The Wish List: Escape with the most hilarious and feel-good read of 2020!
Page 36
My phone lit up on the table. A message from Jess.
‘Sorry,’ I said, sliding it into my bag, feeling quite grateful that the screen hadn’t flashed up again with ‘Mum calling’.
Max shook his head. ‘No problem.’
‘Just a mate checking up on me,’ I said, rolling my eyes at him.
‘That you’re not on a date with a crazy?’ he teased. His tanned forehead had lines running across it and smaller lines at the corners of his eyes which crinkled when he smiled. A modern-day Robinson Crusoe who’d clearly spent more time outside than cooped up in an office.
‘Something like that.’
He nodded and ran a hand through his hair. Then he grimaced at me. ‘I’m sorry. First dates are awkward, aren’t they?’
I grinned sheepishly. ‘I thought it was just me. But… yeah, they are. You do many of them?’ Then I cursed myself for letting that slip out. I didn’t want to sound like I was trying to suss his intentions so early.
He shrugged, unfazed. ‘Not millions. I’m away a lot. Don’t do much dating in the mountains. You?’
I shook my head. ‘Nope. Not a huge… dater.’ I could feel the vodka loosening my hang-ups. ‘This is my first date since a break-up, actually, so I may… er… I may be a bit rusty.’
I looked down, fingers encircling my sweating glass on the table during the awkward silence that followed. It was dumb to mention Jake, so I wondered how long it would take me to get to Jess’s from the pub. If I jumped on the Tube to Hammersmith I could probably be there in forty minutes. Buy a bottle of wine from Nisa on the walk to the house, order a Deliveroo. Perfect. It wouldn’t be a wasted night. And I could take this bra off and let my breasts settle back down at their usual altitude.
I looked up again at Max across the table, his mouth in a lopsided smile.
‘What?’ I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.
‘Then we’re in the same boat, you and me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I broke up with someone not very long ago.’ His smile fell and he looked suddenly serious. ‘Although, to be fair, it was more a mutual decision in the end.’
‘Ohhhhh,’ I said slowly. ‘Brutal, huh?’
He shrugged. ‘All part of life’s rich tapestry.’
‘Why d’you break up?’
He shrugged again. ‘I wasn’t around much. She wanted to settle down. Get married, children, that sort of thing.’
‘And you… didn’t?’ I said it carefully. Again, I didn’t want him to think I was trying to work out his potential as a baby-daddy. For him to think I was on some sort of husband-hunt myself.
‘No. Well, not no. Just… not yet. Things to do. Places to see.’
‘Mountains to climb?’
‘Something like that,’ he said, smiling and leaning towards me. ‘What about you?’
I frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, if we’re having a joint Jeremy Kyle session, how come you broke up?’
‘Oh.’ I grimaced at him. ‘We’d been going out for eight years. Living together. I thought it was going one way, he… didn’t. So that was that.’
I picked up my glass and was raising it to my mouth when Max laughed.
‘What?’ I said, defensively. I still found it hard to articulate my feelings about the break-up. I went over it in my head all the time. Over and over again. Over things I could have done differently. Over moments that I realized should have given me a clue. Over Jake’s increasing reluctance to hang out with my friends. Over his late nights in the office. But I felt like even Jess had heard enough now so I kept quiet about it unless prompted.
Max shook his head and waved a hand at my expression. ‘I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at us. Sitting here, nursing our drinks like we’re at a wake. Come on, let’s have another drink and cheer up.’
I laughed back. ‘OK, but my round.’
Max shook his head again as he stood up. ‘No. Absolutely not. Same again?’
‘Yep, please.’
‘Grand. And when I get back, no more talk about break-ups. This is supposed to be a date, not a counselling session. Deal?’
‘Deal.’
I watched him push his way back to the bar and touched my right cheek with the back of my fingers. It was warm. We were one drink in, the point at which I’d envisaged one of us making excuses – ‘Good to meet you,’ awkward kiss goodbye, never message one another again – but I didn’t want to escape to Jess’s house. I wanted to stay here talking to Max. Initial awkwardness over, I could sense that I liked him. Sitting here, chatting, I could feel a spark of excitement at exploring someone new, at finding out all those first things about someone. I hadn’t felt that for a long time. Years, if I was honest. The excitement of finding out about one another dissipated early with Jake and lapsed into something more comfortable. This Saturday night already felt more exciting than most of our relationship. Or maybe that was the vodka.
‘I took the liberty of buying some crisps,’ Max said, returning to the table a few minutes later with a drink in each hand and two packets in the crook of his arm. ‘And also, here’s a menu.’ He put the drinks down, dropped the crisps (one ready salted, one salt and vinegar – promising taste in crisps), pulled two menus out from underneath his elbow and handed me one. ‘You hungry?’
I’d been too nervous to eat much all day. Too adrenalin-y at the thought of the date. Plus there was my dodgy stomach issue. All of which probably accounted for why I felt a bit pissed already.
