Chapter Sixteen
I take careful steps as I carry the Philly steak melt sandwiches from the kitchen to the booths at the very back of the room, wary of stray bags or feet, and making sure I’ve left enough space between me and the tables I’m passing so that nobody can stand up and knock me sideways.
It’s been a couple of weeks since my art class meet-cute and while it didn’t work out with Ally, the meet-cutes haven’t stopped, and I’ve been on the receiving end of several spilled drinks and fallen into three sets of arms. I have become the stereotypical romcom klutz and while it seems the wish is very much still ongoing, unfortunately I have yet to find The One.
Or even The-One-I’d-Like-To-See-Again, because none of the resulting dates have gone well.
‘You’re not looking at Freddie’s Instagram again, are you?’ I stop off at the bar, where Jonah is peering down at his phone. ‘Because you’re not going to see anything you like. No good comes from stalking exes on social media.’
‘I learned my lesson when I saw his post from Stockholm.’ Jonah shakes his head, slowly, morosely.
‘Six months we were together and we never went further than Liverpool, yet he’s with Jack for five minutes and they’re already city-breaking in Europe.
’ I place a hand on his arm and he laughs humourlessly.
‘Not that I’m bitter or anything. But this isn’t about Freddie.
There’s a mixed-ability art course in the Northern Quarter.
’ Jonah aims his phone at me, his Google search on its screen.
He raises his eyebrows at me and I shrug, noncommittally.
‘Come on, Christina. You can’t let that douchebag extinguish your passion. ’
‘That douchebag’ is Ally, because although I enjoyed Tana’s art class (once I’d got over the fact there was a penis sitting right there in front of me), I haven’t returned as I don’t want to run into Ally.
I never responded to his message after he accused me of deceiving him, because a) I didn’t deceive him at all and b) he is, like Jonah pointed out, a bit of a douchebag, and I want nothing more to do with the man.
‘I’ll even come with you, if you want me to. For moral support.’
‘It isn’t moral support I need.’ I lean on the bar with a sigh. ‘It’s shielding from willy-waving meet-cutes.’
Jonah nods. Once. Decisive. ‘There you go then. That’s what I’ll be. Your willy-waving meet-cute shield. Shall I book us a couple of places?’
I pull my chin back. ‘You’d seriously go on an art course with me?’
Jonah shrugs. ‘Why not? I’m creative. You saw those finger puppets I made, right?’
I concede with a smile. ‘They were adorable.’
‘So, shall I book it?’
Rhys slings his arm around my shoulders and rests his head against mine. ‘What are we booking? Gig? Holiday? Film? Because I’m in, unless it’s theatre.’ He pulls a face. ‘I hate theatre. Especially musicals.’
‘It’s an art course. I’m trying to convince Christina to go to another one after willy-gate.’
‘And you’re going along in case there’s another willy-gate?’ Rhys winks at Jonah. ‘Gotcha.’
‘No way.’ Jonah shakes his head. ‘Love is definitely off the menu for me right now.’
Rhys scoffs. ‘Who said anything about love? I was talking cock.’
Jonah shakes his head again. ‘Love. Dating. Cock. Doesn’t matter. I’m not going there.’
I reach across the bar and take Jonah’s hand in mine. ‘We’ve both had terrible luck at finding The One. We should start a club.’
‘What are you talking about, Jelly?’ Rhys holds his hands out. ‘You can put the search for The One on hold, because I’ve been right here this whole time.’
I look Rhys dead in the eye, unblinking. ‘I love you to bits. You know that. But the thought of us together is icky.’
Rhys places a hand on his chest and looks down at the ground. ‘You have no idea how much that hurts.’ He sniffs, shooting me a wounded look as he backs away to grab the phone that’s started to ring. I roll my eyes at his theatrics as he answers it.
‘So?’ Jonah nods at his phone that’s sitting on the bar. ‘The art course?’
I open my mouth to answer but I’m distracted by Rhys, who’s waggling the phone at me.
‘It’s that supplier you’re always flirting with.’ He hands the phone to me and moves along the bar to serve a waiting customer.
‘I do not flirt with…’ I start to defend myself, but Rhys isn’t listening.
The waiting customer is blonde, very pretty and giggly, so I don’t stand a chance.
I shake my head and unmute the phone. ‘Finnian, hi.’ I grab a cloth and wipe down the bar while I chat – not flirt – with the supplier.
