Page 25 of Read Between The Lines

‘Yes, alright, too much information, thank you very much, Leo,’ I interrupted him, irritated that certain internal organs were already reacting to his unfinished sentence, despite the instructions from my much more sensible brain to ignore him.

‘I was going to say that I’m incredible at hanging curtains and putting up pictures,’ he said, the affected innocence contradicted by the wicked sparkle in his eyes. ‘If your mind went to other places, then that’s on you.’

I decided it was safer to take another bite of my sandwich rather than try to come up with a response to his deliberate provocation. Thankfully, he seemed oblivious to my self-induced discomfort.

‘Okay, how about this? “Hi, my name’s Leo. I live in Oxford and I enjoy good food and travelling.”’

I responded with an exaggerated yawn. ‘That’s rather generic, don’t you think? I mean most people like those things. It would be pretty unusual not to.’

‘Generic was exactly what I was after. The blander the better, if you ask me. Why, what did you put in your statement?’

I thought about lying, but he was going to find out sooner or later. To be honest, I was amazed, and touched, that he hadn’t used his access to my account to read it already.

‘I wrote a short poem actually,’ I admitted, embarrassed to reveal the amount of effort I’d gone to. Having held out against online dating for so long, fearing it would reduce my love life to the same level of passion as selecting a purchase on Amazon, I’d hoped that my thoughtful verse might attract the attention of someone who would share my love of the written word, a real gentleman who would reply with a similarly grand gesture, demonstrating his intelligence and romantic hero credentials. In retrospect, and judging by Leo’s bemused expression, it had probably made me jump right to the top of the list of gullible victims ripe for the picking. I’d given of myself because that was what I’d been hoping for in return. But in reality, I had just made myself even more vulnerable to exploitation.

Leo stood up suddenly and cleared his throat.

‘A poem? Let me guess. Did it go something like this?’ He started declaiming a verse with the seriousness of an actor delivering a Shakespearean soliloquy in the West End.

‘There once was a librarian called Kat,

whose dream suitor was a man with a rat.

She signed up to SO Ox,

found a man who could box,

now her mum’s buying a brand-new hat.’

He finished with a flourish, and then bowed and pressed his hand to his chest as if moved by the applause of an invisible audience.

Although I should have been annoyed by his teasing, I couldn’t help laughing at his impressive improvisation skills.

‘Gosh, he’s a poet, and I didn’t know it,’ I said, knowing that my retort was pathetic in comparison. ‘I was hoping someone would respond to my efforts with poetry themselves, and now it’s finally happened. I mean, a limerick wasn’t quite what I was anticipating, but I’ll take it.’

‘You deserve better than Brian,’ Leo said as he sat back down next to me, his voice suddenly serious.

I blinked at his unexpected kindness.

‘We’re getting distracted. Time is ticking,’ he added. ‘What was next? My likes and dislikes, wasn’t it?’

I checked my watch.

‘You’re right, I should be heading back in five minutes. Let’s be quick about the next section. How about this? Likes– vegetables, cute fluffy animals. Dislikes– criminals and eating meat?’

His laugh sounded rather forced. ‘Not far off.’

‘We probably need a little more detail, otherwise you’re going to look suspicious,’ I said. ‘You mentioned you enjoy travel earlier. The app gives a prompt asking about particular places you’d like to visit and why. I put Japan in cherry blossom season and Canada in the autumn for my answer.’

He nodded. ‘Both beautiful destinations at beautiful times of the year. Definitely giving away your romantic side there, in case he hadn’t worked it out with the poem.’

‘Brian said he’d visited Japan when he got some leave during a deployment in the Far East. Only, of course, now I know the pictures he shared with me from that trip actually belonged to the soldier whose photos he ripped off. He must have been rubbing his hands together when he saw my profile. Maybe that’s another reason he targeted me.’

‘I wouldn’t get too hung up on the why. He’s probably been trying his tricks with half the women on the app.’

‘Nothing special about me.’

He shrugged. ‘Be fair. There’s no correct response to that statement, is there?’

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