Page 37 of The Dating Ban (Mind the Corbin Brothers #1)

The Green Lamp Conspiracy

Theo

I stand in front of the mirror, adjusting the collar of my white shirt for the third time. The suit trousers feel slightly too formal for a Saturday night, but the jumper takes the edge off. Hopefully.

I don’t usually dress like this outside of work—not anymore—but tonight’s not just any night. Tonight’s our first proper date. No child in the next room, no takeaway on the sofa, no pretending we are just friends.

I reach for the cologne I bought in duty free four years ago and have barely used since. One spray. Then another. I pause. Then a third, for good measure. I cough… maybe it was a bit much.

From the living room comes the clink of plastic cups and the unmistakable sound of Lucy hosting a tea party in full dramatic voice. I follow the noise.

Jasper and Geoff are sitting on the rug like overgrown toddlers, cross-legged and pretending to sip invisible tea. Lucy beams at me from behind a toy teapot, apron tied crookedly over her dress.

“Daddy!” she calls. “You’re just in time. Uncle Jasper’s the dog.”

“I said I was bringing the dog,” Jasper grumbles, not moving from his spot.

Geoff squints at me over the rim of a pink cup. “Blimey. Look at you. Someone’s dressed to impress.”

Lucy stares at me intently for a second, her head tilted. “You look nice,” she says, very seriously. Then she wrinkles her nose. “But you smell a bit weird.”

“Thanks?” I say.

“It’s like soap and flowers. But loud.”

Jasper snorts. Geoff grins. “Well, you heard the expert.”

“She’s not wrong,” Jasper adds, waving a hand in front of his nose. “Bit much. You smell like a posh hotel lobby.”

“Brilliant,” I mutter, tugging at my jumper. “Exactly the vibe I was going for.”

Geoff sets down his plastic cup with all the care of someone holding posh crockery. “Right, well, before you embarrass yourself entirely… I booked you a table at The Green Lamp .”

I blink. “You what?”

“The Green Lamp,” he repeats. “Michelin-starred. Fancy, but not stiff. Romantic without being cheesy. Perfect for a first date where you want to impress her.”

I pause. “Geoff, that place is booked out for months.”

He shrugs, smug. “I know someone who knows someone. You’re welcome.”

I glance between them, suddenly less sure. “I don’t know... is that too much? She’s not— we’re not—”

“You are ,” Jasper cuts in. “You are going on a date, and for once in your life, you need to stop overthinking it and just go.”

Geoff nods. “Yeah. Stop being Theo the Sensible, Theo the organised coffee guy, Theo the responsible single dad who always carries spare tissues. Tonight, just be the bloke who wants to take a woman out and show her a good time.”

“You make that sound... easy.”

“It is easy,” Jasper says. “You’re the only one making it hard.”

I take a breath, glancing at Lucy, who’s now trying to balance a biscuit on Geoff’s head. “She’s just... different.”

Geoff’s grin softens. “Exactly. Which is why you don’t take her to that local Italian where they know your order and always give you extra pity garlic bread because you are single.”

I groan. “Alright, message received.” Come on, Theo. You are forty-three years old, not a teenager on the way to his first ever date!

Geoff stands, stretching. “Green Lamp’s booked for seven. Go. Enjoy yourself. And for God’s sake, don’t start talking about coffee bean origins unless she brings it up first.”

I snort. “Noted. No monologues about roasting profiles.”

“Unless it ends with you getting roasted,” Jasper mutters, ducking before I can slap him on the head.

Ivy’s already waiting outside when I get there, leaning against the doorframe like she does this sort of thing all the time—cool, composed, and completely unaware she’s currently short-circuiting my brain.

Her leather trousers are doing things to my self-control. So is the top—fitted, confident, possibly designed in a lab to challenge single fathers trying to behave themselves.

“Hey,” she says, smile easy, as she joins me and places a kiss on my cheek.

“Hi.” My voice cracks slightly. Brilliant start.

We walk to the curb where the Uber’s waiting, and I open the door for her—a rare, possibly extinct bit of chivalry I dusted off for the occasion.

Once we’re inside and moving, the awkward hits in full force. Ivy looks effortlessly glamorous. I’m sweating lightly under my jumper and trying to remember how to sit like a relaxed, confident man instead of someone waiting for exam results.

“You look...” I begin, then instantly regret not workshopping the sentence in advance. “...structured.”

She turns her head slowly. “Structured?”

I nod. “Yeah. You know... put together. In a really... architecturally strong sort of way.”

She lets out a laugh. “So I look like a building.”

“Not a building ,” I say, flailing gently. “Just... something with lines. And intention. Like—” I cut myself off. “You know what? You look amazing. Let’s leave it at that.”

She raises an eyebrow, clearly trying not to grin. “I’ll take amazing. But I might put ‘structurally sound’ on my dating profile.”

I stare straight ahead. The driver turns up the radio slightly, as if even he can feel the second-hand embarrassment rolling off me in waves.

Right. New strategy. Assertiveness. I can do assertiveness.

“So, I booked us a table at The Green Lamp,” I say, sitting up slightly.

She leans back in her seat, tilting her head to look at me. “Wait, is this that place? The one where the WAGs always hang out?”

I try to play it cool. “Might be.”

“The place with the cocktails that come in a cloud of dry ice and cost more than a weekly shop?”

