by Jo Watson
“I’ve got to go, Mum,” I say into the phone. Even though I haven’t. Even though the only thing that awaits me is a chat with Zara about last night.
Since I still hold her partially responsible for engineering the date in the first place, it’s not a conversation I want to have.
It’s Sunday, so I assume Zara will either be eating breakfast in front of the telly, or hunched over her laptop.
When I step into the living room and find it empty with no TV on, my eyes automatically scan the usual places for a note.
And there isn’t one on the fridge, mantelpiece, coffee table or breakfast bar.
But then there she is. I can see her through the window, standing at the bottom of the steps leading up to our building, chatting animatedly with Gary from upstairs. Her hair is tamed into a ponytail, and she’s wearing a pink vest and matching jacket with black tracksuit bottoms. That’s when I notice that he too is dressed in sportswear.
I study the two of them, taking in the sweat patches on Gary’s grey T-shirt, the pristine white trainers on Zara’s feet (a footwear option I didn’t even know she owned).
How did I not know that they’d become running partners? And who even goes out running in the middle of winter?
A couple of minutes later, Zara returns to the flat, almost jumping right back out the door when she sees me waiting for her with my foot tapping.
“I didn’t think you’d be up.” She drops her water bottle on the table and glances at the clock, which tells her it’s barely half past eight.
“Obviously. Or you would have told me about that, wouldn’t you?”
“About what?”
“You and Gary. Running buddies, huh?”
“No.” She kicks off her trainers. “I bumped into him and thought I’d ask about which type of axe he prefers to use on his victims.”
“Very funny.” I fold my arms across my chest. “What’s really going on, then?”
“Nothing’s going on. Can’t two people enjoy running together?”
I shoot her a sideways look. “Is that where you’ve been disappearing to recently?”
She rolls her eyes at me, muttering, “I didn’t know I lived with Miss Marple.”
“So it’s a coincidence that you’ve suddenly taken up the same hobby as our upstairs neighbour, is it?”
Zara shrugs before heading off to her bedroom. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to keep fit.”
From anybody else, that excuse might have been convincing. From my cupcake-loving flatmate, I think I can safely disregard it.
At least I managed to avoid any reference to Tim and last night’s date.
* * *
I can’t face telling the girls at work about my disastrous date, especially after bumping into Helen under such humiliating circumstances.
But I’m not expecting the interrogation she gives me as soon as I’m settled at my desk.
“How come you ran off the other night? You never said who you were meeting,” she greets me.
I sigh. “Morning to you, too, Helen.”
“You were meeting somebody?” Scarlett joins in. “Like a date?”
“No,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Who was it?” Helen continues.
“Was it Liam?” asks Scarlett.
“Liam?” I almost choke on my words. “Why would I have been meeting Liam?”
Scarlett shrugs. “He was asking me about you. I think he likes you.”
I snort. “I highly doubt that, considering what he said when you tried to set us up.”
“He wanted to know if you were seeing anybody.”
I stare back at her. “Why would he start asking questions like that when it’s obvious he has no interest in me whatsoever?”
“Because he’s a man,” Helen offers. “Trust me, I’ve met enough of them. Nothing they do makes sense.”
Scarlett turns back to her computer without saying another word.
Why do I get the feeling that she knows more about this than she’s letting on? And why would she hold back information?
My stomach lurches at the thought of it being anything to do with her still undetermined baby daddy.
I finally get some answers after Scarlett makes a not-so-subtle suggestion that we both stay in the office for lunch.
With Helen and Nora gone, she feels comfortable enough to share the secret with me.
“I have a proposal to make,” she says.
“Oh?” I take a bite of my sandwich.
She looks down at her belly, hidden beneath a slouchy black jumper. “I’ll tell you who the father is. Providing you ask Liam out.”
“What?” I almost choke on my Lucozade. “Are you crazy? He’s as much as said that he isn’t interested, so I don’t know why you think—”
“He likes you,” she interrupts.
“Scarlett.” I fix her with a hard stare. “If he wanted you to set us up, he would have let you.”
“Give him a chance. You two got off on the wrong foot.”
“I’m not going to ask him out.” I shake my head.
Scarlett pouts. “Why not?”
“It’s bloody obvious why not! Do you think I want to embarrass myself?”
“Well, the offer’s there.”
“Are you really not going to tell me until I go out with him?”
She shakes her head. “Nope.”
I suppose such an offer changes my theory that Liam’s the father. Why would she be trying so hard to push me onto Liam if she had any romantic involvement with him?
My focus now is on how close I am to finishing the confidence guide and, although the final point sounds rather generic, doing something that scares me every day—one that I should probably have been putting into practice from the onset—it’s the penultimate point that terrifies me.
How am I going to ask someone out on a date if they’re “way out of my league”? Isn’t that the whole point of leagues of attractiveness in the first place?
“I haven’t told anyone else about the baby yet,” Scarlett says after a while.
I glance at her. “Not even the father?”
“Not even him.”
“Are you going to tell him?”
