Page 10 of The Love Hack

His words brought back a flash of a memory I'd have preferred to forget – when I’d also found myself in a role at work I could never have expected.

I pushed it aside. ‘Yours is a double espresso with a drop of milk, right?’

Ross shook his head. ‘It’s after midday, so I’ll just have a tea, thanks.’

I grinned at him and quoted, ‘“No thank you. I don’t like coffee, it keeps me up.”’

‘“Coffee’s not coffee, coffee is sex.”’

To my pleased surprise, he’d got the Seinfeld reference right away. Only now he was talking about sex, and that felt awkward – almost too personal, like he was suggesting something, or I’d be giving something away if I responded in kind. But that was ridiculous. We weren’t exchanging details about our favourite positions – we were just quoting actors in a TV show.

After a second, I forgot my caution and went for it.

‘“Sex, that’s meaningless.”’ I pressed the button to send a stream of coffee into my mug.

‘“Food and sex. Those are my two passions.”’

Oh, really? I thought. Then I reminded myself, He’s just quoting a show.

‘“To men, sex is an emergency,”’ I said.

Ross laughed, then poured boiling water over a teabag, his brow furrowed. ‘Damn, you got me.’

‘Next time, I’ll do my Soup Nazi routine.’

‘I’m totally here for that.’

I arranged the drinks on the tray and Ross picked it up.

As we left the kitchen, I couldn’t resist saying, ‘“I gotta get on that internet, I’m late on everything!”’

When we got back to our desks, we were still giggling. I couldn’t help noticing that every time I looked up from my screen and met Ross’s eye, he’d smile like we now had a shared secret. I found myself storing up more Seinfeld quotes in my mind, ready to produce them at opportune moments so I could not only beat him at the game, but make him laugh.

I spent the rest of that day reading through Adam’s mail, feeling more and more bewildered by the minute. I’d known I didn’t understand men, but I hadn’t realised just how much there was to not understand. There was a guy whose girlfriend had dumped him and he didn’t know why. I didn’t know either, and therefore nor did Adam. There was a guy who didn’t know whether the woman he fancied fancied him back – both Adam and I drew a blank on that one too. And there was Rufus, who wasn’t sure if his partner upping her sartorial game meant there was another guy on the scene.

I mean, I could see where he was coming from. I remembered myself a few years back, buying a dress and tights to wear to the office when before I’d always gone in in jeans. It was a decision I’d come to regret, and now I’d reverted to hoodies and zero make-up – it was safer that way.

There was no way I was going to try and make myself took fanciable at work again, not even for Ross. Especially not for Ross.

But perhaps Rufus’s girlfriend was telling the truth, and she was just trying to dress for the job she wanted rather than the one she had. I was stumped – and so was Adam, over and over again.

With each new message came a fresh awareness that I had bitten off more than I could chew.

FIVE

Dear Adam

You might not be the best person to answer this, but I don’t know who else to talk to. And my problem isn’t about a girl, but – actually, it is. Only she’s my daughter. My wife passed away a year ago and I miss her more than I can say. Now it’s just my little girl and me. She’s twelve and she’s my world. We do loads of stuff together – I take her to football matches (and watch her play – she’s a cracking midfielder), we cook together, I help with her homework – all the stuff it feels right to do as a dad. But here’s the thing – now she’s getting older, I don’t know how to help her with all the stuff girls go through at this age. You know – puberty, periods, all those things. Even though we talk about everything else, I feel so awkward about raising this with her.

What should a father do in this situation?

Jonno, London

My mind was taken off my problems by Wednesday – not by anything lovely, but by the gloom of an impending visit to the dentist. I spent much of the afternoon fretting about cavities and periodontitis, so I was barely able to focus on the messages that were still trickling into my inbox at a steady pace from Adam’s correspondents.

Then my eyes lit on one that made a bit more sense to me. As soon as I read Jonno’s email, my heart went out to him. Here was a bloke who really cared about the woman in his life – even if she was still only a child. She’d lost her mother and he’d lost the person who I could tell just from reading his message had been his other half.

I copied and pasted his message into a fresh Word document and read it through again, thinking of my own father. He hadn’t had to raise Amelie and me on his own – our mum had been there the whole time. But if he had, I knew he’d have done his best. And something about Jonno’s email told me he’d do his best, too.