Thank You, Next: A perfect, uplifting and funny romantic comedy

by Sophie Ranald

  ‘Glad you like it. I thought, if I was going to stay here for a bit, I should probably contribute a bit more than just a warm body in your bed.’

  I pressed myself against him, feeling his strong arms around me, his chin resting on my head. He was going to be staying here for a bit. I didn’t want to ask how long ‘a bit’ was; I worried that, if I tried to hold on to him, he might slip through my fingers like quicksilver, disappear just like he had that first morning.

  ‘You didn’t have to do this. Thank you.’

  ‘But that’s not all.’ Gently, he released me and turned towards my makeshift kitchen. ‘Romantic dinner for two coming right up.’

  He produced a bottle of red wine and splashed some into two glasses, handing one to me. I hadn’t the heart to say that I’d already had dinner earlier, in the pub, and that, at nearly midnight, the only thing I wanted to drink was a cup of tea, ideally in bed.

  ‘Cheers,’ I said, clinking my glass against his and taking a sip. The wine was almost amber coloured and I could see dust on the bottle.

  ‘The old dear had quite the collection, and my mate let me liberate a couple of bottles,’ Jude said proudly. ‘This is a nineteen ninety something. Only the finest vintages to go with our midnight feast.’

  ‘I can’t believe you did all this. I thought you were going back to Bedford.’

  ‘I wanted to surprise you.’

  ‘Consider me surprised.’

  He flicked on the kettle and tipped a sachet of instant noodles into two bowls. As always when someone was cooking for me, I felt the urge to dive in and help, but I resisted. This was Jude’s treat. I sat down, sipped my wine and watched as he opened a can of sweetcorn, tore open a pack of tofu with his teeth, splashed soy sauce over the noodles, then poured boiling water over it all.

  ‘I’m no chef,’ he said apologetically. ‘But I just wanted to… you know… treat you. Just a bit.’

  ‘I don’t care whether you’re a chef or not,’ I said. ‘You’re a bloody sweetheart to have done all this.’

  He joined me on the carpet, our backs against the sofa, and we slurped noodles out of the bowls, washing them down with gulps of the slightly musty-tasting red wine. I didn’t want any of it, really, but I wanted to not disappoint Jude more. I managed to suppress a huge yawn and tried not to think about needing to be up at six the next morning.

  After we’d finished our noodles, Jude took our plates and left them on the table – again, I had to suppress the urge to jump to my feet and wash them up – and produced a pack of Oreo cookies.

  ‘Vegan-friendly dessert,’ he said proudly.

  I laughed. ‘How did you know I love Oreos?’

  Jude took my hand. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Of course. Because I love them, too.’

  I took two and ate them the proper way, levering off one half of the biscuit, eating that, then scraping off the white frosting with my teeth before crunching the other half. Kind of gross, I know, but I didn't have to worry because Jude was eating his in exactly the same way. When we noticed, our eyes met and we both laughed.

  The wine and the sugar had given me a much-needed surge of energy, and I dragged myself to my feet and sorted out Frazzle’s litter tray and water for the night. Then I went to the bathroom to clean my teeth. I caught sight of my face in the mirror, pale and hollow-eyed – but then I laughed. With a soapy finger, Jude had written on the glass: ‘World’s Sexiest Woman’.

  ‘Now,’ he said, when I returned. ‘Get your kit off.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard. You’ve had a hard day and I’m going to give you a massage.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Seriously. I’m good at it – I have healing hands. You’ll like it.’

  I didn’t need telling again. After a day hunched over the chopping board and a brutal overhead press session in the gym that afternoon, my back and shoulders felt creaky with tension. I peeled off my jeans, T-shirt and bra and sat on the bed.

  ‘Lie down on your front,’ Jude instructed, and I obeyed. I heard the snap of a bottle top opening and smelled patchouli oil, before Jude’s warm, slippery hands began to glide over my back, gently at first, then more firmly, his thumbs easing out the tight knots in my shoulders.

  ‘Oh God, that feels good,’ I said, my words muffled by the pillow.

  ‘Hard enough?’