“I guess I’ll have to.”
“You’re going to keep it, then?”
I watch as she looks down at her still-flat stomach beneath her jumper again. “I…I guess I don’t know.”
“You should.”
“Should I? Me? I’m not really the mothering type, am I?”
I laugh. “What about daddy? Reckon he’ll be any good at fatherly duties?”
“Oh, I see. You think I’m stupid enough to tell you who he is.”
“I don’t think you’re stupid, Scar.”
“Yes, you do. Stupid enough to get myself into this mess, anyway. But I might as well get some fun out of it.” She studies me for a second. “Ask Liam out.”
I close my eyes and fill my head with a vision. A stupid one, of me in a simple white satin dress, à la Pippa Middleton. Michael Bublé’s version of “Crazy Love” plays softly in the background as I glide towards the altar. (All brides glide, don’t they?)
Oh, God. I’m losing it.
I need a giant chocolate cupcake. And maybe a double vodka.
And most of all, I need Liam Wiseman to get out of my head.
Chapter Seventeen
I do not like Liam Wiseman.
There. I’ve said it.
And I even referred to him by his actual name.
I’ve decided that my dislike for Liam is such that I don’t see the point in talking to him ever again.
I probably won’t even think about him or his resemblance to a certain Canadian singer.
I’m not saying it’ll be easy, but we managed to go eight months without speaking to each other. Except maybe that time when he almost ran me down in his BMW and shouted some vague apology out the window.
It would be a lot easier if he stopped finding reasons to c
ome to the HR office, though.
Just because I jammed the photocopier again does not mean we need some IT expert to come and fix it. Personally, I don’t see what’s wrong with walking swiftly away and pretending I haven’t been anywhere near it.
That’s always been my method.
But not today. Today, Nora insists on the IT department sending somebody down to take a look at it when she discovers the copier is mysteriously jammed with incorrectly loaded paper.
Of course, it’s Liam who arrives to play office hero.
“Why don’t you talk to him, Meg?” Scarlett suggests.
I glance at Helen, who doesn’t know that Scarlett is withholding information about her unborn child’s father until I give in and ask Liam out.
Oh, God. Put like that, the whole idea sounds completely bonkers.
“No.” I shoot Scarlett’s a firm stare that she will most likely ignore.
But it’s Helen who intervenes, calling him over.
“Problem, Helen?” he asks when he reaches her desk.
“Not me.” She spins around in her chair and points towards my desk. “I think Megan requires your assistance.”
He turns to look at me with his eyebrows raised. “Megan?”
Why would Helen do this to me? What do I say now?
I look around the office, at the irritating smirk on Helen’s face, at the clock above the door, at Nora kneeling down in front of her filing cabinet, oblivious to all these goings on.
“I…erm…”
“It’s your email account, isn’t it?” Scarlett nods encouragingly.
“Yes.” I nod, forcing myself to think clearly. “My email account.”
Liam frowns and walks over to my desk. “What trouble are you having with it?”
“Well, it just isn’t…emailing,” I say, then instantly wish I hadn’t.
“You mean it isn’t sending your messages?” He leans across me and clicks on the icon. He’s so close that his expensive-smelling aftershave surrounds me and I can see the dark scattering of stubble grazing his jaw line.
My company email account loads the way it always does and shows the messages currently sitting in my inbox.
There’s my daily horoscope and a selection of offers from Matalan mixed in with my mundane work-related emails.
I know Liam has seen them. I can see the amused smile on his face as he clicks the button to compose a new message.
He types something so fast I don’t have a chance to read it before he’s hit the send button.
Ten seconds later, Scarlett’s computer pings to signify incoming mail.
“Looks like it works,” Liam remarks.
“Oh.” I scratch my neck. “Weird.”
He shakes his head and returns to fixing the photocopier at the back of the office.
“What did you do that for?” I hiss the second he’s out of earshot.
“You needed a gentle push,” says Helen.
“Well, I don’t think it helped. I’m sure he thinks I’m an even bigger idiot now.”
“No, he doesn’t.” Scarlett’s eyes are gleaming. “At least, not according to the email he just sent me from your account.”
I spin my chair around. “What does it say?”
“It says he likes you and you should ask him out.”
I find my sent messages folder and quickly read Liam’s short message.
Well, it sort of says that.
It says that in an oh-so-arrogant Liam Wiseman sort of way.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
RE: Test
When is Megan going to admit she fancies me and just ask me out? ;)
But I’m smiling. Oh, my God, I’m grinning like an absolute idiot.
I cup my hand over my mouth to hide it.
This does not make sense. Why would Liam have snapped at me about Charlotte if he was interested in me? And why didn’t he want Scarlett to set us up?
“So,” Helen prompts, “are you going to?”
I tear my eyes from the screen, from reading the fifteen words over and over. “Am I going to what?”
“Ask him out! You like him, don’t you?”
I fiddle with a loose thread on my jacket. “I don’t know. I can’t just go up to him and ask him to come for a drink with me. Isn’t that the man’s job?”
