Page 19 of The Love Hack

Amelie: How about Bryony? Any update on the hot man she hooked up with?

I couldn’t read any more. I muted the chat – the hen do was over, after all, and any further business would be conducted on the separate bridesmaids’ group.

Then I messaged my sister and told her I was fine, just feeling as rough as I was sure everyone else was, and I’d speak to her during the week.

And then I went back to bed, pulled the duvet over my head and stayed there for the rest of the day.

EIGHT

Dear Adam

I’m eighteen and I’ve never had a girlfriend (there, I said it). And it gets worse – I’ve never had sex, either. I’ve kissed a couple of girls but it’s never led on to anything else and now I’m at the point where I can’t ever see it happening. Is there something wrong with me? What can I do?

Charlie, Portsmouth

By the next morning my hangover had receded, but the sense of fear, sadness and shame lingered. I wasn’t worried about what my fellow-hens would think about my behaviour – Amelie was my sister, after all, and the rest of them were close enough to her that they’d forgive me pretty much anything by association. And anyway, I hadn’t behaved badly – I’d been pretty hammered, sure, but then it was a hen night and everyone had been hammered (apart from the pregnant one).

It was something more than that – something deeper and more secret. It was to do with Ross – to do with the contact we’d had with each other’s lives outside of work. But why did I feel so weird about that, I asked myself, as I stepped out of the shower, roughly towel-dried my hair and pulled on jeans, a T-shirt and trainers, without looking in the mirror.

Just as if it was a normal Monday morning, I got the bus to work, stopped off at my usual place for a tall flat white to go, and walked through the bright morning to the office. It had rained during the night and the pavements were sparkling with puddles, the sky a clear washed-out blue and the air clear and fresh. It was the sort of Monday morning that inspires optimism, the promise of eating my lunch outside in a garden square, of walking home through the balmy evening instead of getting the bus, of sitting out on my balcony later watching the moon rise.

But I didn’t feel optimism, only the same looming, shadowy dread with which I’d woken up that morning. And the feeling only increased as I approached the looming red-brick building where I worked. It had been some sort of a warehouse, back in the day, or perhaps a factory, maybe where dozens of women in headscarves laboured over cutting tables and sewing machines. Now we laboured over keyboards, but the building had retained its high ceilings and vast, steel-framed windows through which sunlight poured in the afternoons until someone complained they couldn’t see their screen for the glare, got up and shut a blind.

Work used to be my happy place. I never dreaded coming here – until I’d moved to Max!. Now, I had to share my workspace with a bunch of men, one of whom was Ross. And I’d be faced with even more men and their man-problems flooding into the inbox of someone called Adam, who I had no idea how I was going to learn to be.

The confidence I’d felt when I’d replied to Jonno’s letter had evaporated almost entirely. Greg’s response had been enthusiastic – the copy had gone to the subs’ desk and on to the design department, and I’d been left with a sense of pride and satisfaction. I could do this. I could be wise and empathetic, even to men.

But now I felt completely different, and I knew deep down that it was because of Ross. I’d thought we were beginning to be friends and even allowed myself to imagine that there could be something more there. I’d thought I could trust him – thought he might be different from other men. But however much I tried to rationalise it to myself, what had happened between him and Bryony had left me feeling disillusioned and betrayed.

He was just the same as all the rest of them, after all. He’d take a casual hook-up without hesitation if there was one on offer.

I tapped in the code for the door at street level and stepped into the lobby, greeting the concierge with a smile and heading for the lift. But its door was closing as I approached, and I couldn’t see who was inside. What if it was Ross?

Shaking my head, I turned away and walked up the stairs instead.

Ross was there already. As soon as I pushed open the heavy fire door, out of breath from my climb, I saw his head over the banks of monitors. It was like he was emitting a signal – a high-pitched beep transmitted over Bluetooth or something – that grew louder and louder the closer I got to him. The distance from the door to my desk felt limitless, as if it would take hours rather than seconds to walk across the polished concrete floor, pull out my chair and sit, mostly hidden from his view by my computer screen.

I crossed the room, silent in my trainers. My breath hadn’t returned to normal – if anything it felt like I was climbing higher and faster than I already had. My heart was pounding in my chest and my legs felt limp as cooked spaghetti when as last I sat down, resting my insulated coffee mug on the desk in front of me.

The tiny sound of the mug meeting the wood made Ross glance up from his screen, and for a second his eyes met mine. And then a surprising thing happened. He blushed. A wave of colour rushed up his neck and over his face. I felt an answering flush burning my own face and looked away, hiding my face behind my computer monitor as fast as I could. We didn’t exchange a word for the rest of the day.

And what was more, it seemed like every time I lifted my eyes from my screen to think, answer the phone or get up to go for a wee, Ross would look up at the same moment and our eyes would meet. We’d blush furiously in unison and them look away, and I’d feel ashamed and unsettled for ages until I was able to focus on my work again, lose myself in it and forget the second-long eye meet had ever happened. And then, as if this was just a normal day in a normal week, I’d glance up again and – bam – the eyes, the blush, the excruciating awkwardness.

It was like it was Ross and I who’d snogged on a night out (or maybe more than snogged), not Ross and a friend of my sister’s who I barely knew.

But I knew one thing. Ross knew I knew. Even if he hadn’t seen me out on Saturday night, he knew I’d been there and he knew the girl he’d hooked up with was my sister’s friend. Otherwise why would he be like this?

Actually, even given that knowledge, why was he being like this?

I couldn’t understand it. I knew why I felt toe-curlingly embarrassed around him, but that was me. I was the one with the social skills of a washing-up sponge, the one who died inside at the idea of a colleague (okay, a man who I sort-of liked) seeing me out in a short dress and cock deely-boppers having a few drinks. That was normal for me, because that’s what I was like. But Ross?

As far as I could tell – and certainly as far as the evidence from Saturday night had shown – he was a normal guy, natural and at ease in social situations, and he had nothing at all to be embarrassed about.

I didn’t get it. But there were more pressing matters still for me to not get: the slew of emails that had landed in the AskAdam in tray. Whatever Ross’s problem was, it was only one problem compared to the – my inbox conformed – one hundred and twenty eight requiring my attention. I was going to have to pick two, edit them and come up with answers that wouldn’t result in the meltdown of relationships, the loss of jobs (particularly my own) or the abandonment of long-held dreams.

The responsibility weighted heavily on me, to say the least. It had never crossed my mind that there would be quite so many men out there with quite so many problems.

I’d have to read through them all, giving them due care and attention, eventually. But for now, I figured I might as well pick one that looked that it would be widely relatable, and try to come up with a solution. I scrolled through the unread messages and clicked on one at random.

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