Page 29 of Falling for You

Annie

Penny:

Are you sure it’s him? Did you ask him?

Annie:

I tried! He was acting weird.

Penny:

Maybe he’s just an American with dark hair?

Annie:

Maybe, but I just felt—

‘Do you?’

My eyes snap up from my phone and I realise with a jolt that the guy opposite me has been talking this entire time.

Shit. I barely noticed him sit down.

I could just nod, that’s the safest thing to do.

But what if he asked, ‘Do you want a threesome right now with me and the barman?’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I say, turning my phone over as it vibrates again. ‘Can you repeat that?’

‘No worries,’ he smiles. ‘I asked if you like music.’

Oh, I totally could have just nodded to that.

‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘do you?’

The guy starts talking again, but my eyes wander off. The American guy is sitting opposite the girl next to me, chatting freely. He hasn’t even given me another glance.

Is it him? Or am I just going mad? Am I so desperate to see him that I’m just pinning my hopes on any random American? What am I going to do next – start fantasising about Donald Trump?

(Spoiler alert: no.)

‘Anyway, my name is Blake.’

I look back at the guy opposite me. Thankfully, I’m pretty sure he hasn’t noticed my glazed expression for our entire date.

‘I’m Annie.’ I smile back as the bell rings and he gets up and moves. The American guy moves another place further away from me just as my phone vibrates again.

Penny: I took this video on the night you guys met. I just remembered. Is this him?

It’s a screenshot of me facing American Boy, trying to break free of the bat wings stuck in his suit. I zoom in with my fingers. The picture is dark and blurry, and his mask is covering half of his face. All I can make out is that he’s dark and has a beard. It could be anyone.

The bell rings again and I look up in alarm, suddenly worried I’ve ignored another guy for a solid two minutes, when I notice the man in the flat cap has started speaking.

‘Let’s have a drink break; I can see too many empty glasses.’

I get to my feet before the next guy can sit down and march towards Tanya, only to see that she’s still in full flow with a red-headed guy with a topknot. I stand stupidly on the spot and then my eyes find American Boy, on his phone. Fuelled by half a bottle of wine, I charge over.

‘Sorry, but where were you on Halloween?’

He looks up at me from his phone, amusement playing on his face.

‘Am I going crazy or has your voice changed?’

‘Were you at a masquerade ball?’

It feels like a lifetime passes whilst I wait for him to answer. Embarrassment flares up my body as I fight the urge to run away and pretend none of this ever happened.

What are you doing? Even if this is the right guy, he left you. He literally ran away! And now you’re confronting him? In person?

He turns his body to face me.

‘Were you?’

‘I asked you first.’

I see his eyes spark. ‘Were you dressed as a bat?’

Something inside me glows. It’s him. I was right.

I was right.

‘Were you the person with the worst costume in the room?’

He raises his eyebrows in mock offence. ‘Were you the person who stabbed me with their costume?’

I put my hand on my hip, fighting the urge to grin at him. ‘Were you the person who rudely left halfway through a conversation without even saying goodbye?’

He rubs his chin. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘That was me. I’m sorry about that.’

‘You didn’t even tell me your name.’

He meets my eyes and my heart pulls. ‘It’s Nate.’

I smile at him. ‘Hi Nate. I’m Annie.’

‘Is it too late for me to ask you on a date?’ He holds my gaze steadily.

I pause, looking around the room. Tanya is still engrossed with ponytail man, looking pretty happy.

‘Right now?’ I ask.

‘No, not now!’ Nate laughs, and then reads my expression. ‘Unless you want to? Yeah, now is good. Not here though, right? I want more than two minutes this time.’

‘Okay,’ I say, pulling out my phone and sending a message to Tanya. ‘Let’s go. I know a place.’

‘I can’t believe this is where you’ve taken me for our first date.’

‘You said you’d never tried British cuisine!’

‘Yeah, but this ? Is this really the best London can do? What about Gordon Ramsay?’

‘He’d love a kebab. I mean, it’s technically Turkish but trust me, it’s part of our culture.’

Okay, so I didn’t leave the Clapham Arms with the intention of taking Nate to a kebab shop, but the temptation was too great to ignore. He started babbling about how he moved to London to experience life here and then admitted that he’d never had a Saturday night kebab.

