Chapter 6
‘Fine, you’re in.’
‘Excuse me?’ Elliot asks, looking up from the pile of books balanced on his knee. I throw my bag down next to him and join him on the hard, scratchy sofa in the staffroom for morning break.
‘You’ve made the cut. If you want me to set you up with Teddy, I will.’
Elliot slams shut the book he’s marking and turns to face me, his eyes ablaze with curiosity.
He doesn’t say anything straight away. Embarrassed heat crawls up my face at ever thinking this was a good idea, and I will him to turn away or even blink a bit before his intense staring makes it erupt on my face.
‘Interesting. What happened to you not being able to consider me because we’ve never actually gone out and you not knowing if I was a terrible date? I could be awful. I could be the kind of date that makes you reconsider celibacy and a subscription for one to Hello Fresh.’
Relieved he’s decided to joke, I let out a laugh, although I suspect Elliot on a date would make very few women consider celibacy.
‘Oh, that’s all still true. I’m taking a huge risk.
For all I know, your obsessive jumper rotation method might not only apply to work.
You might have a range of dating jumpers that I’ve never seen nor vetted. ’
‘I do, and I can assure you that they are all in excellent taste. Especially my light up Rudolph jumper I’ll be cracking out any day now for the run up to Christmas.’
‘Elliot, it’s November.’
‘Yep. And you’ve still not answered my question. How come you’ve changed your mind?’
‘I wasn’t going to, you didn’t even make my longlist given the whole we’ve-never-been-out thing – but then I’ve had to ring up three of my exes over the last few days, and every conversation has been so excruciating, I can’t face another one.
If you saying yes will save me from the pain of having to listen to any more of the gloating, pity or bragging I’ve got so far, then I can make my peace with choosing you. ’
‘OK. In that case, I’ll do it.’
‘Really?’ I ask, surprised at how quickly he’s agreeing to this.
He’s wearing his glasses today that, yes, OK, paired with his black outfit make him look a bit like a Tom Ford model and ridiculously out of place in our dingy staffroom, but they do make his face harder to read.
He smiles at me and seems perfectly at ease with his decision, but I wonder if there’s anything else behind it, if us landing here with me setting him up stirs anything in him other than a seeming willingness to date Teddy.
I smile back uncertainly, his confidence somehow taking mine away. ‘Thank you. I didn’t expect you to agree quite that quickly.’
‘Yeah, that whole bottom-of-the-pile, last-person-on-earth-you’d-ask speech wasn’t quite as heart-warming as you might have thought, but let’s face it, it’s not like I’m dating anyone else right now.
Anyway, I like Teddy. I don’t mind being a part of your weird experiment by dating her.
’ His mouth pulls up into a grin that reveals the single dimple on the left of his face.
I smile back uncertainly, without any of his confidence that this is a particularly good idea.
Ever since the drunken night that proved no good can come from straying outside the lines, I’ve tried to keep my friendship with Elliot separate from my other friendships.
There’s been the odd night where after-work drinks with him have collided with plans with Karina and Teddy, but mainly we see each other alone.
We’re great as workmates. But we excel at the lighter stuff too.
Like me, he finds the headteacher, Mr Montgomery, both hilarious and terrifying, and it’s a continual comfort to know in assemblies he’ll be hiding his mouth behind his hands at the same time as me trying not to crack up at his stern sermons with their mixed metaphors – You’re sailing close to thin ice, year eleven.
Knowing Elliot is in school, either laughing at the same things as me or there to be found if I need him for anything, makes being here so much more bearable, so much easier.
It’s why I’ve always made choices – one-night stand aside – to keep our friendship as clean and uncomplicated and stable as it can be.
But despite the feeling that getting Elliot involved in this plan is going to reform it from a silly ex-swap idea into something bigger, something potentially messier, I’m willing to do it for Teddy.
As much as I’ve come to loathe calling up my exes and having to be polite when they boast about how far they’ve come since being with me, much as the thought of ringing up one more of them makes my stomach roll, the truth is I’ve failed her.
She needs this chance too, this chance to be set up with someone who is nice and decent and kind.
