1

She stared at her reflection in the window and cursed every inch of it. A clear night, the weatherman had said. Sweltering sunshine all day—a nice, calm, cool breeze throughout the night. It sounded perfect, but he was talking out of his ass.

She’d had her hair done for the occasion. She hadn’t devoted this much time and effort to her appearance in years. “You look like a princess, dear,” her grandmother had said when she left the house, choosing to walk the short distance to the restaurant.

A princess, she thought to herself, remembering her grandmother’s words and the smile she wore when she said them. Fifteen minutes ago, maybe. But fifteen minutes ago, it had been dry. Fifteen minutes ago, the weatherman was probably looking pretty fucking smug. Then the rain started.

She wasn’t a princess anymore. She looked like she’d just stepped out of the 1980s and was on her way to a Poison concert.

She growled at the face staring back at her and cursed once more, this time at her luck. Her first blind date ever, her first date in two years. The last man she’d been with had tried to change her. He was a geek, an introvert with extroverted tendencies, a man who was one step away from being both an agoraphobic and a psychopath. Their relationship had been short-lived, three weeks of misery, self-loathing, and constantly hoping that she would discover some kind of redeemable feature.

The straw that broke the camel’s back came in the form of a double bun and bronze bikini—he had insisted she dress up as Princess Leia, telling her he couldn’t get off any other way.

What a charming bastard he was.

That’s never happening again, she thought to herself, hoping that her new date would have a fetish for Chewbacca, thus saving both hers and the weatherman’s blushes.

She allowed herself a laugh at that. Only then did she see the people on the other side of the glass. Only then did her mind seemingly register that for the last minute or two—when she had been so engrossed in her unintentional perm, laughing, cursing, and doing everything except making faces—a handful of diners had been watching her.

One of those diners seemed more interested than the others, staring intently, hopefully, hesitantly. When he realized she was looking at him and no longer at herself, he turned away.

Abi straightened up, wiped the drizzle off her face, and shook it out of her hair. Then she did her best to smile at him and wave at him. Because although she had no idea what her date looked like, she knew that was him.

That was just how her evening was going. Just how her life was going.

Abi kept her head down as she entered the restaurant. She was greeted by a waiter who wore a three-piece suit, with barely a crease out of place. He looked young, fresh. But she knew that by the end of the night that waistcoat would be twisted halfway round his back, that shirt would be soaked with sweat, and he’d be itching to rip everything off and jump into a nice hot bath or a nice cold whiskey.

“Table for one, Madam?”

That was rather presumptuous of him. She thought about asking him whether she looked like a sad, lonely woman who didn’t have friends, wasn’t married, and enjoyed eating alone on Friday night. But she had just been staring at her reflection and she knew that, minus a few cat hairs, she looked exactly like that woman.

“I’m meeting someone,” she said. She was proud of that and waited for what she perceived as a smug expression to change. It didn’t.

“Are they here now?” He gestured around the restaurant, and she mirrored his actions, though she had no idea why. The man who had been staring at her was now pretending not to look. He was using a napkin to polish a knife, a determined expression on his face as he tried, and failed, to look nonchalant.

“His name is Robert Marlow.”

The waiter’s eyes scoured a book in front of him, hidden from view by the lip of the wooden desk. “Ah yes, here he is.”

The host shifted from one grin to another. Each as disingenuous as the last. “If you’d like to come with me, I’ll show you to your table.”

He took her straight to the table, where he instructed her to sit, gave her a menu, and then departed. The man who—until a few moments ago—had probably thought she was a well-dressed vagrant smiled and greeted her.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Robert. Although you probably knew that already.”

Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment as she tried her best to return his smile.

“Of course. And I’m Abi, although you probably knew that as well.”

Abi figured that he also knew she was a little crazy and maybe a little desperate. He’d been staring at her when she had stood outside, no doubt wondering who this crazy woman was, why she was grimacing, and why it looked like she’d been Tasered.

As she sat down and returned his unblinking smile, she knew that she should have stayed home. She had a bad feeling about this one.

If experience had taught her anything, it’s that dating just wasn’t for her, and blind dating was just asking for trouble.