‘Did he like me?’ I asked. ‘Did he swipe on me?’
‘Calm down, Glenn Close,’ he replied as my hand hovered over the screen. ‘We don’t know if he’s even seen you. You have to swipe on him to find out.’
‘Left or right?’ I demanded. ‘Left or right?!’
‘For Christ’s sake.’ David snatched his phone back and flicked his fingers quickly across the screen, to the right. ‘The whole point of this game is to get some attention, not to find your Prince Charming. You already have a boyfriend, remember?’
‘I do remember,’ I replied, peering over at the screen. ‘But you’re right, my ego would feel a lot better if the very attractive man gave me a swipe.’
‘Is that what the kids are calling it these days?’ he asked. ‘You can’t get all into one person, Liv. Tinder Fishing is a numbers game, we swipe on a dozen or so you wanna bone, and the odd dog for shits and gigs, and then we sit back and let the matches roll in. See? It’s like online shopping. You don’t have to buy everything in your basket, you’re just having a look.’
The screen went grey and the phone proudly declared myself and Bob, a lanky, dark-haired streak of piss David must have swiped on, were a match.
‘I don’t have to message them or anything though?’ I asked, taking back his phone and feeling smug and appalled in equal measure. Bob liked me! Although as I didn’t actually like Bob, it was something of a hollow victory but I could see the appeal. I could also see a bottle of wine, Abi, and Cass making this game even more fun than it was right now.
‘You don’t have to do anything,’ he confirmed. ‘Even if they message you, you can delete them out of your likes and then they can’t contact you. Which you should probably do in case they turn out to be wankers.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, looking down at Bob’s kind face.
‘Some people take a lack of response too personally,’ David replied. ‘I’ve heard they can get a bit shirty and, you know, send you a photo of their penis.’
‘You’ve heard?’
He shrugged and looked away.
‘I don’t want to see unsolicited penises,’ I wailed. ‘Isn’t there an app for that? Isn’t there a blocker?’
‘Invent it and you’ll be a millionaire.’ He hopped off the wall and gave me a small salute. ‘As much as I’d love to sit here and play fantasy boyfriend all afternoon, I’ve got a ton of work to do. Unlike some people.’
I waved David back inside, in no rush to leave my sunny spot in the garden.
I pressed the button on the side of the phone to check the time but instead of finding the time and a photo of Daniel Craig curled up on the bottom of my bed, I saw a Tinder notification.
‘You and Henry like each other. Why not say hi?’
I stared at it until the screen went black. David was right, it was nothing but a fun ego stroke. It didn’t mean anything. That was the joy of the internet; none of it was real. Only, somewhere out there, within a twenty-five mile radius, was a tall, bearded man called Henry who had seen my photo and didn’t hate the look of it. But I had no idea if it had been a casual, ego-boosting swipe in the back yard of his office or a serious, looking for love in all the wrong places, soul searching swipe, made in an independent coffee shop while he sipped his third espresso of the day and wrote poetry in his Moleskine notebook with his grandfather’s fountain pen. Or, you know, whatever.
It didn’t mean anything. Not really.
Adam and I met in the supermarket. He was there with his dad and I had gone for toilet paper and tampons but ended up taking home two bottles of wine and a bag of apples. I knew who he was, of course, ever since he’d moved into his grandparents’ house I’d been watching him like a hawk from afar, this tall, handsome man who Abi had nicknamed the yeti, whom we’d always assumed was married. But it turned out he wasn’t married, he was single. And sweet and charming and so very funny. It was hardly a story to tell the grandkids, that Granddad wooed your granny in the pasta aisle of the local Tesco, but realistically, how many people had great romantic moments in their life? And of those that did, how many ended up with that person? My grandparents met at school, my mum and dad met at a village dance. So even though getting chatted up over a box of penne was hardly how I’d imagined meeting the man of my dreams, in this day and age, it really could have been a lot worse.