I mean, he was practically asking for it.

We step forward in the queue. I glance back at Nate and swallow a laugh. He looks horrified.

‘I’ll order for us, shall I?’ I grin, taking Nate’s silence as a yes. ‘Two lamb shish, please.’

The guy behind the counter nods as I tap my card on the machine. Nate jumps in alarm. ‘Oh no, have you just paid? This is getting worse by the second.’

I laugh. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, I’d never take a woman on a first date to a kebab shop, let alone let her pay.’

‘I wanted to pay.’

‘So did I!’

I pull myself up onto one of the stools and place my bag on the table. It’s a tiny kebab shop, with lurid yellow lights and brown tables. In about three hours, the place will be overflowing with drunk, famished Londoners. But for now, it’s just us eating in.

It’s funny. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to recognise him in a line-up of men.

It was so dark when we met and he was wearing a mask.

And it was over just as quickly as it had begun.

But tonight it was like as soon as I set eyes on him, my body seemed to know who I was facing before my brain did.

Something just switched inside me, and that was that.

He’s better-looking than I remember. He has dark, thick hair which is curly and close to his head and a beard that runs across his strong jaw. His eyes are green and sparkling, and his arms are covered in strings of tattoos.

He’s gorgeous.

I hop back off my seat as our order is ready and pass him the yellow polystyrene container. I snap mine open and look down at the sea of school-bus-yellow chips, shredded salad and layers of meat. I catch the look of horror on Nate’s face as he takes in his own portion and burst out laughing.

‘What?’ He laughs nervously.

‘You look like I’m about to give you poison.’

‘I’m worried you are.’

‘It’s nice!’ I say. ‘Everyone in London loves it. Trust me, it’ll be rammed in here within a few hours.’

He picks up a cut of meat dubiously and drops it back into the box.

‘Just try it,’ I say. ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’

‘It’ll give me food poisoning?’

‘Then you get a day off work and can binge-watch I’m a Celeb . That sounds pretty good to me.’

I read his expression. ‘It’s a British show. It’s good.’

‘As good as cups of tea and kebabs?’

‘No,’ I grin, stabbing my kebab with my fork. ‘Nothing is as good as tea and kebabs.’

I take a bite, letting out an involuntary groan, and then immediately feel myself giggle.

Nate smiles at me. ‘What?’

I shake my head, trying my best to chew and swallow the mouthful as quickly as possible so as not to choke in front of him.

‘Is it me?’ Nate laughs, looking down at himself. ‘Have I said something?’

For some reason, this makes me laugh even more. I shake my head and turn my back to him.

‘Oh God, now you can’t even look at me!’ he exclaims. ‘Am I that bad at dating? I’m just sitting here!’

I take a deep breath and swallow the mouthful of kebab. It chugs down my throat in a big, congealed blob. ‘Okay,’ I say, turning back to face him. ‘Sorry about that.’

‘Are you going to tell me what you were laughing at?’

‘No,’ I grin. ‘Try your kebab.’

He holds my gaze, challenging. ‘Not until you tell me what’s so funny.’

‘It’s nothing.’ I roll my eyes, laughing.

‘I’ll be the judge of that.’

I unscrew my bottle of Coke and take a swig. ‘Okay, fine. I was laughing at how unsexy I was, taking a huge bite of kebab and groaning like I’d never eaten before. It’s probably not the best way to behave on a first date, and it just made me laugh.’

We both look round as the door swings open and three lads bustle in.

‘I thought it was sexy.’

I’m pulled back to the moment, and I catch Nate’s eyes. I grin. ‘There isn’t a sexy way to eat a kebab.’

Nate peers down at his open carton of food questioningly.

Before I can register what he’s about to do, he picks up the kebab and takes a huge bite, rolling his eyes to the back of his head and groaning.

The three guys at the counter look round and I reach forward and thwack him, a squawk of laughter shooting out of me.

‘Oh my God,’ Nate manages, covering his mouth with his hand. ‘This is really chewy. How do you swallow this?’

‘You took a huge bite!’ I cry.

He holds up a hand to me and chews frantically, before eventually swallowing.

‘Okay,’ he says. ‘I get it. That wasn’t sexy.’

I beam at him, trying to work out why it felt like the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.