Page 69 of Falling for You

‘Even more of a red flag.’

‘Hang on, wait,’ Tanya says, interrupting us both before we can start one of our bickering matches. ‘You kissed?’

I beam. ‘Yup.’

‘And what next? A second date? How was it left?’

‘He asked to see me again and then said he’d message me.’ I turn over my phone and it blinks back up at me, blankly.

‘But nothing yet?’ asks Penny.

‘No.’

‘Well, it’s only first thing in the morning,’ Tanya says fairly. ‘I’m sure you’ll hear from him soon.’

I hold the phone, basking in my warm glow. ‘I’m sure I will too.’

Potential reasons why I haven’t heard from Nate:

He’s lost his phone. He dropped it down a gutter on the way home, never to be seen again, and has absolutely no way to find me.

He was so horrified at Infernos that he’s moved back to America.

I’m a terrible kisser (worst one, please don’t let it be this one).

He’s dead.

I twiddle my pen between my fingers and glance up at the wall clock which hangs opposite the entrance to our office. It’s steel grey with shiny hands and crisp, neat numbers. It’s almost the only thing in the office that I let Pam choose – except for her office chair.

My eyes flit back down to my phone, laid next to the keyboard on my desk, silently taunting me, just like it has been for the past two days.

Two days! It’s been two days since we went on our date and he still hasn’t texted me. Why? What could he possibly be doing?

I would text him, being a modern woman and all that jazz, but at the end of the night I was being all aloof and hard to get and acted like I wasn’t fussed about getting his number so left without it.

Iamfussed. Of course I’m fussed! Although it’s probably a good thing that I don’t have his number, or he would have received a desperate, dreadful message begging him to see me again and promising that I’m not actually that bad at kissing.

Or, worse, a stern message giving him a piece of my mind which would be chased immediately with a terrified ‘sorry, wrong number lol!’ which would then live in my head, rent free, for the rest of my sorry little days.

Argh! I hate dating. Why do I ever trick myself into thinking it’s fun and sexy and spontaneous? When really, it’s a torturous game of chess where everyone seems to know the rules apart from me. I don’t even have a sodding board. I should just stay at home and make jumpers and costumes and stitch myself a felt boyfriend instead.

I look up in alarm as I hear the zip of a lighter and spot Pam holding an open flame inches from her face.

‘Pam!’ I scold. ‘The fire alarms!’

Pam jolts like I’ve pulled her out of a trance and shakes her head. ‘Thanks, love,’ she mutters in her gravelly voice. ‘Why are you here?’ she adds, almost as an afterthought. ‘Don’t you have some properties to look at today?’

It’s just me and Pam in the office. Every now and then, you can hear the finance wankers on the floor above us making a loud cheer or yelling something across the floor, but otherwise it’s just silence. I wiggle my mouse and watch my laptop come back to life, pulling the email I’ve been ignoring right back to the centre of my attention.

‘Not until this afternoon,’ I say. ‘I’ve got to deal with a list of essentials first.’

After much deliberation, I managed to get a client to agree on a five-bedroom house in Knightsbridge (they acted like I was trying to trick them into signing a six-month tenancy agreement for the London Dungeon). A few years ago, I would have cracked open a celebratory bottle of prosecco and given myself a big pat on the back. A hard job well done. Congratulations to me.

Now that I am older, wiser and jaded, I know that difficultclients are like leeches. They suck the life out of you and are incredibly difficult to shake off.

So, as expected, after signing the agreement, the expected list of ‘essentials’ came through. And it’s my job to source all of these items before they arrive, make sure they’re ready for them in their house and time the whole process so that the oven pings with a fresh loaf of bread moments after they turn the key for the first time.

I’m exaggerating, but I’m sure they’d gladly take me up on the loaf of bread if I offered it and see it as no big deal whatsoever.