contact. ‘I’m a serial first dater!’

  ‘I knew it!’ That slips out unintentionally, but I don’t think he noticed.

  ‘A total whizz at asking people out! Not so hot on third or fourth dates, or second dates if I’m honest.’ He shrugs self-consciously and looks all boyish and cheeky. I can feel myself getting all hot and bothered.

  ‘But I don’t want to date you!’

  ‘Listen, listen, I’m not saying date me, I’m saying I have expertise.’ He taps the side of his nose.

  ‘But you’re brilliant at dating women, not men!’

  ‘Thank you.’ He grins and mock bows.

  ‘That wasn’t supposed to be a compliment! I’m only taking your word for that, I’m not actually saying …’

  ‘You really need to polish up your chatting technique you know!’

  ‘I know!’

  ‘Okay, okay, so I’m, allegedly, brilliant at chatting up women, but I know what a guy like me is looking for.’

  ‘But I don’t want a guy like you!’ Shoot. I didn’t mean that to come out.

  ‘I think we need to talk about that at some stage. I’m getting a very negative vibe here.’ He frowns at me, wags his finger; he looks quite masterful. ‘But I know what any guy is after, all guys!’

  ‘Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.’ How do I tell him that I wanted somebody like Gabe? Sincere, funny, clever, serious. Or at least that is what I thought Gabe was, maybe I was wrong.

  ‘Oh no, no, stop right there, Rosie.’ He puts a stalling hand out, as though he thinks I’m about to make a dash for the bar door. ‘You’re not running out on me now. This is getting interesting. Come on, come on, show me.’

  ‘Show you what?’

  ‘This bloke. His profile. Go on, show me.’ He holds his hand out. Waiting.

  ‘No way.’ I grab my phone and hold it to my chest.

  ‘Rosie!’ His voice has a warning edge I wasn’t expecting.

  ‘Okay, just his profile.’ I open up the profile and put my hand protectively over his face, then scroll up. I don’t want any comments about his looks. ‘You can see what he says, that’s all. Not our messages!’

  ‘Oh my God, what a smooth twat.’ Noah chuckles, and downs what is left of his drink, then orders another round.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I look at the profile again. ‘He’s really nice!’

  ‘Nice eh?’ Noah purses his lips and shakes his head. I think he is trying not to laugh.

  ‘Well, okay maybe he’s not actually nice in real life. But he seems kind, funny, look he made a joke here.’ I jab at the phone and accidentally close the app, so put it down suddenly feeling tired and hopeless.

  Noah pats my hand, as though he understands. Then hands me a glass of prosecco. ‘Drink up. Come on, things aren’t that bad!’ He’s not laughing at me now. Smiling, but not laughing.

  ‘Hey, Rosie. I am your man. I know exactly what we are going to do. I am going to give you lessons.’

  ‘Lessons?’<
br />
  ‘First date lessons. I’ll teach you how to seduce a man.’

  I laugh, I can’t help it. Then I giggle. ‘You! Seduction lessons. Haha, that’s funny.’ I crease over, hands on knees, manage to stop laughing. Look up at him and it starts me off again. He grins.

  ‘I’m an expert at first dates, believe me. Total hero!’ He points at his own chest proudly, then raises an eyebrow. ‘And, I’m a man. I know exactly what men want.’

  The way he says ‘exactly’ makes something inside me shimmy. It’s weird. And sexy.

  ‘I will teach you my best seduction techniques.’ He grins. ‘Oh Rosie, Rosie, Rosie. You need me.’ He puts his hand over his heart. ‘You really need me.’

  ‘But you’re not my type!’

  ‘What do you mean, I’m not your type!’ He does the puppy dog eyes thing again. ‘You wound me with your harsh words. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. I’m not offering to be your date, I’m going to teach you how to get one. We pretend, what have you got to lose?’

  ‘Not actual, proper dates?’ I want to make sure. Whatever happens, I must not, I cannot date Noah. I know exactly how men like Noah can affect your life, however cute they are. Well, that’s the problem. They’re always cute. Or brooding, or magnificent, or sexy, or seductive in some other way.

  Or a combination of all of the above.

  ‘And you’d do this for me because?’

  ‘You need help.’

