Rachel hadn’t been this nervous since … she didn’t remember when. A long time, anyway. She had an actual date. A proper, grown-up, would-you-like-to-have-drinks-with-me, maybe-we’ll-kiss-a-little date. His name was Thomas and he was from Edinburgh. She didn’t like to count her Scotch eggs before they were hatched but Thomas had promise. She’d been murmuring that little ditty all week, even at work, until James asked her to please shut up about it.
They were enjoying an uneasy truce in the office, though he’d no more come round to Rachel’s design idea than she had to his. What they were able to agree on was that if they didn’t find a compromise, they’d both miss the opportunity of their careers. So they had no choice.
‘Look,’ he’d said. ‘The one thing our buildings have in common is that they are buildings. Agreed?’
Rachel had been tempted to disagree, if only to be contrary. ‘Uh huh.’
‘So if we break each design down into its component parts, both materials-wise and stylistically, we should be able to argue out each component to come to an agreement.’
‘You mean mashing up bits of each design into a Frankenstein’s monster of a building?’
‘Where’s your optimism, Rachel? This might turn out to be the most brilliant design that either of us could have imagined.’
‘Or it could be a dog’s breakfast.’
They didn’t have a choice though, with time ticking down. They’d have to show Ed something soon. He wasn’t about to let them go unsupervised into a meeting with their most important clients.
Rachel didn’t want to think about the negotiations ahead tomorrow. Tonight she planned to have fun.
Her phone dinged with a new message from RecycLove as she applied her lipstick in the office mirror. That website was an eat-all-you-like buffet … she knew she was being greedy but couldn’t help herself. Just one more taste. She clicked.
And immediately regretted her gluttony.
Hi Rachel! You’re hot! And you look fun too! Msg me back and we can go out!
Love Mitchell x
She’d got a bad prawn. Mitchell was at least fifty, paunchy and bald. He did have a nice smile, though probably hadn’t bothered to read her profile. Her age cut-off was very clearly thirty-five. If he was thirty-five, then she was Scarlett Johansson.
She stared at her reflection. Maybe a short, plump, ginger Scarlett Johansson.
Tucking her phone away, she hurried from the office to meet Thomas.
All Bar One was already crowded, but she’d looked so often at his photos that she could pick him out of an Interpol line-up.
She squinted when her eye caught a movement at one of the tall tables at the side. It was a man, waving her over. ‘Rachel? Hi! I just got here too.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
His Scottish burr sounded lovely to her southern ears. ‘I didn’t want to give up the table but now that you’re here, I’ll go get us drinks. What would you like?’
Well for one thing, she’d like to know how old his photos were.
This wasn’t Interpol-recognisable Thomas. It was two-stone-later Thomas. ‘Hi … Thomas?’ Just to be doubly sure. ‘I’ll have a small glass of house white wine please.’
‘Right you are!’ he said.
She watched him as he made his way to the bar. And she felt like crying. And then she felt stupid that she felt like crying. And then she felt stupid that she felt like crying because she’d built Thomas up into some kind of Scottish Ryan Gosling.
No, Rachel, be realistic. It’s only fair. She watched him return to the table. He was as tall as he’d said in his profile. And he did have all his hair. It was wavy, dark and a bit messed up, which looked cool.
So he wasn’t quite the hottie he’d appeared to be online. Most of his photos showed him doing something sporty – snowboarding, rock climbing, sailing – all things he could still do with a big tummy, she supposed. And he was still on the cute end of the spectrum.
‘It’s nice to meet you in person,’ he said when he got back to the table with their drinks. ‘Though it’s been fun messaging too.’ He sipped his pint. ‘I’ve only been on the site a few weeks so, to be honest, this is my first date. It’s kind of a weird concept, isn’t it? Joining with your ex?’
‘My housemate runs the site,’ Rachel said quickly. ‘I thought you should know that. Just in case you were about to rubbish it.’
‘Oh no, not at all. It’s a strange concept but it must work. Like My Single Friend mixed with, I don’t know, one of those house makeover shows.’
‘DIY SOS,’ said Rachel.
‘Aye.’ His smile was nice.
This isn’t bad for a first date, she thought. He is easy to talk to.
Though she’d initially thought the same thing about the zealous urinator. ‘So was it your idea to join or your ex’s?’ she asked.
He smirked. ‘It wasn’t my idea. I don’t know many guys who want to fix women. The other way around though …’
She took a second to decide whether to be offended by the implication on behalf of womankind. No, he was right.
‘Was it your idea to go on?’ he asked.
She nodded, proving his point. ‘Well, my housemate kept bugging me, so after … well, after some bad dates, I finally caved in.’
‘Was it hard to convince your ex to join too?’ he asked.
She thought about James. ‘Not too hard. What about you? Were you against the idea?’
He shook his head. ‘Noo. I’ve been meaning to go online for a while but I’m lazy. I needed a kick up the arse. My ex always did enjoy doing the kicking.’
‘Is this where we have the talk about our pasts?’ Rachel asked. ‘I’m not really up on the protocol.’
He smiled a big dimply grin. ‘Me either but aye, we may as well get it over with. Ladies first?’
