Page 174 of Falling for You
‘It was quite easy, actually,’ Tanya says. ‘It was just a process of elimination.’
‘He had to be on that list somewhere,’ Penny says. ‘So it was just a case of narrowing the names down.’
‘It took a lot of research,’ Tanya adds. ‘We thoroughly looked through all of their Instagram profiles.’
‘You didn’t message any of them, did you?’
‘No,’ they both say in unison, their expressions serious.
‘Okay,’ I say, turning round on my chair to face them. ‘Show me.’
Tanya and Penny share a grin as Penny pulls out her phone.
‘Okay, caller …’ she says. ‘Is this your American Boy?’
My heart jumps into my throat as she hands the phone to me. She’s showing me an Instagram page, and my eyes wildly scan through it, trying to find his face. Have they found him? There are a lot of pictures of London and skylines, but eventually I find a picture of him and …
‘Guys!’ I cry, outraged. ‘I don’t think this guy is single! And I also don’t think he’s into women …’
It’s a picture of a tall blonde guy. He’s wearing a sequinned unitard and is kissing the man next to him, fully on the lips.
‘Well, we thought that at first,’ Penny says, as though it’s no big deal at all. ‘But he was the only American guy we could find! He wasn’t even on the guest list – he was tagged in a picture from the night.’
‘And we thought he could be bisexual!’ Tanya says quickly, desperate to keep the fantasy alive. ‘He’s American, it says so in his profile.’
I scroll through the pictures. ‘He’s definitely not bisexual.’
‘How do you know that?’ Penny arches an eyebrow at me. ‘You’re just making an assumption based on his photos.’
‘No,’ I say, turning the phone to face them, ‘I’m making an assumption based on the “I’m gay, I’m great, I’m gorgeous” T-shirt he’s wearing.’
‘Oh.’ Tanya bites her lip. ‘We didn’t see that.’
I roll my eyes, but I can’t help but laugh. ‘You got me then,’ I say. ‘For a second I really thought you’d found him.’
‘We looked through every guy on the list,’ Tanya says earnestly. ‘It took us hours.’
I feel a pang of guilt. ‘Well, thank you. I guess he has just disappeared into the ether.’
‘Or maybe you imagined him,’ Penny says helpfully, and I give her a look.
‘I’m not that desperate.’
‘Yet.’
‘Shut up.’
‘I know what will cheer you up,’ Tanya says. ‘They’re hosting another speed-dating session down at the Clapham Arms next Saturday.’
Penny groans. ‘That’s not fair, I want to go.’
I smile. Speed dating has become a bit of a weird tradition between the three of us. We first went at university when we were all still single. Tanya had been unceremoniously dumped by some loser called Euan, and Penny found a local speed-dating session that same night. We got pissed and decided to go, and it turned out to be one of the funniest nights of the year. We all put on different accents and set ourselves stupid challenges (I had to see how many times I could say the word ‘peacock’ and Penny had to convince everyone that she thought she was a real wizard). By the end of it, Tanya could barely remember Euan’s name.
‘Can’t you come and just make up a persona?’ I ask.
Penny scrunches her nose. ‘That feels a bit unethical.’
‘Or,’ Tanya says, her eyes wide, ‘why don’t youandMike go and you can pretend you don’t know each other and then, like, sexily meet at the end …’
