drink with me. Let me gaze into those eyes a moment or two longer.
‘Nice seeing you again,’ he said. And off he went, just like that, leaving my insides to collapse slightly at the sight of his back.
I’ve worked something out about myself over the years. When I decide I am interested in something, or someone, it starts out small, the grain of an idea, then it grows and grows until it’s so all-consuming I can barely entertain another thought in my head.
On the drive home, I couldn’t stop thinking about the guy at the lake. By the time I got back to my flat, he’d set up home in my head. The look of him. The smell of him. The everything of him.
I made dinner that evening replaying the award-winning script of what I should’ve said after he’d tapped me on the shoulder. Yet, it was only as I lay in bed the following morning, in the half-world between sleep and full consciousness, that I remembered what he was talking about.
I’d been seeing some horrible guy at the time – I couldn’t recall his name, but I do recall he took me to an equally horrible pub.
Details of the evening started to appear in my head, like little spotlights illuminating one by one. I remembered the taxi rank. I remembered talking to Dan. Yet why hadn’t I phoned him? I raced to my bedroom drawer and dug out my old diaries, then sat on the floor flicking through the pages.
Sunday, 14 January 2005 – 2.15 a.m.
Keg Dixon is yesterday’s news. And so are my dreadlocks.
Earlier suspicions about Keg being a low-level arsehole were entirely confirmed on our fourth (and last) date tonight. Not sure what was worse: the fact that he ‘forgot’ his cash card and tried to pay for a round with a money-off coupon for ALDI – or his repeated assertion that I had ‘blow-job lips,’ which I was supposed to consider a compliment.
Anyway. I have met a gorgeous bloke. If it wasn’t two in the morning and my brain was functioning slightly better, I’d use more impressive prose. But in the absence of any luciditiness (is that a word?) I will simply say this: He has GORGEOUS eyes. GORGEOUS hair. And has a GORGEOUS voice.
He’s big, with proper biceps, so technically not my type at all.
I also think he might like me, even though am certain I’m not his type.
Am taking the dreadlocks out tomorrow, have decided for definite. Timing is sheer co-incidence, clearly – am not abandoning my quirky, unconventional identity just to try and pull Gorgeous Guy. Though if it works and I do pull him, then brilliant!
Anyway. Have Gorgeous Guy’s number so will stick two fingers up to my copy of The Rules and phone him tomorrow p.m. Signing off now as v. tired and think I may have onset of hypothermia after standing in rain.
I turned the page onto the following morning.
Sunday, 14 January 2005 – 11.45 a.m.
Worst Cold Ever. My nose is the same colour as my hair AND THIS IS THE LEAST OF MY WORRIES! Gorgeous Guy’s number has rubbed off my hand, so cannot phone him.
Is probably for the best. Thought I fancied him last night but in cold light of day, use of lip-liner in a potential boyfriend might be an issue for me. Hmm. Quirky, unconventional phase apparently is drawing to a conclusion.
Still, lip-liner or not, he was lovely, am sure of it. Off now to weep a little. And blow nose a lot.
As the six-year-old words in my diary played on me the day after the swimming competition, I got a growing sense that – whatever the score was with the lip-liner – I’d let this guy slip through my fingers once. Now, fate had brought us together again.
It was time to make sure fate and I stayed friends.
Chapter 14
Dan
I wake forty minutes before I need to on an uninspiring Wednesday morning and lie watching rain snake down the windows as the soft skin of Gemma’s cheek rubs against the bristles on my neck.
‘I’m going to get us something nice for dinner tonight,’ she murmurs.
I cuddle her into me. ‘That’d be lovely.’
She looks up.
‘Nice seeing you again,’ he said. And off he went, just like that, leaving my insides to collapse slightly at the sight of his back.
I’ve worked something out about myself over the years. When I decide I am interested in something, or someone, it starts out small, the grain of an idea, then it grows and grows until it’s so all-consuming I can barely entertain another thought in my head.
On the drive home, I couldn’t stop thinking about the guy at the lake. By the time I got back to my flat, he’d set up home in my head. The look of him. The smell of him. The everything of him.
I made dinner that evening replaying the award-winning script of what I should’ve said after he’d tapped me on the shoulder. Yet, it was only as I lay in bed the following morning, in the half-world between sleep and full consciousness, that I remembered what he was talking about.
I’d been seeing some horrible guy at the time – I couldn’t recall his name, but I do recall he took me to an equally horrible pub.
Details of the evening started to appear in my head, like little spotlights illuminating one by one. I remembered the taxi rank. I remembered talking to Dan. Yet why hadn’t I phoned him? I raced to my bedroom drawer and dug out my old diaries, then sat on the floor flicking through the pages.
Sunday, 14 January 2005 – 2.15 a.m.
Keg Dixon is yesterday’s news. And so are my dreadlocks.
Earlier suspicions about Keg being a low-level arsehole were entirely confirmed on our fourth (and last) date tonight. Not sure what was worse: the fact that he ‘forgot’ his cash card and tried to pay for a round with a money-off coupon for ALDI – or his repeated assertion that I had ‘blow-job lips,’ which I was supposed to consider a compliment.
Anyway. I have met a gorgeous bloke. If it wasn’t two in the morning and my brain was functioning slightly better, I’d use more impressive prose. But in the absence of any luciditiness (is that a word?) I will simply say this: He has GORGEOUS eyes. GORGEOUS hair. And has a GORGEOUS voice.
He’s big, with proper biceps, so technically not my type at all.
I also think he might like me, even though am certain I’m not his type.
Am taking the dreadlocks out tomorrow, have decided for definite. Timing is sheer co-incidence, clearly – am not abandoning my quirky, unconventional identity just to try and pull Gorgeous Guy. Though if it works and I do pull him, then brilliant!
Anyway. Have Gorgeous Guy’s number so will stick two fingers up to my copy of The Rules and phone him tomorrow p.m. Signing off now as v. tired and think I may have onset of hypothermia after standing in rain.
I turned the page onto the following morning.
Sunday, 14 January 2005 – 11.45 a.m.
Worst Cold Ever. My nose is the same colour as my hair AND THIS IS THE LEAST OF MY WORRIES! Gorgeous Guy’s number has rubbed off my hand, so cannot phone him.
Is probably for the best. Thought I fancied him last night but in cold light of day, use of lip-liner in a potential boyfriend might be an issue for me. Hmm. Quirky, unconventional phase apparently is drawing to a conclusion.
Still, lip-liner or not, he was lovely, am sure of it. Off now to weep a little. And blow nose a lot.
As the six-year-old words in my diary played on me the day after the swimming competition, I got a growing sense that – whatever the score was with the lip-liner – I’d let this guy slip through my fingers once. Now, fate had brought us together again.
It was time to make sure fate and I stayed friends.
Chapter 14
Dan
I wake forty minutes before I need to on an uninspiring Wednesday morning and lie watching rain snake down the windows as the soft skin of Gemma’s cheek rubs against the bristles on my neck.
‘I’m going to get us something nice for dinner tonight,’ she murmurs.
I cuddle her into me. ‘That’d be lovely.’
She looks up.
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