by Lucy Wild
“He bloody better have. If he thinks I’m packing up all those tiny bits of wood and unpacking them at the other end, he’s got another thing coming. What about you though? Are you going to get back here before we go?”
It was a loaded question. Holly had left a number of possessions with her parents when she’d moved out and they’d duly taken the boxes with them whenever they moved, though with more hints each time that she needed to come and sort through it all, decide what she had to keep and what could go to charity. She kept planning to do it but the thought was more scary than she liked to admit. It would mean letting go of part of her childhood, throwing out the old dolls, the old books, not something she was ready to contemplate just yet.
“I’ll try and come over once I’ve got my dissertation out of the way, okay?”
“Great, I’m sure Lizzie would love to see you. She’s getting pretty big now.”
“I know, but I’ll see her at the wedding won’t I?”
“That’s two months away, Holly.”
“I know that, Mum.”
“I just thought we’d see you before then, that’s all.”
“How’re the plans coming along?” she asked, changing the subject quickly.
“Well there was a nightmare with the caterers. Did Lizzie tell you they had double booked with another wedding?”
“She put it on Facebook. But it’s sorted now, right?”
“Until the next thing crops up. It’s so stressful, Holly.” Anne sighed down the phone, sounding suddenly very old. “Who organises a house move and a wedding at the same time? Only your father would do something that stupid.”
Holly didn’t point out that the move was taking place in August and the wedding at the end of September. She also didn’t point out that Lizzie had chosen the date for her wedding, not Martin. “I’ll be through as soon as I can,” she said instead. “Look, Mum, I need to get on with this essay. Can I call you in a couple of days?”
“Too busy for me? Everyone’s too busy for me.”
“It’s not that, Mum. I just need to get this done.”
“I know what that means. You need to go partying.”
Holly rolled her eyes, Fiona was back on her chair, glancing up from her own phone in time to catch the look. “Mothers,” she mouthed. Holly nodded back at her.
“I’ll call you tonight, okay? A couple of hours and we’ll have a chat then.”
But by that evening, Holly had forgotten all about calling her mother back. She was too busy having a conversation with someone else, someone whose first message was still blinking at her when she hung up the phone and flicked back to the Match Up screen. “Everything all right?” Fiona asked as Holly tapped the message to open it.
“Same as ever,” Holly replied, reading quickly. “I’m going to have to go and see her before she has a heart attack or a stroke or something.”
“Not until you have a date sorted, you’re not getting out of it that easily.”
“I might have a date lined up by the looks of this. Hello sailor.”
“Oh, really?” Fiona stood up and came back over to the sofa, peering down at the phone in Holly’s hand, the message still open. “If you want to try something new, maybe try me. Now that’s more my kind of message. What does he look like?”
Holly scrolled back up to the photo. “Like that.”
“A black suit, a black tie, a white shirt. He’s a funeral director, right?”
“It says he runs his own business.”
“Take that with a pinch of salt, Hols. He is hot though.”
“Is he? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Yes you had, you little liar. Are you going to reply then or what?”
“I don’t know. What should I say?”
“Tell him you’re naked and ready for him.” She was already reaching for the phone.
Holly snatched it away. “I am not putting that.”
“I’m kidding. Just ask him if he fancies meeting up sometime.”
“But I don’t know anything about him.”
“You know he’s rich, you know he’s got eyes that look like they could melt your panties at five hundred feet. You also know he’s into you.”
“How do I know that?”
“Because he wouldn’t have matched with you if he didn’t.”
Holly noticed her laptop, still open, still accusing her of ignoring it. “I’ve got to get some work done,” she said, switching off her phone’s screen. “I’ll reply to that later.”
“You better,” Fiona said, leaning over to the coffee table to grab the remote control. “Or I’ll do it for you.”
Holly waited until she was in bed to read the message again. She had gotten two paragraphs done by then, deleted, then done again. She wasn’t happy with them but at least they were done, the references formatted in the proper style ready to go in the appendix at the end. That was the one thing she hated about her choice of degree. She wasn’t free to have her own opinion on anything. She always had to reference someone else who’d thought it first. It wasn’t quite the freedom of expression she had expected from undergraduate level education. But none of that seemed very important when she opened the app and saw a second message from her match.
Playing hard to get?
She lay in bed, the curtains tightly shut, the door closed. Her bedside light was on, illuminating a pile of battered paperbacks, old friends each and every one. She composed and deleted her reply four times, none of the responses sounding right. In the end, she settled for, maybe, her heart pounding as she hit send and watched the single word vanish and then reappear in a speech bubble. It was sent. She had begun to talk to him. Now all she had to do was get him to agree to go on a date with her. She told herself she’d only sent the message to keep Fiona from doing it for her. But she knew the truth, the truth that made her smile as she closed her eyes to sleep later that night, smile despite the flicker of nervous anxiety as a question whispered inside her. What if he was the one?
FOUR
THE QUESTION WAS ON her lips because of the conversation she’d just had with him. Two hours laid in bed, messages travelling back and forth.