14
I sat back on my workbench and stared at my phone, willing it to ring. She had said I could call but I hadn’t and neither had she. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I didn’t know what the bloody hell to say. ‘Hello love, just wondering if you’ve decided whether or not you still want to go out with me? No, OK, never mind, as you were.’ It was only Tuesday, only three days since I’d seen her but it felt like forever. This was the longest we’d been apart since Chris’s stag do and that time I’d been so drunk I didn’t even remember calling her up at four in the morning and singing the entirety of Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’ into her answerphone. I’d had to call back several times to complete the whole song – if it weren’t so embarrassing, it would be impressive.
I’d been busier than usual, everything in my life seemed to have expanded to fill up the gaps left by my on-hold relationship but every time I looked at my phone, I wanted to punch something and then cry. They say patience is a virtue but hanging around, waiting for your girlfriend to decide whether or not she still wanted to be your girlfriend was a test I was not ready for.
‘You could be engaged right now,’ I reminded myself, stacking different wood samples on top of my bench in a sad solo game of Jenga. Jim Campbell, the owner of Camp Bell and to all intents and purposes my boss, was supposed to be coming over to choose the wood for the bar. ‘And then you wouldn’t have these problems but no, you had to pussy out, didn’t you? You’ve only got yourself to blame for this, you knobber.’
‘You know they say talking to yourself is the first sign of madness.’
I turned to see a tall, dark-haired woman walking up the driveway towards the workshop. The sun shone brightly behind her, blinding me and blocking out her features, but I didn’t need to see her face to know we hadn’t met before. This was someone you would remember.
‘I was actually talking to the voices in my head,’ I replied, wiping my hands off on my jeans and squinting to get a better look. Holy shit. ‘So, no need to worry.’
‘Yeah?’ The sun shifted as she stepped inside the workshop, pushing a pair of huge sunglasses onto the top of her head and fixing me with a blinding smile. ‘What are they saying then?’
She was gorgeous. Not fit or cute or pretty – this girl was properly, genuinely beautiful. I might have expected to see her on the pages of a magazine under my bed, but I wasn’t ready to deal with her standing in front of me, in my workshop. Long, long, long dark hair that hung right down her back, big dark eyes and those pouty Angelina Jolie lips that made men think terrible things. Even in trainers, she was almost as tall as I was and even her loose, checked shirt, that looked as though she’d picked it up off my bedroom floor, couldn’t hide the shape of her body. This girl was a ten. This girl, I would have remembered.
‘Uhhhhh.’ I stood too quickly, knocking down my tower of wooden blocks and watching as they scattered all over the floor. Smooth. ‘It’s usually something about snacks. Pringles, Kettle Chips, Hula Hoops mostly.’
‘Mine too,’ she confessed, tilting her chin forwards and looking down at the ground before slowly lifting her huge brown eyes to look at me. ‘When they’re not telling me to poison the cast of Coronation Street anyway.’
‘Oh yeah?’ I replied, adding a forced laugh that seemed to make her smile. ‘You can’t kill Ken Barlow – my dad would be really pissed off. Could you start with the cast of Emmerdale and see how you get on from there?’
‘I suppose.’ The girl stuck out her hand and I took it in mine, trying for the perfect handshake. Not too hard, not too soft, not too long. There was nothing I could do about how incredibly sweaty my palms were, but
that was entirely her fault. Nothing I could do about that. ‘You’re Adam, right? I’m Jane.’
Jane. Did I know a Jane? She was certainly looking at me as though I knew a Jane. Oh shit, I was still shaking her hand.
‘Adam Floyd? I’m Jane Campbell. From Camp Bell, the bar?’ She raised an eyebrow and looked around the workshop. ‘I’m sure I’m supposed to be here today.’
‘Oh yeah, of course, Jane from the bar.’ I snapped out of my hot-girl trance, ignored the chorus of heavenly voices in my head and nodded over and over. ‘Jane. I totally lost track of time. But I was expecting Jim.’
‘Yeah, my brother couldn’t get away,’ she replied, shrugging off her leather jacket and straddling my bench. ‘Sorry, he should have called you or something, let you know I was coming instead.’
‘No worries,’ I said, clearing my throat. ‘It’s totally cool. I’ve got the samples here, we’ll get it sorted.’