  ‘Just right.’

  He carried on, his hands working their way down my back, knowing exactly where to press, for how long and how firmly. I felt a warm wave of relaxation and tiredness wash over me, and barely felt him ease down my pants to massage my buttocks. By the time his fingers slid between my legs to caress me there, it was too late – I was fast asleep.

  But Jude didn’t fall asleep straight away, I realised the next morning. Because when I went to the bathroom, up before him as usual, the note on the mirror had been cleaned off and replaced with a new one: ‘Good morning, beautiful’.

  And my reflection, smiling back at me, surrounded by my tangled hair, did look beautiful.

  ‘So he’s basically moved in with you?’ Dani asked, her eyebrows disappearing behind the smooth curtain of her fringe.

  ‘Well, kind of. But not really. I mean, it would be far too soon for that, right?’

  ‘I’ll say.’ Dani sipped her cappuccino.

  It was one of those summer days that manage to be both overcast and stiflingly hot, and we were in a new coffee shop that had opened on the high street where the greasy spoon used to be. Alice had mourned its passing, saying it was yet another piece of the fabric of the area that was being stripped away by gentrification, and I knew Jude would have taken the same view. But this was still a local business that deserved support, and besides, there were red velvet cupcakes that had tiny doughnuts perched on top of the swirls of dairy-free frosting.

  ‘It’s just that he’s working here for the time being, and he’s got nowhere to live. And because he’s an unpaid volunteer, he can’t really stretch to London rent, can he?’

  ‘So he’s staying in London for how long?’

  ‘Well, potentially until the end of the year, I guess. Depending on what happens with politics and stuff. Maybe longer, if they offer him a permanent job.’

  ‘Wow. So an indefinite period then.’ Dani carefully lifted the tiny doughnut off her cupcake, raked it through the icing and took a bite. ‘Oh my fucking God, total sugar rush. So good. You must feel really sure about each other, then.’

  I peeled the paper case off my cupcake and looked at it. Ideally, in order to get the full flavour experience, you’d want to bite through all three layers: red velvet sponge, frosting and doughnut, in one go. But if I tried that I’d dislocate my jaw for sure. I broke a piece of crimson cake off the bottom and ate it to reduce the overall height of the structure.

  ‘He’s an amazing person,’ I said. ‘He has incredibly strong morals and ethics. I really admire his commitment to the causes he believes in. It’s all the same things I care about, only I’ve never really been arsed to do anything about it.’

  I wondered guiltily whether the red colouring in the cupcake had come from the crushed shells of poor little cochineal beetles. Surely not – not when it had a big ‘V’ next to it on the menu. But I should have asked, and I hadn’t, because I didn’t want the waitress to think I was a wanker.

  Jude would’ve asked, though.

  ‘That’s all well and good,’ Dani said. ‘But what’s he like in the sack?’

  I almost choked on my coconut chai latte. ‘Really nice. Really kind of gentle and sweet.’

  ‘Hmmm. That’s good. Better than him being a tree-hugging leftie.’

  I tried to look disapproving but couldn’t help laughing. ‘I’m a tree-hugging leftie too. And he’s a feminist. How many blokes are willing to admit that?’

  ‘Not that many,’ Dani admitted. ‘Certainly none of the ones I’ve dated.’

  ‘How about Fabian?’ I asked.


  ‘Ah, you know what? I couldn’t care less if he’s a feminist or not, to be honest with you. He treats me decently, he takes me to nice places, he’s hot, he makes me laugh and he’s a fabulous fuck. We never talk about politics and stuff, anyway. He’s not that interested and nor am I.’

  I tried to imagine Fabian on an Extinction Rebellion demo, or wearing a ‘This is What a Feminist Looks Like’ T-shirt, and failed totally.

  ‘No, I guess he’s not. But things are going well with him?’

  ‘Really, really well. He sends me flowers, like, every other day. Whenever we can’t see each other. He’s really romantic, but not in an over-the-top kind of way. Just a gentleman. Opens the car door for me and stuff.’