  I go to object, but I’m not sure why. Apart from not liking being described as in need of help. But he is right.

  ‘And your dad was a shit to say something like that.’

  I sigh. ‘He’s probably forgotten already, and I won’t be seeing him for ages.’ But it would be nice to show him that I can get a date, that I’m not going to be a lonely spinster.

  ‘And I want to help you, not shag you. Well I’m quite happy to shag you if you ask nicely,’ I glare at him, ‘but mainly I want to help.’ He holds his hands up. ‘I promise, no shagging, not even excess manhandling, or anything.’ He starts to get a bit flustered; I guess dating is new territory for me, and not-dating is confusing territory for him.

  We stare at each other. He puts his hands behind his back. ‘Look, no hands!’

  I giggle, I can’t keep a straight face. ‘You’re cute you know.’ I grin at him.

  ‘I know.’ His eyes are twinkling, seriously cute and hot.

  ‘And modest.’

  ‘Totally modest, it’s one of my strong points.’

  ‘I don’t even want to go near your weak points then.’

  He laughs. He is cute.

  ‘You’re quite cute yourself, Rosie Brown. But I think you need to get to bed, don’t you?’ My cheeks start to burn. He grins. ‘Alone.’

  I do. Alone. ‘Seriously,’ I say as I slide off my stool, this time on purpose, ‘it’s really kind of you to offer to help me, but I don’t think it would work.’

  ‘Seriously, I think it could.’ He pays the barman, waving away my attempts to split the bill. ‘Here. Think about it.’ He picks my mobile phone up from the bar, and taps in his number, then hands it back to me. ‘Hang on, I’ll walk you home.’

  ‘I’m fine, I …’

  ‘I’m walking that way.’

  ‘How do you know? You don’t know where I live!’

  ‘You said it took twenty minutes, in your ridiculous shoes, so it can’t be far.’

  I’m impressed he remembers what I said, in fact I’m impressed he was listening that closely.

  ‘I’ll follow you if you don’t let me walk with you. Which will totally creep you out!’

  ***

  He walks me home, stops on the doorstep and kisses my cheek. ‘Thank you for a nice evening, Rosie Brown.’

  ‘You’re welcome, Noah Adams. Thank you for a nice, a nice, er, not-date.’

  ‘It was actually more fun than a lot of my real dates.’ He wrinkles his nose. ‘Weird. Well you’ve got my number if you want a taster session!’

  ‘You won’t be upset if I don’t?’

  ‘I won’t.’ He kisses the tip of my nose. ‘But think about it, eh? Now, bugger off to bed before I forget my good intentions, Miss Temptress!’

  I stand and watch him go, the tips of my fingers resting on the spot he kissed. He doesn’t turn back, but I can’t help but grin. Taster session! Gawd, some men will call it anything!

  Chapter 3

  My head is all jumbled up with thoughts about the totally unsuitable, serial first dater, Noah, and my no-show not so perfect guy, Gabe. This means I can’t sleep.

  I have puffed up and thumped my pillows about. I have thrown my duvet off, then pulled it back on when I realise my shoulders are freezing. I have been to the loo several times. I have drunk about ten gallons of water, to try and avoid a hangover, and then been back to the bathroom several more times.

  I stare up at the ceiling and wonder if Noah’s tutorials would be all talk and no substance or involve total practical hands-on stuff. And what about practice? Would I get homework? Oh, hell no, what is my drunken brain doing to me? I do not need to go down this route.

  This has to stop.

  I kick the duvet off for the umpteenth time and text Bea. She’ll be asleep, but it will concentrate my mind on the fuckwit who didn’t turn up. Which is good.

  ‘He didn’t show! x’

  ‘Who? What? xx’

  Bea is not asleep.

  ‘My date x’

  I add an unhappy face.

  My phone starts ringing almost instantly. Bea is like that – I can rely on her, totally. She is like the big sister I never had. We are totally different in so many ways, but it works. ‘You had a date tonight!’ squeals Bea in my ear. In the still of the night she sounds even more high-pitched and deafening than she does normally – which is pretty loud anyway when she’s excited.

  ‘You knew I—’

  ‘You didn’t say it was tonight! Why didn’t you tell me, how could you not tell me? That’s mega! What did you wear?’

