The Bad Boyfriends Bootcamp

by The Bad Boyfriends Bootcamp (retail) (epub)

  After hanging up the sparkling whites and making herself a cup of tea while the washing machine clanked away at her feet, Molly settled back down to her laptop screen.

  Strengths. Molly pursed her lips and narrowed one eye. After just a second she typed: Funny. Then: Tall. Then: Sweet (NYE & blanket); Clever; Cute; Funny. Realising her repetition, she backspaced through the last entry. Adding: Good job; Kind to friends; Listens.

  Molly nodded and pursed her lips closer together by another centimetre.

  Weaknesses. Molly scratched at the back of her neck. The unusually loud, clattering washing machine niggled at her peripheral hearing. God, hope it’s not broken, I’ll go back in the red repairing that bloody Zanussi.

  Weaknesses. Weaknesses. Weak. Nesses.

  Molly typed: Can be sarky. Can be a know-it-all. Always wears rugby shirts. Has issues with change in experiences with ex. Big feet. Sometimes lurks without saying much.

  Running a finger back and forth along one eyebrow, Molly thought there was another just waiting on the tip of her tongue. She tapped her fingers on the sofa cushion. She rubbed her slippered feet together. But she couldn’t drum it up. Feeling tetchy at herself but even tetchier with the clanking washing machine, Molly decided to distract herself by working out what was wrong with it. It certainly hadn’t been making this noise on the last load. And perhaps that clever brain thing – incubation – would happen while she was working on something else and Patrick’s last weaknesses would pop into her head. Perfect.

  She typed Patrick at the top of the document, saved it and left the laptop behind on her squidgy seat.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Not perfect.

  Molly sat in front of the washing machine, watching her house keys go round and round. And round. She must have left them in her back pocket after schlepping all her bags up the stairs when Rach dropped her off. Unluckily for Molly, she forgot they were there. Luckily for Molly, her Zanussi washing machine had a digital display that counted down the minutes until the cycle finished. 83 minutes. Not perfect. John was out at work; she’d completely forgotten where she’d hidden the spare key. Molly shrugged. Oh well, she was a prisoner of her own making for the next 83 minutes. 82. She’d just have to cross her fingers and hope that she didn’t have a major loo roll emergency. Or worse, get the major Crunchy munchies. It could be done. She might survive. 81. Just.

  Molly was inspecting her kitchen cupboard contents for emergency rations to see her through her hibernation, when the door buzzer went.

  ‘Did you bring any cream teas back with you?’ came a crackly, deep voice through the intercom.

  ‘Come up, Patrick.’ Molly rolled her eyes.

  Molly wedged the door open with an errant sandal and returned to flip on the kettle switch. ‘Tea or beer?’ she called out, loud enough for Patrick to hear as he loped up the stairs.

  ‘Bit early for beer, Miss Still On Holiday Time. Tea would be great, thanks.’ Patrick was suddenly there, filling the door frame. He was so very tall, Molly remembered, as if it had been two years rather than two weeks since she’d seen him. His abrupt appearance made her jolt and blush.

  ‘Oh, yes. Righty-ho, coming up.’ Molly clanked about with mugs and the sugar bowl.

  Patrick fiddled with a door hinge. ‘So, how was the holiday? It was group of you, right? John said you were going away with your mates, but some blokes too.’

  ‘Hmmm, yes, yes.’ Molly wondered if now was the best time to crack open the truth about the bootcamp. But something held her back. She just wasn’t sure whether Patrick would laugh her down about it. Another time. In a bit. ‘It was great, just the long weekend, loads going on.’

  ‘Any … gossip?’ Patrick asked, still looking closely at the door hinge for God knows what reason.

  ‘No – oh, wait, yes! Yes, BIG gossip!’

  ‘What?’ Patrick’s eyes were sharply on Molly’s.

  ‘Kurt has a secret girlfriend. You know Kurt, right?’

  Patrick’s shoulders dropped just a fraction as he let out a gravelly breath. ‘Yeah, nice guy.’

