Page 1 of The Best Book Boyfriend
Chapter 1
Kara
“Getinhere.”
My best friend Megan grabs our other best friend Hattie by her coat and yanks her inside my front door. “You’ll never believe what’s happened.”
“Someone’s dead?”
“Grim. No.”
“Well, I know for sure nobody here is pregnant. Hashtag dry spell. Do you know, I think I’ve conquered every single man in a thirty-mile radius? There are simply no men left.”
Hattie sets down two paper bags full of food and takes off her bobble hat, pale pink hair spilling out over her shoulders. She undoes her buttons while Megan, a Golden Retriever in human form, bounces up and down on the spot beside her.
“Hmmm. Judging by your reaction, I’m guessing… did a new Taylor album drop?”
Megan wiggles from head to toe and can’t contain herself any longer. “Even better. Kara got a guy’s phone number!”
Hattie flings her coat to the floor, kicking off her boots in different directions as she scrambles through to the living room where I am curled up in the armchair in my favourite pyjamas. I cover my face with my hands, a strange mix of excitement and embarrassment churning away in my stomach.
Hattie drops to her knees in front of me. “What? When? Where? How?Who?”
“Get the food and I’ll tell you.”
She rushes back to the hallway, and I head through to the kitchen to pull warm plates from the oven.
Every Friday night for the past year, these two sweet angels have come over to hang out with me. Hattie brings takeout, Megan brings wine, I stock up on ice-cream and popcorn. We eat, drink, pull out the sofabed, and make a nest to watch rom-coms in until we fall asleep. It started out as something Megan called my ‘Healing Plan’, but now it’s just our routine, and the highlight of my week.
It all started the night my boyfriend -well, ex-boyfriend- walked out. Adam left me after twelve (yes, twelve!) years.
We’d been together since we were sixteen and we had it all. Fantastic chemistry, good sex life, great jobs, beautiful house. Except while I naively thought we were heading for marriage, babies, dogs, the whole shebang, he was hiring an assistant who, let’s just say, helped him spread more than just his sheets.
I can still picture it like it was yesterday. He broke the news while I was plating up dinner from our local Nepalese restaurant, here in the kitchen of the house we bought and renovated seven years ago.
There I was, chatting away about our upcoming holiday like a total mug, and he just stood there holding a suitcase he’d already packed. He said he’d met someone else, and he was moving out. He didn’t even say sorry. I heard he took her on the holiday instead. From his mum. Can you imagine how devastating that was? Not to mention humiliating.
The night Adam left, Hattie and Megan were here within the hour, and they both held me while I sobbed my heart out. I tried calling him over and over until Megan wrenched my phone from my sweaty, shaky hands. After crying so hard I’d thrown up in the kitchen sink, Hattie forced me to eat roti while I wailed that I’d never be able to order food again.
“He’s not ruining takeout for you, babe,” she’d said. “No man can ruin takeout.”
After making it their personal mission to reclaim takeaway as a symbol of feminism and friendship, here we still are. Even though I’d never admit it to them, I do still get a bit of a lump in my throat if we’re having Nepalese, memories of that night still just under the surface of my skin.
“So spill it!” Megan says, filling three glasses of Sauvignon Blanc nearly to the top. “She told me when I arrived, but has refused to give me more details.”
“There’s not much to tell,” I say, but they are impatient, crowding around me. I must admit I am rather enjoying having a story to share that isn’t just about work for once. “I was having coffee in that new place in the old haberdashers, and this guy came over and asked what I was reading. We spoke for a while, then he asked me for a recommendation and gave me a note with his number on it. That’s it.”
“Just some random guy?” Megan asks.
“He works there.” I carry our plates, cutlery and napkins through to the low coffee table. Megan plumps floor cushions for us to sit on while we eat.
“He works there? What is he, twenty-one?” Hattie says, clapping her hands together, throwing up a prayer. “Oh God, please say he is twenty-one.”
“I think he might actually be the owner. Maybe mid-thirties.”
“What does he look like?”
“Brown hair, bit of a beard, glasses,” I bite my lip to stop myself from grinning. “Checked shirt, nice strong arms.” I can’t deny it. He was hot.
