Page 3 of Not in a Million Years

Ryan was expounding about the severity of his groin injury, debating whether heat or cold would be more effective on the strained muscle – or tendon, or ligament, whatever he thought it was – and Matt and (mostly) Abbie were cooing sympathetically over him.

Rowan and Paul were sitting close together, their knees pressed against each other’s, leaning in and talking as softly as the background noise allowed, occasionally throwing back their heads in laughter or leaning them in for a kiss.

And Zara was focused entirely on Patch, flicking her curtain of almost-black hair back over first one shoulder then the other, holding his attention with her violet eyes, her French-manicured fingers moving in front of their faces like those of a magician weaving a spell as she talked.

Naomi was watching them, transfixed, all the happy animation wiped off her face. In the seat next to her, the boyfriend whose name I’d forgotten was watching the proper, professional football on the big screen, seemingly oblivious to her presence or the strangely rapt way she was gazing at the couple next to her.

I would have gone to speak to her, to attempt to find out what it was that was troubling her and cheer her up, but the only two remaining seats were at the opposite end of the table and Andy led me straight to them.

‘So, now that you’re single, Kate…’ he began, taking a deep swallow of his lethally strong drink.

‘I’m not single,’ I protested. ‘I’m dating Ryan, remember?’

‘Pfft. I give that five days. Or, more likely, five minutes.’

(As it happened, he was wrong. It took all of five hours before, later that night, Ryan accused me of being callous, cold-hearted, overly focused on my career and not enough on his pulled tensor fasciae latae, and dumped me. My only real regret about our break-up – apart from worrying that it would cause awkwardness between Abbie and me, which it didn’t – was that he waited to deliver the killer blow until the last Tube had departed, and I had to get the dreaded night bus home.)

‘Okay, so assuming I was single, which I’m not,’ I replied, ‘you were going to say?’

‘I was going to say, you’d be the perfect match for my friend Daniel. Only thing is, I can never introduce you.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I want to keep you all to myself.’

And I basked in the warm glow of his admiration, which felt both entirely undeserved and entirely unthreatening. I was delighted with myself, with these new friends, with the way an unpromising night had turned into one of the most fun ones I’d had that month.

Back then, twenty-two-year-old me gave hardly a thought to the unknown Daniel, or the complex web of relationships I’d found myself a part of, or indeed anything much, apart from how many more rounds we could squeeze in before last orders.

Two

Now

In the fifteen years Andy and I had been friends, we’d discovered loads more things we had in common. We were both Scorpios. We both thought The Rocky Horror Picture Show was the best film ever made. When we talked about our favourite colours, we both said purple. We both liked olive, caper and anchovy pizza best. We’d even both lost our virginity to a man named Dave.

Not the same Dave, obviously. That would’ve been seriously weird.

So it kind of made sense that on the day Andy had a near-death experience, I had one too.

Although that’s not really fair. Andy’s was a proper brush with mortality – one that would have real, far-reaching implications. Mine just felt that way.

It all started when my former colleague Claude (who I’d fancied rotten for the six months we’d worked together, though I’d resisted doing more than mildly flirting with him in the office on the basis that it would be unprofessional and, as a freelance contractor, I had my reputation in the wider industry to consider) slid into my DMs on LinkedIn the day after my contract ended and asked me out.

I’m not going to lie, I literally punched the air and went, ‘Yesss!’

Because Claude was properly hot. Originally from Cameroon, he’d moved to France with his mum as a child and had the sexiest accent ever to show for it. He was six foot two of pure muscle, with glossy dark skin I could barely resist reaching out to stroke, longing to discover whether it was as silky smooth as it looked. He wore bespoke tailored suits and a vintage Longines watch. When he smiled at me, I could practically feel my ovaries twang.

And besides, I didn’t exactly have a rich and fulfilling love life. It felt as if, over the past decade, I’d messaged and dated every last no-hoper Tinder, Bumble and Hinge had to offer, practically working my way through the Kama Sutra with as many of them as I could bear to, on the basis that they just might turn out to be The One. It had started to feel, as I’d lamented to Andy over a Bloody Mary (me) and a Virgin Mary (him) just a few weeks before, like there were literally no blokes left on online dating – possibly even in the world – who I hadn’t assessed as a potential boyfriend.

I was running out of men. And, at thirty-seven, I was running out of time too. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted marriage and kids, but I wanted the opportunity to have them, and that chance seemed to be slipping remorselessly through my fingers with every day, month and year that passed. I’d seen Naomi and Patch get together after – or perhaps it was during, or even before; I’d never been quite sure – Patch and Zara’s split, and have their twin babies, a boy and a girl. I’d been a bridesmaid at Matt and Abbie’s wedding. Even Rowan, whose romantic life had been as bleak as my own for ages, was now happily loved-up with Alex, who was not only gorgeous but a successful tech entrepreneur to boot.

Sure, I was having all the sex I could shake a stick at. But that didn’t alter the fact that I was chronically, habitually single and had been for as long as I could remember. There was no one for me to go on romantic holidays with, no one for me to stroll hand in hand through the park with on summer days, no one for me to take to events as a plus-one, unless I practically abducted some random off the street.

So Claude’s message – formal yet friendly, confident yet not cocky – seemed like a gift sent straight from heaven. Maybe, finally, Mr Right (or possibly Monsieur Whatever-Right-Is-In-French) had arrived in my life. Maybe, at last, I’d found someone I could not only find attractive enough to date but also not dump (or be dumped by) in short order because he wasn’t— well, just because.

When I’d finished doing a gleeful little dance around my flat, I returned to my laptop and read Claude’s message for the hundredth time.

Then I set about composing a reply – although I had no intention of sending it straight away. I mean, I had about five weeks off until my next contract began and very little to fill it (tidying my knicker drawer was the highlight of my to-do list for that day), but I didn’t want Claude knowing that. I wanted him to picture me at a luxury spa having scented oil rubbed into every inch of my body, or waiting to board a flight for a far-flung destination in the sun (as if – there was about as much chance of that as there was of me turning up in the office in my bikini – not least because I had absolutely no idea where in my wardrobe it was), or possibly strolling round an art gallery. Rather than the reality, which was me checking my emails in the frenzy of anxiety that always gripped me when I was between jobs.

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