‘Those samples?’ she pointed to the wooden blocks littered all over the workshop floor.
‘Those would be the ones.’
Even without my incredibly professional inventory of wood chips thrown around the workshop floor, the place was a mess. Not to me, of course, it was perfectly respectable to me. But as soon as Jane walked into the room, I saw it through a woman’s eyes – and through a woman’s eyes, it was a shithole. My filing system mostly consisted of putting things ‘somewhere safe’ which meant I had paperwork everywhere, held down by tools clearly not put away in their respective holders and there were empty Coke cans on every surface. It was a creative chaos that I found inspiring. Or at least that was what I told anyone who complained about the mess. But it was not suitable for visitors who had hired me to build a big, beautiful, expensive piece of custom furniture for their bar.
‘I like that one,’ she said, tapping a large chunk of polished cherry with the tip of her navy blue Converse that matched my own. ‘Done.’
‘That was easy.’ I bent down to pick it up, accidentally checking out her long, slender legs as I bent over. I loved a good pair of legs. It was my mother’s fault for making me watch so much Come Dancing while I was growing up. ‘Shall I price up a couple of other options as well?’
‘Why?’ Jane held out her hand for the wood and turned it over in her fingers, inspecting every inch.
‘In case Jim doesn’t like it?’ I suggested. ‘In case it’s out of your budget?’
‘I’m sure you wouldn’t have shown it to me if it was out of my budget,’ she replied simply. ‘And if Jim doesn’t like it, Jim should have driven up here himself and chosen something else.’
The woman was a goddess. I wasn’t usually so useless in the face of an attractive woman but she’d left me with all the social graces of a pork chop.
‘I don’t want to be rude but I could really use the loo,’ Jane said, pulling her sunglasses out of her hair and sticking them into the pocket of her jacket. ‘Might I avail myself of your facilities?’
‘I’ve haven’t got any facilities out here but there are three toilets inside,’ I replied, not at all wondering what she might look like naked. ‘Obviously, I’m not bragging or anything.’
‘Three toilets,’ she whistled and stood up, one long leg on either side of the bench. ‘Lead the way, Lord Floyd.’
‘If you’re very lucky, I’ll even put the kettle on,’ I said, squeezing the block of cherry wood in my hand and pushing all inappropriate thoughts out of my head. For roughly four seconds.
‘Luckiest girl in the world,’ she said, following closely behind. ‘What a gent.’
Yep, I told myself, one foot in front of the other, not a single thought of what was hiding underneath that baggy checked shirt passing through my mind. What a gent.
‘It’s a mess in here, sorry,’ I opened the back door to the kitchen and willed the dirty mugs and plates stacked on the draining board to grow legs and hide themselves away into a cupboard. If I left them alone one more day, there was every chance they’d develop their own civilization, let alone legs. ‘I’m not a good housewife.’
‘And the missus doesn’t do dishes?’ Jane’s lip curved as she picked up my book from the breakfast table and scanned the back cover. Of all the days to be reading The Secret.
‘That’s not mine and there’s no missus,’ I replied without thinking. ‘I mean, I’m not married.’
It wasn’t a lie. I wasn’t lying.
‘I’d say this place needs a woman’s touch but my flat is much worse,’ she said, looking around without a reaction. ‘Which way?’
‘Oh, second door on your left,’ I said, pointing down the corridor. I hardly ever used the downstairs lav so I was fairly certain she was safe. ‘There should be loo roll in there but shout if there isn’t.’
‘Yes sir.’ She gave me a brief salute and disappeared down the hallway. ‘Do feel free to put that kettle on, I’m parched.’
‘It’s just a cup of tea,’ I muttered, filling the kettle straight from the tap. The Brita jug had been empty for days. ‘I’m making a cup of tea for my client who has driven a long way to choose some wood for her bar that she’s paying for. It’s the least I could do. It’s polite.’