She hadn’t expected any of them. She’d sent the word, maybe, and then put the phone down on her bedside table, picking up the top paperback. It was a charity shop purchase, one that she’d told herself she’d get round to reading eventually. It was hard going but it took a truly awful book for Holly to give up without finishing. The Rake and His Ruin wasn’t a truly awful book, just quite bad.
If she was asked what she was reading, Holly would always have an answer ready, something related to the course. It was true but it wasn’t true at the same time. She would work through the required reading for her degree for most of the time but late at night, when sleep wouldn’t come, that’s when she would turn to her guilty pleasures, the romances where the plot was as familiar as the characters. The Rake had just lost his fortune to his nefarious brother Thaddeus, all was lost. Cue the entry of the stunningly beautiful and yet somehow still spotlessly clean servant girl.
Holly might roll her eyes as she read but it didn’t stop her reading. A chapter or two of one of her charity shop purchases, (three for a pound, the most she was willing to pay for her equivalent of sleeping pills) she would be asleep without fail.
But she was only halfway through chapter eighteen when her phone vibrated, the buzzing sound confusing her at first. She thought it might be Fiona, too lazy to come and speak to her, sending a message instead to check if she’d contacted her match like she’d promised.
It wasn’t from Fiona.
Delete it, Holly. Online dating isn’t for you. Nothing good will come of this. She knew that was on the money but she still picked up her phone and opened the message.
She lay back on her pillows, the duvet tucked around her, the clock ticking quietly on the fall wall, next to the poster of Darcy emerging from the lake.
Girls who play hard to get end up in trouble.
She read the message and reread the message, feeling a tiny little spark of something inside her, something exciting, something she’d not felt before. Her heart suddenly started beating faster and she glanced across at the poster, picturing that pose with her match’s face stuck on top. What would he look like coming out of the lake? Or going off to war? Or dragging her into the bedroom?
Promises, promises.
She almost didn’t send the reply. The two words sat in the box on the screen, looking up at her, daring her to do it. She put the phone down, picking up the book instead. Don’t appear too keen, she thought. Make him think she wasn’t the kind of woman who would just reply at once, the kind of woman who clearly had nothing else on. The kind of woman who was just desperate for a man, any man.
She wasn’t desperate. Not really. She wanted the right person, not just any person. But the message he’d sent held a hint of excitement. He was flirting with her, she needed to flirt back. But was her message too leading? Did it suggest a slut? Someone who’d jump into bed with the first person who came along?
What would Fiona do? She’d just send it. She wouldn’t even stop to think about it. Screw it, she thought, hitting send a moment later. She sat looking at the screen, counting off the seconds. He must have read it by now. Why hasn’t he replied? He’s turned his phone off, He’s busy sleeping with someone else. Why did she feel jealous? She didn’t know anything about him beyond his first name and his age and those might be made up. How could she be jealous of someone she didn’t even know?
He’s not going to reply. Just give it up as a bad job and look for more matches. There’ll be plenty of others. You came on too strong and it didn’t work. Never mind. It doesn’t matter.
Which was true but did nothing to explain why she had a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She looked at his profile again. Joseph, twenty-six. Business owner. Just one photo but it was enough. Taken indoors, the background gave little away, a plain white wall with the corner of a photo frame peeping into shot, the frame dark wood, new looking.
The picture was cropped at his waist. She could see his chest in the suit, white shirt, black tie, nothing that stood out there other than to say he was formally dressed. But his face spoke of power. It spoke of a man who was used to getting his own way. Thin lips with the slightest hint of a smile, as if he’d just finished laughing and was back to serious mode. His eyes were dark, the brows hooded, shading them enough to make him look brooding. He had dark brown hair that was swept tidily across his head. No messing about, not a haircut that said he spent a lot of time preening. She liked that about him.
The next message came through while she was looking and she almost dropped her phone in shock, feeling without reason as if he’d caught her looking at him. She opened the message at once.
You sound like someone who’s looking for trouble.
She giggled out loud when she read it. She hadn’t come on too strong. It was definitely flirting. Fiona had been right. This was far easier online. She felt more confident, less like her. It helped that she could turn the phone off any time, she could block him, delete the app. If he said the wrong thing, she could end it whenever she liked.
This isn’t you, she thought. You should stop. You’ll never get your dissertation done if you start getting a crush on a boy. What are you, twelve?
Maybe I am.
She sent it at once, holding her breath as it vanished from the screen, reappearing a second later in the speech bubble that already felt familiar.
Then you came to the right place.
He had sent the reply right away. Her hands shook as she read it. Trouble. What could he mean by trouble? She thought back through the things she’d learned on the internet, the things she’d talked about with Fiona. Fi telling her she was naturally submissive, as if that meant something when she had no one to submit to. She wasn’t even sure what it meant, only that it meant Fi could sign her up for Match Up and she barely grumbled.
