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SHE DIDN’T KNOW WHY, but she didn’t want to tell everyone at work what had happened during the date.
No, she knew why she was reluctant to say anything. They’d tell her Michael had been out of order to leave her sitting alone for so long, and she shouldn’t see him again. Perhaps she shouldn’t, but he hadn’t been able to help it. He’d apologised and offered to make it up to her. Still, that didn’t change how he’d made her feel by leaving her sitting on her own the entire time.
Did she even want to see him again? It had been a long time since someone of his calibre had been interested in her, and she knew nothing about his job—it could have been something seriously important. The situation had been far from ideal, but was it worth writing him off just because he had to make a phone call?
“Are you okay?” Ellen asked her that afternoon as she sat at her desk, trying to focus on the mountain of paperwork that seemed to have doubled in size since the morning. “You seem a little quiet.”
“Just tired. I had a glass of wine too many over lunch.”
Ellen gave her a wink. “He was worth it though, right?
“Absolutely,” she agreed.
Ellen wedged her backside onto the edge of Liv’s desk and folded her arms. “So, when are you seeing him again—assuming you are seeing him again?”
She gave a small smile and glanced away, as though suddenly interested in the stack of references she’d been going through. “He’s going to take me out for dinner one evening. He said he’ll call to arrange it.”
“This week? Wow, he’s keen.”
“Yeah, I guess.”Liv didn’t fill her in on how this was an apology dinner to make up for the disastrous lunch date. “Anyway, I really need to get on with this, especially after taking the extended lunch break.”
Ellen held both hands up and straightened. “All right, Miss Conscientious. I’ll let you get on. Tell me if you hear anything else, though.”
Luckily, her boss Tony hadn’t noticed her gone for so long, so she drank a strong coffee and tried to focus on work instead of men.
The afternoon dragged by, and she checked her phone too many times, wondering if Michael would send another text to say sorry, but there was nothing. He was busy, and she needed to stop caring so much. She didn’t even know the guy, but he seemed to have wound his way into her thoughts. Why was that? She didn’t normally let a man affect her in such a way. Normally, she was content with a one night stand and never needing to see the man again. Getting involved with someone meant too many questions she couldn’t answer, and she’d learned from experience that things got complicated. Far easier to get what she wanted in the bedroom and not even bother to exchange phone numbers. She’d discovered most men were quite happy for things to go that way as well.
But not this one. Something was different about him.
***
A HEADACHE HAD BEEN building all afternoon, lodging right behind her eyes and thumping with resilience. Several large glasses of water and a couple of pain killers had done nothing to shift it, and now Liv only wanted to lie down and sleep for the rest of the evening.
She pushed open the door to her flat to discover her flatmate Tammy slamming around. Liv’s heart sank.
“Everything okay?” she called tentatively.
“Why does this fucking flat have to be such a mess all the time? I leave it perfectly fine on Friday morning, and by Monday it’s a fucking tip again.” Tammy picked up one perfectly positioned cushion and slammed it back down in exactly the same place.
There hadn’t been anything wrong with the state of the flat when she’d left first thing that morning, so unless someone had broken in during the day and made a mess of the place, she figured Tammy was overreacting.
“It’s fine, Tammy. There’s nothing wrong with the flat.”
“Only because I’ve been back here for the last hour cleaning up. There were dishes in the sink, and I bet you haven’t hoovered all weekend.”
The ‘dishes’ she was referring to were that morning’s cereal bowl and a mug which she’d drunk her tea from. She’d been running late, and so had simply rinsed them and left them in the sink to finish later. She should have known it would cause a fuss.
“It was one bowl and one cup, Tammy. And actually, I did whip around with the hoover on Saturday morning.”
“That’s two days ago!”
She didn’t have the patience for this. “Not everyone vacuums every day. If you want to, you should be here to do it.”
“I’m not making the mess!”
She gritted her teeth, doing her best to keep her temper. “There is no mess. You go out partying every weekend, and then come back on a downer and wanting to pick a fight. The flat is perfectly tidy. Now, I have a stinking headache, so I’m going to lie down, in my room, in my mess.”
She turned her back on Tamsin and went straight to her room, shutting the door behind her. Tammy was normally fine, except for on a Monday. Too many recreational drugs Friday to Sunday made her OCD tendencies flare up, and she liked to take it out on Olivia.
The roar of the vacuum cleaner sounded outside her door, and she knew Tammy was doing it deliberately. Liv gave a growl of frustration, threw herself on her bed, and picked up her pillow. She jammed it over her head to try to block out the noise. If Tammy was going to continue like this, Olivia was going to find somewhere else to live. Change always made her nervous, thinking they’d ask for too many references and check too far back in her history, but she’d end up killing her flatmate if this continued for much longer.
***
ANOTHER DAY PASSED, and she didn’t hear from Michael. She told herself it was a good thing. She didn’t need some workaholic man in her life, and it wasn’t as though she’d had fun the last time she’d seen him—quite the opposite. Yet she still found herself checking her phone more than normal, and her heart raced each time she had a message, and then plummeted again when it wasn’t from him. Ellen and Callie had both enquired into whether or not he’d called again, but after a couple more times of telling them he hadn’t, they stopped asking.
She was getting ready for work, her hair still wet and wrapped up in a towel turban as she flicked through the clothes in her tiny walk-in wardrobe. She took care of the things she owned, knowing that appearing well put together was one of the things that stopped people asking too many questions about her.
The ringing of her mobile phone snatched her attention from what she was doing, and her stomach lurched. No one ever called. Everyone she knew sent text messages if they wanted to get in touch. Leaving the wardrobe, she went back into the bedroom to where her phone was lying face up on her bed.
The name ‘Michael’ flashed up on screen. It was him.
She hesitated. Maybe she should make him wait? He hadn’t even sent her a text since their disastrous date, but then she hadn’t texted him either, and she didn’t want to play games. Not wanting it to go to answer phone, she snatched up her mobile and swiped to answer.
“Michael, hi.”
She heard him take a breath on the other end of the line. “Hi, Liv. It’s good to hear your voice. I was almost surprised you answered.”
“You were?” she said, trying to play innocent. “Why?”
“Because I left you in such a rush on Monday. I’d half convinced myself you wouldn’t want to see me again.”
“Oh, it was no big deal. I thought I said that.” She winced at her own lie. Why did she feel the need to do that?
“I know, but even so. If the situation had been reversed, I don’t think I’d have bothered to answer.”
She didn’t know how to take that. Was he saying he thought she was more forgiving than he was, or that he thought enough of himself to not waste time on someone who abandoned their date in the middle of a meal?
He must have picked up on her silence. “Anyway, let me make it up to you. Are you free tonight?”
She was tempted to say she was busy, just to judge his reaction, but she did want to see him. Perhaps she was being too hard on him. He did sound like he wanted to make up for the crappy lunch.
“Tonight would be great.”