  ‘Well, he’s going out with my friend Josie, but I didn’t know … and my friend Rachel also has a secret boyfriend. But, that’s probably not really gossip in your terms.’ Molly’s cringing smile was reflected back by Patrick as he nodded.

  ‘Sort of. Anyway …’ Patrick rubbed his hands together.

  ‘Anyway …’ Molly noted the awkward silence between them with surprise. It was usually so easy to hang out with Patrick, but he was jittery and spaced out all at the same time. Huh. ‘Big P, stop lurking there and go and sit down, will you? I’ll bring the tea in, and maybe even find you a tea cake to nibble on.’

  ‘Right. OK.’ Turning on his heel, Patrick slowly wandered away.

  Nibble on? Molly chided herself for suddenly sounding like Aunt Melinda holding a family Sunday tea. She felt twitchy all of a sudden, but couldn’t put her finger on why.

  ‘So, what’s new with you then?’ she called down the hall as she sniffed the milk.

  ‘Not much. Just got back from this training thing. Thought I might drop round here actually, and … um, well, Molly, I wanted to ask you … You know we went out to the tea place? I had been planning to ask, but didn’t … well, to ask you out, I suppose.’

  Molly’s whole body tensed like a startled meerkat. They had talked about his crush on Iris at the speed dating. Hadn’t they? Something in Molly fluttered and then sunk. It was a deeply odd feeling, and completely out of the blue. She shook her shoulders, hoping to throw the weird sensation off.

  ‘So if you were free, say tomorrow, to go out. With m—’

  But Patrick’s words just stopped. Like someone had sat on his mute button while reaching for the Doritos.

  Molly walked into the living room with her head cocked to one side in confusion and two steaming mugs in her hands.

  ‘What. Is. This?’ Patrick spoke with the cold detachment of someone who has just cut off a finger and in total shock is eerily calm. But he wasn’t looking at a lost digit. He was looking at Molly’s laptop, beaming out from the sofa cushion beside him. ‘Why does this have my name on it?’ He levelled a hard glare at Molly.

  ‘Oh. Hahahaha. You’re not supposed to see that yet. I was going to explain everything after tea. You see, I helped Sam get a girlfriend, and then I helped John, too. And now I’m helping loads of others. So, I thought … ‘ Molly realised she was babbling with all the pointless speed and energy of a hamster in a wheel. She felt like she’d been caught red-handed – but that was just wrong, surely? She hadn’t done a thing wrong. Right?

  ‘What did you think?’ Hard eyes turned to the laptop screen, flicking up and down its lists with a steady beat.

  ‘I was going to help you … find a girlfriend,’ Molly answered lamely.

  ‘By telling me that my feet are too big and that I’m sarky and that I lurk?’ On any other day, with anyone else, Molly would have laughed at this. But she couldn’t. Patrick shot out his words like bullets. ‘I told you that stuff about Hayley in private but you’ve, you’ve—’

  Molly could feel heat building from her breastbone to just below her ears. ‘No – wait. Part of the process is SWOT analysis, you see. I recognise strengths and weaknesses in each cadet, then we work on those to make them better boyfriend material.’ Though Molly wanted there to be more oomph to her words, more courage in her convictions, her speech instead just eeked out between her nervous lips. Lips which were getting drier by the second.

  ‘Cadet? Material? Molly, what are you talking about? You can’t treat people like investments, you can’t assess their assets, you can’t sum someone up on a spreadsheet! I mean, honestly, Molly, how dare you!’

  It wasn’t a question asked with Dynasty-style theatrics, or raging anger, or pompous arrogance. It was one friend, looking at another, asking them what kind of madness was going on right in front of them. Molly couldn’t see anger in Patrick’s eyes at all, just a sort of hollow dullness, as
if he was too flabbergasted to really take anything in.

  ‘I … I wanted … I’m sorry – it’s a business. And it’s working, really. So many guys want to know what’s wrong with them. Well, you know, where they’re going wrong.’ Molly put down the tea but then found her hands hanging uselessly at her sides. Why wasn’t she pitching this better? Molly was the queen of pitches! She was going downhill quicker than a glass hammer inventor on Dragon’s Den.