  ‘I didn’t tell you cos he wasn’t a proper date.’ I sigh, sit up and twiddle my hair round my finger, feeling a failure.

  ‘What do you mean, not proper? A man, a date, that’s proper!’

  ‘I found him on a dating app.’

  ‘Oh.’ There’s a pause. I hadn’t told her that bit. ‘That still counts as a proper date though, you noddle.’

  ‘Not when he doesn’t show.’ The disappointment of him, specifically Gabe, not turning up ebbed away a while ago, around the time Noah started to act the clown. But it still hurts, the being stood up bit. Especially saying it out loud to somebody.

  ‘Oh, Rosie. You should have called me,’ if she was here, she’d be hugging me, she’s good like that, ‘you could have come round rather than being on your own. Or I’d have come for a drink with you.’

  ‘Aww I know, Bea, but I didn’t want to bug you, and you were seeing Si.’ Si is her latest boyfriend, but I think his days are numbered.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind, you know I wouldn’t! I’m getting fed up of Si anyway. Did I tell you he’s trying to get me to go with him to watch Man U? I mean, Man U!’ His days are definitely numbered. ‘I put my City scarf on and staged a protest.’

  ‘Poor Si! I was fine though, honestly.’

  ‘I don’t like to think of you on your own. It’s the pits when some doofer doesn’t show. What a dickhead!’

  ‘I wasn’t exactly on my own. I got talking to this guy and …’

  She squeals again. ‘A guy!!’ I can hear her jumping about on the bed making herself more comfortable. ‘Tell!’

  If Bea had been there instead of me, it would have been a date. I can’t help but smile at her. ‘It wasn’t like that. He wasn’t my type.’

  ‘He doesn’t have to be your type, Rosie! He was a date!’ I decide not to correct her. ‘Was he fit? Cool? Funny? Or old, was he too old?’

  I grin. Bea is unstoppable. Sometimes I wish I was more like her, it must make some things so much ea
sier, but mainly I’m happy just being me. I think my life is less extreme, less highs and lows. I’m not sure my emotional state could cope with a Bea-type lifestyle. ‘He was fine; I suppose he was quite fit, and funny; you know, just a guy. We chatted, had a couple of drinks. It stopped me feeling sorry for myself.’ No way can I go into details, not until I have a clear head. ‘He was nice, and he walked me home.’

  ‘Walked you home!’

  I hold the phone away from my ear. ‘Tell me you kissed! You kissed, didn’t you!’

  ‘Bea!’

  ‘But you had a nice time? And he knows where you live. When are you seeing him again?’

  I try to stop laughing. ‘Oh Bea, no way would I date a guy like that. He was such a player, I could tell. He actually admitted he was a serial first dater!’

  ‘Maybe that’s what you need. You know, just some fun?’

  And to end up getting hurt. ‘No.’ I say it more firmly than I mean to, but I’ve seen what men like that can do, the hurt they can bring even as they’re saying they love you. The way they even convince themselves they can change, but they can’t. I’ve seen a man like that cause so much pain to a person I love – and not been able to do anything at all to make it right. A man like that is not for me. ‘Why is it so bloody difficult?’ I sigh. ‘It’s not like I’m asking for some wonder boy with a super yacht, Jag and French chateau to his name, is it?’

  ‘Would be nice though.’ Bea has a dreamy edge to her voice.

  ‘I’m not even after a totally ripped Richard Madden, Chris Hemsworth, Ryan Gosling, Jake Gyllenhaal mash-up, or a Matthew Goode charmer.’

  ‘It’s a good bloody job,’ says Bea. ‘Has anybody ever told you that you can be strange at times? Boy that is weird: Chris Hemsworth and Ryan Gosling in one package?’ I can tell I’m losing her; she’s distracted by the thought of all these hunks merged into one perfect man.

  ‘I’m not strange! I’ve thought about this a lot, it works if you’ve got the right bits from each one, honestly!’

  ‘Which bits of Ryan Gosling?’

  ‘The twinkly eyes, the cheeky bits! Look I’m not explaining, it’s my fantasy, make your own up! But the point is, I just want a normal guy.’