The last person who was good to her was Matthew and that was years ago.
Teddy rarely lets on she’s bothered by the failed dates and the idiots who don’t bother to get to know her.
She laughs a lot of it off and moves on, but I know it’s taking a toll on her.
The last guy she actually liked took her to his work’s charity ball on their second date and spent so much time parading her from table to table instead of talking to her, she said she felt more like an escort than a date.
She’s not dated anyone for a few months now, and I’d hate her to give up on finding love.
She deserves someone who will see her as more than a piece of arm candy to discard when they’ve had enough.
She should have someone to go through life with and support her.
She’s been so stressed with work lately, having that person she can vent to or curl up with and watch crap TV at the end of the day would be so good for her.
Elliot is nice and decent and kind. He’ll go out with Teddy and yes, he might turn out to be wildly attracted to her, and they’ll probably end up having great sex, and Teddy will discover how I downplayed Elliot’s prowess in the bedroom department in order to move past our night together as quickly as possible, but he’ll also see more in her than her beauty.
He’ll want to get to know her, and I want to give her that.
By setting her up with Elliot, I might not be offering her anything long term – after all, Elliot is notoriously unlucky when it comes to holding onto anyone long term – but I figure those dates are worth something.
They might be the dates that remind her there’s still hope, even if they do need to come with a warning about Elliot’s inability to commit. I just hope Teddy sees it that way too.
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘I’ll text you her number, OK?’
I expect that will be the end of it, but a pensive look crosses Elliot’s face.
‘Are you sure this is a good idea? Me dating Teddy?’ he asks, his confidence at the plan suddenly disappearing.
There’s a moment when he fixes me in that deep stare of his as though he’s trying to delve into my soul to discover how I’m really feeling.
I turn away, making out I’ve been distracted by the sound of the staffroom door opening, because I don’t want him to see anything more than I’m telling him.
‘It’s a great idea,’ I tell him, turning back to give him my mega-watt smile to cover any doubts, because I need him to do this.
‘Teddy is great. Completely gorgeous and funny, and the two of you will be great together because you’re both my friends, and you know how picky I am with my friends,’ I say, swerving the question.
He laughs and the moment passes. ‘I do. Eloise in the History department has been trying to get you to go out for a coffee with her for over a year now, and you’re still managing to put it off.’
‘Eloise only wants to go for coffee with me to get the gossip about you and for me to give her pointers on how to impress you. As you well know.’
‘Yeah,’ he says in a quiet voice, a troubled expression flitting across his face at what I’m guessing is Eloise’s ill-disguised infatuation before he gives his head a tiny shake and smiles at me again. ‘OK. I’ll text Teddy then.’
‘Thanks, and I meant to say, you’ll need to be free this Saturday. Karina had this idea to schedule our first dates at the same time, so—’
‘Oh my God, that is so cute,’ Elliot says in a whiny but dead-on American accent.
‘I know, I know. It’s all turning into the kind of plan three thirteen-year-olds would come up with, but Karina thought it would be more exciting to start off at the same time. Don’t worry, you won’t always be bound to have your dates in sync with mine.’
‘Good to know. By the way, you haven’t told me yet who you’ve been set up with.’
‘I haven’t, have I? He’s called Jordan. He’s a physiotherapist, and I’m told he’s very nice, and apparently we’ll have a great time together.’
‘Jesus, calm down with the excitement, Lizzie.’
‘Sorry, that was rubbish. I am excited. I am. It’ll be good.’
‘Better, but you’re going to have to tell your face to get with the script too before you meet him.’
The school bell comes to my rescue, saving me the effort of explaining to Elliot that, like me, Karina has had to make phone call after phone call before finally getting someone to agree to go out on a date with me.
She didn’t tell me how many exes she’d had to ring before Jordan, but the grimace on her face when she said his name was enough to make me sure she’d veered a long way from her list of best exes.
Elliot begins to gather his books together, and I work on finishing my tea and delaying my next lesson. Tuesdays are my worst day of the week, but at least I’ve ticked off one job, and I do feel lighter knowing I’ve sorted out who I’m setting Teddy up with.