  Slowly shaking his head, Patrick looked down at his feet. ‘You’re making money out of this? Out of people’s problems? And you thought I was a sad enough case that I needed to be one of your lab rats. Well, I suppose that answers the question I came here with. Great. Fine.’ Without one more glance at Molly, Patrick silently left the flat.

  Molly must have stood on the spot for only twenty-three seconds at most, but during that stock-still moment a lot of things became clear. Firstly, Patrick thinking badly of her was very very wrong. It felt wrong behind her ribs. Secondly, she would do anything to make him change his mind. Thirdly, this wasn’t about a Sam replacement. Patrick was different; different to everyone.

  You silly arse! Molly chided herself. She screwed up her eyes. Here’s an amazing guy, so funny – and beautifully tall – and you could only find five faults to him. And that was scraping the barrel. He can’t help the size of his feet! Well, what the badger are you doing just standing there? Go after him!

  Without further ado, Molly was bolting to the door, closed just thirty seconds before. ‘Wait!’ she shouted down the stairs. ‘Patrick, wait!’ His dark head disappeared through the front door downstairs. As she lurched forward to take the steps two at a time, a gravitational force of sensible thinking pulled her back. Her keys. Her keys were still on a hot wash. Oh, bollocks.

  Molly dashed to the window, to fruitlessly watch Patrick stalk down the street and get in his car, never once looking up at the window where she was silently beating the glass with her fists. Dustin Hoffman, take note. This was anguish. This was a look of loss behind slightly-grubby window panes. But this was really happening.

  * * *

  Patrick wouldn’t take her calls. He didn’t acknowledge her texts. Or her IMs. Or her Facebook pokes. Or her perfectly composed Tweets. Molly was tempted to even invent her own social networking site just to lure him in and pounce with a surprise communication. Nothing was working and it was all Molly could think about. Even as she browsed the newsagent’s shelves for the perfect chocolate bar to pull her out of her fug, the only thing she could see was that bloody Excel list. She could feel the keys under her fingers as she’d typed each letter, instead of the Lion bar that she now clutched as she crossed the road. She saw Patrick in Arial font as she reached her front door, instead of the brass 22 that was screwed into the red paint. And over and over, she berated herself for being so cocky, so headstrong, that she blithely started working someone over when they hadn’t even asked for help. Patrick was about to ask for something very different, and she had stuffed it all up. Molly’s Lion bar felt dry and scratchy against the roof of her mouth as she chewed it down with a cup of tea back in the flat. Stupid Mollypops, she chastised herself, you can’t even get the right snack. Her confidence was at an all-time low.

  Deciding that there was no way she could get through to Patrick for now, and that, crucially, she wasn’t sure her pride could take one more ignored missive, she turned her attention to someone who did want her involvement. Here was another situation where she’d put her foot in it; but at least this time, that particular clumsy foot wasn’t in lethal quick sand. Molly could pull it out and make amends. She had to.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  John brushed a leafy branch out of his face, scraping his cheek as he did so. ‘This is the most ridiculous thing, I have ever … Mols, if this doesn’t work, I will – I will go to Claims Direct!’ He pulled anxiously at his red nylon vest top and scratched his freshly-gelled hair.

  ‘Shhh!’ Molly turned around from her crouched position behind a rather spiky bush and held up a finger to her lips. John was partially hidden behind a shrub of his own, a metre behind. ‘Trust in the process, dude!’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘This has all been planned to the last romantic detail. It will be the performance of a lifetime, John: your kids and your grandkids will hear this story. Don’t’ – she narrowed her eyes at him with a serious expression – ‘let them down now. Right?’

  John nodded with all the solemn gravity (and doubt) of a bungee jumper with a dodgy rope. He puffed his cheeks out with a deep breath and blew it out in a short blast. ‘OK. Bring it.’

  Molly turned back to her careful watch of the park through the thicket of bush leaves in front of her vision. She was waiting for a signal from Josie, running her weekly female military fitness session. Three short blasts on the whistle, then ‘Cool down, weasels!’ and it was time for John to shine.

  ‘So, how about if I leave the song out and get straight to the speech?’