  I wasn’t sure opening the car door was chivalrous enough to make up for ignoring Dani’s calls and texts, but maybe Fabian had mended his ways. Jude didn’t have a car, of course. He even objected to using Uber, on the basis that it didn’t offer sufficiently robust safeguards for workers’ rights.

  ‘Isn’t it weird,’ I said, ‘how you and I have both found boyfriends at the same time? I mean, Jude and I haven’t actually had the exclusivity talk, but he’s been staying at my place for ten days and he’s said he loves me, so that must mean it’s serious, right?’

  Dani licked her spoon. ‘It must do. Did you say it back?’

  ‘Not that first time. To be honest, I was so surprised, and the way he said it was kind of casual, so I wasn’t even sure if he really meant it and I didn’t want to be clingy. But since then, yeah.’

  It had felt so strange, forming my mouth around those words for the first time since I’d said them to Joe. But the smile on Jude’s face, the way he’d held me close afterwards, reassured me. He didn’t think I was clingy or needy – or if he did, he felt clingy and needy, too, so that was all right.

  ‘If Fabian said he loved me I think I’d faint with shock,’ Dani said.

  ‘But they’re so totally different. I mean, we’re not that different from each other – we’re mates and everything. I can’t imagine Jude and Fabian having a beer together, can you?’

  ‘We could try going out, all four of us together.’ Dani chewed a cuticle. ‘Just to see what happened.’

  ‘We could,’ I agreed, thinking that actually, we both knew that would never, ever happen. ‘What star sign is Fabian, anyway?’

  ‘Aries, of course. I didn’t ask him directly, though. I just kind of quizzed him about when his last birthday was. But he’s totally textbook. Driven, fiery, ambitious, stubborn.’

  ‘He must spend shedloads of time at work,’ I said, ‘with all his start-ups and everything.’

  Dani sighed and ate the rest of her cupcake in one enormous bite. ‘You know what, I almost envy you, Jude being there every night. You’re right, Fabian’s so busy. Last week he was in Bermuda and the week before he was in Malta, and he’s constantly having these business meetings that go on until, like, ten at night. He wants to see me – I know he does; he says so all the time – but there’s no point me hanging around at his waiting for him to get home, because there’d be nothing for me to do except mess around on my phone.’

  ‘Of course not. Jude doesn’t spend much time round mine, either, when I’m not there. He’s got other stuff to do, working late and meetings and stuff. Which is just as well, because we’re crazy busy and I’m on split shifts most days. So we only really see each other in the mornings and last thing at night.’

  ‘I see Fabian at the gym, though.’ Dani brightened. She had changed the time of her workouts to coincide with Fabian’s rather than with mine. I missed her company, but at least it meant we got to do other things together instead.

  ‘He’s there a lot, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yeah, just about every day. It takes hard work to get a body like his. He says it takes hard work to succeed in any avenue in life, and he’s right, of course. Maybe if I’d worked harder at uni I wouldn’t be stuck in a dead-end job I hate. But sometimes I wish he’d be just a bit less bloody driven, so we could do normal stuff together like watch Love Island and go to the pub and stuff. When we do go out it’s always to these flash restaurants and I never know what to wear or what to order or what knife to use. And his mates are always there and they talk across me about business and I feel like a right twat.’

  Her words had come out in a massive rush.

  I said, ‘On my last night off, Jude and I were meant to go out for a curry. Only there was this homeless guy sitting outside the restaurant, and Jude stopped to chat to him, and by the time he’d sorted out a hot meal for him and a bed for the night in a shelter, and somewhere for his dog to stay, it was too late, so we just went home and had toast.’

  I remembered how respectfully Jude had spoken to Andrei, how he’d squatted down and shaken his hand and asked what his dog was called, and known exactly what he needed to do to help him. I’d felt the hugest rush of admiration for him then, and wished that I could be as capable and compassionate as him, as willing to abandon my plans when I saw someone in need. Never mind being able to speak a few words of Romanian. And how not being able to have the pea and potato samosas I’d been craving had faded into insignificance when I considered how fortunate I was to have a home and a toaster.