“That’s the one.”

She raises an eyebrow. “And you got a table?”

I shrug, aiming for nonchalant but I’m not sure if I succeed. “I know a guy who knows a guy.”

She stares at me, clearly trying to decide whether I’m full of it. “You’re a man of mystery, aren’t you?”

I give her what I hope is a suave, knowing look, but it probably lands somewhere between smug and slightly constipated. She smirks and looks out the window, and I swear I catch the faintest hint of a blush on her cheeks.

The rest of the journey is... quiet. Not in a bad way, but definitely in a we are both trying very hard not to be weird and failing slightly way. Ivy keeps tugging at the hem of her top and shifting awkwardly in her seat like she’s trying to subtly negotiate a peace treaty with her trousers.

I sneak a glance at her—flushed cheeks, hair pinned just-so, lips glossed and slightly pursed in thought. She looks incredible. Also mildly afraid to bend at the waist .

I should say something cool. Confident. Low-key flirtatious.

“You look like a woman with very powerful ankles,” I say instead.

She blinks, turns her head slowly. “Sorry, what?”

What the hell, Theo? Powerful ankles? Powerful ankles?!

That’s not a compliment. That’s... that’s something your nan might say about a prize sheep.

“I meant the heels,” I say quickly, hands up like I’ve walked into a hostage negotiation. “The way you walked in them. With conviction. Poise. Stability. Not—not like a horse. God. That’s not—what I mean is—”

I glance over.

She’s looking at me now the way you might look at a man who just complimented your elbows with a straight face. A bit wary. A bit amused. Possibly wondering if I’ve been left unsupervised for too long.

And maybe I have. Honestly, maybe this is who I am now. A man who ruins compliments and smells faintly of overconfident aftershave and stress.

“I’m going to stop talking now,” I mutter.

“You probably should,” she says, biting back a smile.

“Yep.”

Silence. The car hums along, the driver mercifully ignoring us while some melancholy acoustic cover of a pop song plays quietly over the speakers.

I stare straight ahead, hands clasped in my lap like a man waiting for his performance review.

I can feel her still watching me out of the corner of her eye.

I want to look. I don’t look. I’m afraid I’ll see confirmation of what I already suspect: that she’s realised this was a mistake.

That she’s reconsidering the date. That she’s mentally drafting a polite excuse to leave after the starters.

Or maybe that’s just my brain trying to sabotage me. Again.

Out of sheer survival instinct, I clear my throat and try again—carefully, slowly, like someone diffusing a bomb. “You look great, by the way. Really great. The kind of great that probably makes other people consider breaking up with whoever they’re dating.”

She turns her head toward me, one brow raised. “Better.”

“Only took me three attempts.”

“Well,” she says, settling back in her seat, “you’re trending upwards. Keep going and by dessert you might manage an actual compliment without referencing livestock.”

I chuckle—mostly out of relief. Maybe I haven’t completely tanked this. Yet.

The Uber pulls up outside the restaurant, and I make a noble attempt to get out smoothly. My leg catches the door, I grunt softly, and then do that thing where you pretend it didn’t happen and carry on as if your shin isn’t throbbing.

I go around and open Ivy’s door like some strange cross between a gentleman and a concierge with boundary issues. She takes my hand as she steps out—steadying herself more than anything else—and I’m fairly certain I hear the leather trousers emit a warning creak.

Inside, the restaurant is all low lighting, starched linens and that kind of expensive hush that makes you instinctively lower your voice and regret your footwear .

The ma?tre d’ greets us with a professional nod, clipboard in hand, posture so perfect it makes my spine feel self-conscious.

“Name?” he asks, expression unreadable.

“Theo Corbin,” I say.

Then—because apparently I have verbal diarrhea—I add, “Table for two. Just us two. On a date.”

“Right,” he sneers. “Follow me.”

Behind me, I feel Ivy’s confusion radiating like a polite heatwave. She says nothing, which honestly makes it worse.

The ma?tre d’ leads us through the restaurant with gliding precision, every step somehow silently judging our entire lives. Ivy walks like she belongs here. I walk like someone trying to remember how knees work.

At our table, Ivy lowers herself slowly into the chair with the measured control of someone managing high-stakes leather trousers. I do my best not to knock over anything as I sit.

Then we both just... stop.

Silence.

The sort of silence where napkins suddenly become very interesting.

I try to smile. Ivy gives me one back—polite, patient. Encouraging, maybe. Or pitying.

Say something, Theo. Something charming. Light. Interesting.

“Did you know that after the Siege of Vienna in 1683, the Ottoman army left behind sacks of green coffee beans, and that’s how Viennese café culture started?”

She gives me a puzzled look.

“Um... no? ”

I nod like I’ve just shared an exciting personal triumph. “Yep. They filtered it with muslin and added milk and sugar to make it taste better. To the locals, I mean. And then coffeehouses started becoming social hubs—places for conversation and community—”

Stop talking, Theo. They told you not to do this. No bean chat. No brewing history. No bloody café trivia before the starters.

I take a sip of water and pretend I didn’t just monologue my way into the nerd quadrant before we’ve even looked at the menu.

Ivy’s watching me now with a look I can’t quite read—halfway between mild fascination and is this man okay?

“I really liked your ankles comment better,” she says at last, dry as toast.

I bury my face in the drinks list.

This date is going just about exactly as expected.