“That’s such an old-fashioned view!” Scarlett shrieks. “Of course you can ask him.”
I glance over at him in the little copier room, glad that he can’t hear us.
But he must know we’re talking about him. That’s probably what he was counting on when he typed that message.
“I don’t think I can do it.” I turn back to my colleagues. “At least, I can’t do it sober.”
“That’s not a problem,” says Scarlett. “I’ll send out an email now about going for office drinks tonight. It’ll be less intimidating in a group.”
“Tonight?” I look down at my quilted skirt and thick winter tights. “Come on, Scar. I hardly think I’m dressed for—”
“No arguments,” she interrupts me. “And remember what I said.” She places a hand to her stomach.
Of course. Our stupid little agreement.
Okay. Everything is going to be okay.
He probably won’t even come.
* * *
We’re in a pub near the office. I don’t even know the name of it, but Scarlett seems to know the young barman quite well, and she assures me he makes fabulous cocktails.
She orders two purple drinks in tall glasses and hands me both before getting a non-alcoholic beverage for herself. “Somebody needs to have my drinks for me,” she says with a helpless shrug.
“Does anyone know yet?” I scan the small group of people from work. “I mean, apart from Helen.”
She shakes her head and points out an empty table at the back of the pub. I follow her and sit down in the seat facing the door.
Helen had apparently already double booked Brad from the gym and Alistair, the gym’s personal trainer for tonight and couldn’t possibly fit a third date into her hectic social life, so it’s just the two of us from our department.
“Nobody from IT is here yet,” Scarlett says as I watch a group from accounts walk in.
“I wasn’t looking for him.” I pick up one of my drinks.
“You should probably drink that quicker.” She nods at the cocktail glass in my hand.
I stare at the purple liquid before downing the whole thing. “That’s got a kick to it.” I replace the empty glass on the table. “What is it?”
“I’m not sure. It’s one of Scott’s own creations.” She turns to stare at the barman.
“Oh!” I notice the way her eyes are set upon him. “It’s him.”
“Where?” She looks towards the door.
“No, not Liam. I mean Scott. He’s the father, isn’t he?”
“I wish he was.” She sighs and takes a sip of her vodka-free screwdriver.
“Are you going to tell me who is?”
“Drink that other cocktail,” she orders. “You haven’t done your end of the deal yet.”
Two hours and several cocktails later, my drunken self decides it’s time to satisfy my side of the bargain.
Liam is chatting with one of his boring colleagues by the bar. I march over to him, clutching a drink in my hand.
“So do you really like me?” I ask, ignoring whatever conversation the two men were having. “Because there are better ways of showing it.”
His friend takes the hint and slips off to bore somebody else.
“How many of those have you had?” Liam nods at whichever of Scott’s creations I’m holding.
“That’s irrelevant.” My fingers tighten around the glass.
“Is it? He smiles. You’re always this confrontational, are you?”
There’s no point in lying. My alcohol-absorbed brain won’t be able to think of anything that quick, anyway. “No. But that doesn’t me
an you can ignore my question.”
His smile widens. “You’re a nice girl, Megan.”
“A nice girl?” I snort. “Nobody wants to be a nice girl.”
“Some do. Probably the bad ones.”
“Know a lot of bad girls, do you?”
“Not many.” He takes a drink from his pint, then adds, “Not my type.”
“So what is?”
He smiles again, his dark eyes sparkling. “I like nice girls.”
“Like Charlotte?”
“Charlotte?” He looks to the other side of the room, where she is probably watching our exchange with her buddies from reception. “What gives you that idea?”
“That morning when I walked in to work with you.”
A look of recognition crosses his face. “Right. Well, I’m sorry about that.”
“But then you keep turning up everywhere at work, sending flirty emails and acting like you’re interested in me.” I take a final gulp of my drink for the extra courage and place the empty glass on the bar.
Then I decide that I can’t keep this going without another drink, so I lean over the bar and call Scott over.
“Think that’s wise?” Liam watches Scott measure out the alcohol.
Ignoring him, I pay for my cocktail, down half of it, then say, “So when you told me you weren’t playing Scarlett’s matchmaking game, I was supposed to take that to mean something else, was I?”
He sighs, resting his elbows against the bar. “No.”
“Is that it, then? You haven’t even got some excuse?”
“Would you listen if I had?”
I shrug. I had been expecting him to spout some crap about how he didn’t mean what he said. Then I could stand here, maybe fighting back a yawn and pretending to be really bored.
“You know what Scarlett’s like,” he says.
“So do you,” I retort.
If he has picked up on the bitter edge to my words, he ignores it. “She wouldn’t shut up about how great you are. And I thought you’d asked her to say all that stuff about what flowers you like.”
“But I hadn’t.”
“I know.” He turns his smooth brown eyes on me. “I know that now.”
“It was all Scarlett. I never even told her I was interested in you. I never said I wanted to go out with you.”
“Ouch.” He presses the palm of his hand to his chest. “So you don’t want to ask me out?”