  I remembered how, afterwards, Jude and I had gone back to mine, and he’d told me he loved me, and it had felt quite natural to say that I loved him too, and we’d had sex and it had lasted much longer that time. Although it hadn’t been quite there, not for me, the closeness to Jude had felt so precious and important that my lack of an orgasm had mattered about as much as my lack of samosas. We loved each other. It would get even better – we just needed practice.

  I ate the last of my cupcake in one, enormous bite, and Dani finished her cappuccino.

  ‘Isn’t it amazing, having a boyfriend?’ she said. ‘Mum sent me a load of photos of my ex Jamie’s wedding the other day. I know she meant me to feel gutted that he’d got someone else and now he’ll never marry me, but I didn’t feel even a bit sad. I mean, I felt sad about her wanting to do that to me, but not about Jamie.’

  ‘I get it. Who the hell needs Jamie?’

  ‘Exactly! And best of all, now I’ve got Fabian, I’ll never, ever have to date again. I love that feeling.’

  ‘Oh my God, me too,’ I said.

  Eighteen

  Today a rival has an eye on your prize, Aquarius. If good fortune was yours for the taking, remember that it can be snatched from you just as easily.

  ‘This is our stop.’

  I followed Jude down the steps to the lower deck of the bus, clinging tightly to the handrails, because the vehicle was still moving. We were in a part of East London I’d never visited before, part of the old docklands, except, unlike most of the area, this bit hadn’t been redeveloped and taken over by shiny glass skyscrapers. Here, it looked as if nothing had changed for forty years: the grubby high-rise apartment blocks, the scrubby patches of grass where children kicked footballs between swathes of broken glass, the washing lines strung haphazardly across balconies, the cars parked on the grass verges on the rims of their wheels, rusting quietly to death.

  ‘Wow,’ I said. ‘How long has your friend lived here?’

  ‘Only a couple of months. It’s not permanent – she’s acting as a property guardian, looking after a flat in a building that’s due to be knocked down. It would have happened years ago, but the residents put up a fight, and rightly so. They’ll be moved out to God knows where, the whole community ripped apart.’

  I noticed the sun glinting off a pile of used nitrous-oxide canisters outside a boarded-up pub and wondered whether, if it’d had an Alice to rescue it, breathe new life into it like the Ginger Cat, it would have changed anything at all. Somehow I couldn’t picture it.

  ‘It’s a shame,’ I said. ‘So much underinvestment in infrastructure for so long. How sad.’

  ‘It’s become a dumping ground for forgotten people,’ Jude agreed. ‘Refugees, the long-term-unemployed, peo
ple with substance abuse and mental health problems. I’ve worked in communities like this, volunteering at food banks and stuff, and you never get used to the hardship.’

  ‘But this is a social call, right?’ I tried my best to lighten the mood. ‘We’ve brought wine and everything.’

  ‘And Indigo can’t wait to meet you.’ Jude looked down at me and smiled, his face softening. ‘You two will get on really well, I just know it.’

  ‘Are you sure I look okay?’

  I felt woefully unprepared for my first official outing as Jude’s girlfriend and first introduction to one of his friends. Just the night before, I’d mentioned that I had the evening off, and he’d said, ‘Cool! We can go and see Indigo,’ and before I’d been able to gain much more intel than that they’d been at university together and she lived not that far away, he’d whipped out his phone and WhatsApped her, and now here we were.

  ‘It’s this one, I think,’ Jude said. ‘Pettigrew Tower.’

  We looked up at the sign on one of the concrete walkways, which was missing all its letters bar the ‘T’s and ‘E’s, and could just about make out the less-stained shadows where the others had been.

  ‘Must be,’ I said.

  ‘There’s no lift. Well, there was, back in the day, but not any more. So we’re walking up to the eighth floor.’

  I laughed. ‘Just as well I’m wearing flat shoes. That, and I hit the gym almost every day.’

  Even so, I was properly out of breath by the time we reached our destination, and had to stop and wipe sweat off my top lip. Meeting Jude’s oldest friend was nerve-wracking enough without being a panting, perspiring mess.

  ‘Are you sure I look okay?’ I asked.