  ‘No! Just as we planned. You need the whole shebang to really show you’d do anyth—oh, wait,’ Molly tried to prick up her ears, but found it really was just an expression, ‘yes, I just heard “weasels”! Go, go, go!’ Wrenching John forward through the bush with a rough pull on the arm, Molly beamed her best encouraging smile at him. He surged forward and bundled his way through the branches. ‘Wait!’ Molly shouted, ‘Your basketball!’ She picked up the firm orange ball and threw it into John’s hands. He set his shoulders as if to set his resolve and ran out into the middle of the field, where Josie’s all-female group were in the middle of some much-needed stretches.

  Melissa was in a clutch of red-faced women off to the right, reaching down to touch her toes and gulping in big lungfuls of precious air like a hooked fish.

  Somewhere behind a bush, Molly hit ‘Play’ on her now-ancient portable CD player and the tinny opening chords of a lively, jumpy pop tune blasted out. Twenty or so red, sweaty faces looked her way and saw John jogging enthusiastically towards them.

  ‘Oh god,’ Melissa breathed.

  John was dressed in a pair of shiny scarlet basketball shorts, a matching vest with the number 14 in big white figures under WILDCATS spelt out in an arch and had his hair gelled up in a spiky manner he had last attempted on GCSE results night, 1997. It was like Zac Efron had suddenly arrived in East Dulwich. With a few extra pounds, some stubble and an increasingly nervous grin.

  A few of the fitness group mirrored John’s nervousness in badly stifled giggles as he ambled quickly towards them. He cleared his throat. ‘Liss, this is for you. Ahem.’ Wincing a little, he waited for an agonising second and then started to sing along with her favourite High School Musical number, joining in just in time to catch the first verse. As he stumbled over lines about flying and touching stars, he suddenly uncovered a pocket of confidence, and forced his voice out a few dials louder. When that sounded quite good, he started to throw the ball about a bit, even attempting a few dribbles, and his smile became real, rather than forced. He was actually starting to embrace the madness of this madcap romantic gesture. John was enjoying himself, and it seemed Melissa was too.

  She had stumbled to the front of the group, hurriedly wiping the sweat from her forehead and cheeks and pulling down the stretchy Nike top that had ridden up during the star jumps. ‘John?’ she said in wonder, as he began to jump from side to side, singing with gusto, dredging up some boyband moves he’d seen on T4 last weekend. He even put his arms out like an aeroplane for the bit of the song that went on and on about soaring, and pointed right at Melissa during the extra slushy bits. She gasped in delight.

  Molly considered three verses to be enough for public humiliation to tip into major flattery and slowly turned the volume down in a low-rent fade out. John looked almost disappointed to not be able to do another aeroplane circle on the grass but put his ball down and stepped forward to take Liss’s hands in his.

  ‘Melissa Brown, you can’t leave me again. You just can’t. Without you, my heart stops beating, I
forget my own phone number and beer loses its taste. You put the spring in my step; you put the half time in my game; you put the caramel in my Twix. I need you, I love you, I want to spend the rest of my life deserving you, hence this Zac-themed serenading right here, right now, in front of all these sweaty ladies. No offense, ladies.’ A few heads were shook in his direction. Admittedly, they were sweaty. ‘If you don’t take me back today, then I’ll turn up next week. With a song from the High School Musical 2 soundtrack. I’ll video myself and post it on YouTube and Facebook and whatever. There’s plenty more where this came from, and I’m feeling pretty good in these nylon shorts, actually. Whatever it takes, I want you back. For good. Speaking of which, I could turn to Take That hits if I run out of High School Musical ones, just so you know. I could go on like this for months. Whatever it takes to make you see that I can’t do without you.’

  At the end of his speech, John looked hopefully into Melissa’s still-red face, but he sincerely wanted it to be a good blush that was keeping her flushed, rather than just aerobic extremes. Even shiny and perspiring, she was still the most beautiful woman he had ever and would ever lay eyes on.

  ‘Please,’ he said quietly. ‘Just … please.’

  Melissa looked down at her hand held firmly in his. She looked up into his eyes as they creased under pressure. She swallowed.