She sipped her wine, thinking. ‘James and I are still friends, well obviously or he wouldn’t have joined. We’re colleagues actually, and we went out ages ago for about a year.’ She shrugged. ‘That’s it, really. You?’
‘Milly, my first real girlfriend, when we were seventeen. She was my neighbour and our parents are best friends. She’s like my sister.’
‘Your first girlfriend is like your sister? You do things differently in Edinburgh,’ she joked.
Thomas turned serious. ‘Milly’s a good friend. And she’s very popular on the site.’
‘Oh, well, yes, I’m sure she is. A friend. And popular.’ She could feel her face turning beetroot.
Someone jostled her from behind. She glanced over her shoulder at the three guys getting shouty behind her. They seemed to be friends but their language was pretty colourful.
‘Someone started early,’ she whispered to Thomas.
The guy knocked her chair again.
‘He could say he’s sorry,’ Thomas said, his brow furrowing with concern.
‘Don’t worry, it was an accident.’ She hoped Thomas wasn’t the aggressive type. She was usually a pretty patient person, but she couldn’t handle a fighter.
When the guy bumped her chair again she tried to cover it by scooting in.
‘He needs to calm down,’ Thomas said. His hands were clenched on the table.
Rachel’s mind raced for some way to distract him. What was she supposed to do, flash him her boobs?
‘Erm, so tell me about snowboarding,’ she said instead, saving her boobs as a last resort. ‘I saw lots of photos. Where do you like to go? I’ve been to Cortina, though just once. I’m a crap skier.’ She wound her finger into the hair at her temple, a nervous habit. ‘But I’m an excellent après skier.’
‘I usually go to France,’ he said, smiling with obvious pleasure at the memory. ‘Or Verbier in Switzerland. I love it. And the snow’s been awesome this year. I’ll try to get out there again before the season’s up.’
‘Do you go with a big group?’ she asked, wanting to know more about something that so obviously made Thomas happy.
‘Sometimes, but I go alone too.’
Alone? She’d be bored silly after two days on her own. She once took herself off for a long weekend spa break but after the first night by herself in the restaurant she ordered room service for the rest of the stay.
The drunks moved away to refuel at the bar and Rachel could see Thomas relax as he chatted about the beauty of the mountains in winter.
That’s what she’d missed from most of her dates lately: passion. Not tearing her clothes off but talking with someone who cared about things. She might not have a huge catalogue of interests, but what she did like, she liked very much. She was tired of asking guys what they liked and hearing variants of ‘Dunno. I like the pub.’
‘This has been fun,’ said Thomas after their second drink. ‘I’d love to monopolise your whole night but that wasn’t the deal, so maybe we can go out again some time?’
‘I’d love to! Hang on, I can check when I’m free. Sorry, I know that’s wanky but I have to work late on projects when meetings are coming up.’
As she took her phone out, its face lit up with a text.
How’s your date? James had texted. Don’t do that thing with your hair. It makes you look like you’re ten. xo
Rachel unwound her finger from her hair. ‘I’m free any night but Thursday and Friday,’ she said.
Then she turned her phone off.
‘So? You didn’t text me back,’ James said the next morning as he hovered in her office doorway. ‘Does that mean the date was good, or not worth talking about? Or so bad that you’ve blocked it out?’
She found she didn’t want to play this game with him. She liked Thomas. At least she liked what she knew of him so far. She didn’t need any of James’s snide comments. ‘It was good, thanks.’
‘And? Don’t leave a guy hanging,’ he said.
‘And what?’
‘And aren’t you going to talk about it for the next two days like you always do?’
‘No, in fact I’m not.’
‘Oh,’ he murmured. ‘Was it really good then?’
‘This is me not talking about it, James. Are we working on these designs or not?’ She pointed at the drawings under his arm.
‘Then I guess you don’t want to know about my dates either?’ he asked.
‘Plural? You’ve had more than one?’
‘Well no, but I might soon,’ he said.
‘Good. Then I’ll be sure to text you a helpful tip in the middle of it, like you did to me. Now, the plans?’
He sighed as he sat in her extra chair. ‘The plans. We need one cohesive design for the meeting, so somehow we have to marry your cheese grater—’
‘—with your treehouse. Right. So let’s take each component and decide whose is best.’
‘Let’s start with the doors,’ he said.
‘Okay, that’s easy. We can’t have yours. Bi-fold doors are fine for a deck off the kitchen, but they’re completely impractical for an office building.’
James crossed his arms. ‘No more so than they are for a deck off the kitchen. Retail spaces use bi-fold doors all the time. Why shouldn’t an office building?’
‘Because we’re not designing a shopfront. And there’s security to think of as well.’
‘What’s your alternative, revolving doors? Do you really think those would stop a terrorist attack? I’m sure they’ll throw down their Kalashnikovs, peel off their balaclavas and go home when they realise they have to enter single file.’
Rachel thought for a moment. ‘If I let you have the doors, can I have the external skin over the lifts?’
He sat back. ‘Possibly. Let’s park the doors for the moment and talk about something smaller.’
‘Fine.’
‘Did your date have a little package? Is that why you don’t want to talk about it?’
‘James. Just shut up, will you?’