‘Yep,’ I replied.
‘Great,’ he said, sitting down. ‘Me too. Although I warn you, I’m greedy. It’s all freeze-dried food on expeditions. So if I’m out, I go a bit mad.’
With hindsight, the second bottle of wine was probably what did it. We’d ordered food – actual steak for him, tuna steak for me, then shared cheese – and stayed at the pub until closing. One bottle of red wine, then another. Conversation had meandered more easily from travels to where we grew up. When I told him about being raised by two eccentric academics in Norfolk, he laughed.
‘No way!’ he said, grinning at me. ‘Mine live just over the border in Suffolk. I’ll drive up and we can go for a walk along the beach.’
‘Which beach?’ I asked, trying to stay outwardly cool while all my internal organs were cheering. A walk on the beach meant there had to be at least one more date. I envisaged us strolling along Brancaster, my hair blowing in the wind in a manner which left me looking tousled and sexy rather than a woman who’d recently escaped the local asylum. Perhaps we’d hold hands. Perhaps we’d have sex in the sand dunes! Calm down, Lil, I told myself, this is a hypothetical situation.
‘I don’t know the beaches of Norfolk,’ went on Max, doing his lopsided smile again. ‘You’ll have to show me.’
My stomach flipped so hard this time I was nearly sick on the table, but I managed to claw it back. ‘Sure,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘Do you go home much then?’
Max puffed out his cheeks as he exhaled. ‘Not as much as I’d like, but then I’m away a lot. You?’
I nodded. ‘Yeah, quite a bit. It’s home. And I went back for a while after, er, the break-up and everything.’
Max took one of my hands from my lap in his and shook his head, looking at me with a mock-serious expression. ‘Nope, I told you, no exes. We’re having a good time. Let’s not ruin it.’
‘OK, deal,’ I said, feeling his fingers curled over mine, hoping that my palms didn’t start sweating again.
And it was nice. More than nice. It was wonderful, actually, sitting, gently flirting with one another. It was the kind of date you never wanted to end, and I tried to bottle every minute in my head (after the first half hour was over), so I could go over it again and again the next day. To luxuriate in the pleasure at having met someone who made me feel this giddy. I’d always inwardly cursed any of my girlfriends when they talked excitedly about meeting someone new and having ‘a spark’. I often wanted to suggest
they save it for a soppy card and not subject the rest of us to their Hallmark ideas of romance. But there was… something here. I felt it.
‘Can I kiss you?’ Max said, shortly afterwards, having shifted closer to me when the waitress took our plates away. I nodded, even though I was worried that I had red wine teeth and a tongue that tasted of cheese. He gently reached out and put his hand behind my head, pulling me to him. His beard tickled my chin. It was softer than I’d expected. And you know that kiss in The Notebook? On that boat jetty in the rain? In my head, the kiss with Max looked a bit like The Notebook kiss. A proper, steamy, full-on-the-mouth snog. In reality, it probably looked a good deal less romantic, given all the vodka and wine. But I didn’t care. Look at me! I was out on a Saturday night kissing a man like a normal person instead of crying on my sofa! I pulled back after a few moments, though, aware that we were in a public space and people might be trying to enjoy their dinner around us.
‘You want to get out of here?’ he said, his hand still on the back of my head.
‘Sure. To where?’
‘My place?’
I didn’t hesitate, even though this was a man I’d known for less than five hours. I just had a sense that it would be all right. Murderers have eyes that are too close together and matted hair. Or no hair. Max had thick hair that I wanted to run my hands through, and a collared shirt. Murderers didn’t wear collared shirts.
‘Cool,’ I replied.
As we stood on the pavement outside the pub minutes later, I felt less confident, as if I was about to lose my virginity again. I could just about remember which bit went where. But what if Max was into something weird? What if he wanted me to talk dirty? I couldn’t do that first time. I didn’t even know his surname. Or, what if he wanted me to put my finger in his bottom? I wasn’t into that.
‘Lil?’ Max was standing by a black cab, holding the door open for me.
‘Oh great, sorry, was just… thinking,’ I said, jumping in the taxi.
‘Hampstead, please,’ Max said to the driver. ‘East Heath Road.’
The cabbie pulled out and I fell back against the seat as Max put a hand on my leg. It made my stomach flip again. I don’t want to say ‘I felt something inside me stir,’ because that would be embarrassing. But I did feel something I hadn’t for several months, or longer, if I was honest with myself, as happiness unfurled itself underneath my ribcage. I put my hand over Max’s and gently ran my fingers over it. Then he drew me in for another kiss, more urgent than the last, his mouth pressing hard against mine as he ran his hand up my thigh.
‘I’m glad I messaged you,’ he said, pulling back, but remaining inches from my face.
‘Me too,’ I said back. I nearly added ‘Just please don’t murder me,’ but I decided it would kill the vibe.
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