Was that why she was so excited? Too excited to even think about sleeping? She looked at her photos on the app. Did he really find her appealing? Attractive? Desirable?
Maybe we should meet.
She regretted sending it almost at once. It was too soon. She still didn’t know anything about him. He could be anyone.
Maybe we should.
She let out a long breath that seemed as if it had been held in for a very long time. She took another look at his photo. Maybe they should meet. After all, as long as she was careful, there was only so much that could go wrong.
She went to sleep with a smile on her lips, feeling like she used to on Christmas Eve. She had a date lined up. Holly Simpson had a date with an actual man in two days time. What if he was the one? No, that was too much to hope for. But still, it was a thought enough to keep her smile lingering long after she fell asleep that night.
FIVE
THE NEXT DAY SEEMED to last for at least a week. It began with Holly waking up to the sound of Fiona singing off-key in the shower downstairs. She sat up in bed, turning on her own tunes to drown out the noise. Picking up her phone to load the first song, she felt a strange sense of disappointment that he hadn’t sent another message overnight. Twice she’d woken up and checked her phone, despite the conclusion of their conversation.
She scrolled back through the previous messages, reading them all again. She hardly recognised the person who’d written those things. She’d flirted, she’d actually flirted, properly. It had worked too. The date was arranged for the next evening. That meant she had an entire day to concentrate on nothing but her dissertation.
The layout of the house was dictated from when it was built. The landlord had added the bathroom onto the back of the kitchen, the Victorian builders neglecting to include any upstairs plumbing in what, at the time, was a slum area of the city. It meant Holly’s bedroom was above the bathroom which was why she often woke to the sound of Fiona singing away directly below her, the sound floating up along with a hint of the steam from the shower.
Holly climbed out of bed when she heard Fiona heading back upstairs. Making her own way down a minute later, she ignored her laptop, passing straight through to the bathroom. She had to wipe the steam off the mirror in order to see her own face. Fi was continuing to sing upstairs, the sound permeating down until she turned on the shower, finding her housemate far too cheery for that time in the morning. Holly needed coffee before she was able to function with a modicum of energy before noon. There was something wrong with her housemate, always chirpy in the mornings from the moment she woke up. Holly had never understood it. She always needed two cups before she was even capable of holding a conversation without wanting to murder the entire population of the country, maybe even the planet.
She showered and cleaned her teeth before returning to her bedroom to dress. Choosing a grey Give Quiche a Chance tee-shirt with the ubiquitous Spongebob pyjama trousers, she headed downstairs once more, switching on the kettle and preparing to really blast her assignment.
“So?” Fiona asked from behind her, appearing in the doorway as she dug the coffee tin out of the cupboard next to the toaster.
“So what?” Holly replied, holding up a second mug.
Fiona nodded at the sight. “God, yes, make it a strong one.” She sank into the chair by the tiny little table in the corner. “So did you send him a message or what?”
“I did a little better than that,” she said with a smile. “I have a date.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Nope. Tomorrow night. He is taking me to Melchett’s.”
“Ooh, very posh.”
Melchett’s was a wine bar in the middle of York. It had been open just under a year and in that time had built up a reputation amongst the students of the city. If you wanted to get drunk, you went to one of the chain pubs, if you wanted to burn through your student loan in one night, you went to Melchett’s. You might be penniless come the morning but you’d have a hell of a good time doing it.
The kettle clicked off. Holly filled both mugs before fetching the milk from the fridge. Once they both had their drinks, they went through to the lounge, Fiona settling in her chair and Holly on the sofa. “So what are you going to wear?”
“I don’t know. I’m not thinking about it until I’ve got this done.”
Holly picked up the laptop, determined to get as much work done as possible. She spent all day staring at it, trying to will the words to appear on the screen, her pile of books growing larger as the hours passed. Fiona seemed to realise it was best to leave her to it, announcing she was heading out a little after twelve. Holly had been certain she’d been working for at least ten hours by then, feeling crushed when she checked the time. So long to go until the date. Stop it, think about the work. Concentrate on this.
For a spell, she hated Fiona for signing her up, making it even harder for her to focus on her essay, her mind drawn again and again to that image of him, the one she’d already memorised. She only had to close her eyes to see what he looked like. Would he look like that in person? Should she try to find him online somewhere, see if he had a social media profile? Some other photos she could spy on? No, leave it alone. That’s what stalkers do. Just wait and see what happens. Don’t even think about it.
She had deliberately left her phone in her bedroom, knowing if it was beside her, she’d constantly be checking it to see if he’d messaged again. She was proud of the fact that she didn’t go to collect it until the evening, though finding he hadn’t written to her again left her once again strangely disappointed.
She did her best to ignore the feeling. She could always send him a message, after all. But she didn’t. Somehow she felt that would be breaking the unwritten rule. She couldn’t seem too eager. Why did it even matter anyway? It wasn’t as if she needed him to get in touch. She had plenty to be concentrating on without the distraction. There was a message on the phone from her mother along with three missed calls. She rang her back, another hour away from the essay.