And I was nothing if not polite. I looked up to see my reflection in the kitchen window and pawed at my hair while the kettle overflowed. The state of me. I needed a haircut. A haircut and, according to a quick whiff of my armpits, at least three showers. This was one of the problems with working alone from home, I’d managed to put on outside clothes this morning but I had not bothered to wash myself. What was the point when you were going to end up rank rotten after a day in the workshop anyway? For the want of a better alternative, I grabbed the can of Febreze from under the sink and gave myself a quick spritz under each pit.
‘Nice reading material you’ve got in there,’ Jane called, wandering back into the kitchen, rubbing her hands on the back of her jeans. ‘Are you moonlighting as a vet?’
‘What?’ I spun around, knocking one of my cleanish mugs onto my not-so-cleanish floor.
‘There’s like, seven copies of the Veterinary Times in your lav.’ She took a seat at the kitchen table, her eyes travelling all the way around the room before resting on me. ‘Interesting hobby.’
‘My girlfriend is a vet,’ I said flatly.
There. I had told the incredibly attractive woman I had a girlfriend. Clearly I deserved some sort of karmic reward.
‘Oh, cool,’ she replied, the light in her eyes softening ever so slightly. ‘That must be hard though, living with a vet. All those late-night call outs.’
‘We don’t live together,’ I said. ‘And we’re kind of on a break right now.’
There was a chance I’d lost a couple of karma points there.
‘That sounds complicated,’ Jane replied, resting her elbows on my table and offering up a sympathetic smile. I could have been fooling myself but I was sure I saw a something flicker behind her eyes.
I leaned against the sink, tapping my fingertips against the cold ceramic and imagined her sitting at the same table tomorrow morning, wearing nothing but one of my giant jumpers and a thong. It was a terrible affliction, being a man.
‘It’s one of those things.’ I turned away as my fast-boil kettle bubbled into life and considered plunging my hand into it. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘Oh, I’m not.’
Without seeing her face, it was a response that could be interpreted a million different ways.
‘How long have you been building bars?’ she asked as I poured boiling water on top of two teabags and faffed around in the cupboard for a milk jug. The milk had technically expired but a covert sniff suggested it was fine and a milk jug meant no one could see the best before date in the first place.
‘Best part of six years,’ I replied. Milk jug and sugar bowl on the table. Bills, free newspaper and Liv’s bloody useless holiday reading swept onto an empty seat. ‘I did a year’s course in the basics and then I apprenticed for three years. I set up on my own tw
o years ago this November.’
I held out a mug of tea, wrapping my palm around the red-hot body of the mug and giving her the handle. Chivalry was not dead, it was alive and kicking and disfiguring men with manners up and down the East Midlands.
‘Did you always know you wanted to do it?’ She added milk to her tea while I gritted my teeth and prayed I still had at least some skin on my palm. ‘Were you top of your class in woodworking? Knocking out the odd tree house in your spare time?’
‘We didn’t actually have woodworking at my school.’ I settled down at the opposite end of the table, keeping a safe and respectable distance. ‘But I loved building things growing up. I used to come up here in summer and work with my granddad in the workshop. He dabbled – he built this table, actually.’
She cocked her head and smiled, running her long fingers along the smooth, aged wood.
‘Haven’t you got a coaster?’ she asked, picking up her cup of tea and taking a sip. ‘I feel like a total shit. This is a family heirloom.’
‘No, my granddad was all about building things to be used, things that looked better when they’ve been lived with.’ Underneath the table, I dug my fingernail into the letter ‘A’ I’d carved there with Chris’s compass twenty-five years before. ‘This table is more tea stain than wood stain these days.’
‘This is your grandparents’ house then?’ Jane asked. ‘That’s so cool.’
‘Yeah,’ I replied, a genuine smile on my face. ‘They left it to my parents and they sort of gave it to me. It had the workshop already so it was a perfect set up really.’
‘You’re so lucky your family supported you.’ She piled her long, dark hair over one shoulder. ‘Our mum and dad were not happy when we told them we wanted to open a bar.’
‘Ah, it wasn’t quite that easy,’ I assured her. No need to elaborate. I was enjoying her seeing me as Adam, the master craftsman, rather than Adam, the law-school dropout. ‘What made you want to do the bar thing in the first place?’