Rhys smirks at me as I giggle at something Finnian says, but I stick my tongue out at him and turn my back on him.
Finding somebody amusing is not flirting, otherwise I’d be accused of flirting with the eighty-odd-year-old guy who lives on the ground floor of St Margaret’s House, who has me in stitches whenever we stop to chat in the hallway.
I wrap up the call after catching Rhys smirking at me again and head to the kitchen hatch, where there’s an order waiting to go out.
I give Rhys a pointed look as I pass with the plates, because he should have been taking care of these instead of flirting with the blonde at the bar.
Leaving food to go cold is a definite no-no; we’ve been read the riot act about food wastage from Sally at least once a week this year.
But Rhys doesn’t bother to look sheepish – I don’t think he has that action in his facial vocabulary – and simply shrugs.
I deliver the order without any mishaps and return to the bar, where Thea has joined her brother, and Rhys has torn himself away from the blonde to serve her.
‘I just popped in to finalise some details for my party.’ Thea smiles her thanks as Rhys places her drink on the bar.
I try not to give Thea a puzzled look, because I’ve already emailed her to confirm all the details for her upcoming birthday party she’s having at Rollerz, but maybe it’s simply an excuse to get out of the house for a bit.
Having two young kids must be tough – I was exhausted by the time they left the other day, and I only had them for a couple of hours.
‘So.’ Jonah holds his phone up. ‘The art course? Am I booking?’
‘Yeah. Why not?’ I did have fun at Tana’s art class, before Ally got involved, and it’ll be nice to have Jonah there to prevent any more dating mishaps. It’ll be an evening for us, not meet-cutes.
‘Excuse me?’
I look across the bar, moving over when I spot a customer waiting, waving a tenner in the air.
‘Can I get some change for the jukebox?’ He waves the tenner again and bounces up and down on his toes. He’s either extremely impatient or over-enthusiastic about our ancient selection of music.
‘You’re keen.’ I hesitate before taking the note from him. ‘You do know that thing’s a relic that hasn’t been updated in years, don’t you?’
‘Yep.’ He nods and bounces up on his toes again. ‘It’s like something from my grandad’s era.’ He grins at this, as though this is a marvellous thing, and I shrug in a fair-enough kind of way. But I still don’t take the proffered ten-pound note.
‘I’ll break that tenner for you…’ I nod at the note. ‘If you promise to pick a decent song.’ I’m only teasing, but I still don’t take the note from him.
He narrows his eyes. ‘Define decent.’
I shake my head. ‘That would be cheating.’
‘Okay.’ He leans his elbows on the bar. ‘What about… Glass Animals?’
I lift one shoulder and puff out a mini sigh. ‘That would be acceptable, I guess, but there’s no way you’ll find them on our jukebox. You’ll just have to surprise me.’ I change the tenner for a handful of pound coins and return to Jonah and Thea as he heads off.
‘Thea is interested in the art course as well.’ Jonah lifts his phone, where the artist’s website is still up on the screen.
‘I dated an artist once, at uni, before I got together with Daniel.’ Thea takes a sip of her drink.
‘He said I had great artistic flair. Though he was probably just trying to get in my pants. Which he did.’ She giggles at the memory.
‘But the course sounds like fun, and it’d be quite nice to do something for me for once.
And after three months in Uganda, Daniel has some parenting to catch up on. ’
‘It does sound like fun.’ With both Jonah and Thea there, I can concentrate on the art and my friends and not on finding the elusive One. ‘Rhys, were you serious about joining us?’
Rhys pulls his chin back. ‘At an art course? But I can’t draw.’
‘I know. You’re really, really bad at it. And that’s what’ll make it so fun.’ I nudge Jonah. ‘Book four places.’
Music starts up from the jukebox, filling the bar with the opening of a song that elicits a huge nostalgic hit.
I look across the bar, where the guy who asked me for change is sitting with a group of friends.
There is no way that, of all the songs on the jukebox, he has picked ‘Could It Be Magic’ by Take That.
I catch his eye and he shrugs, accepting that yes, he has picked this song and no, it isn’t cool. Not in the slightest.
‘Did you put this on?’ Rhys doesn’t add ‘again’ in words, but his raised eyebrow says it.
I shake my head and nod over at the jukebox guy, who’s rolling his eyes at something one of his mates has said. ‘He did. He asked for change and I said I’d only give it to him if he put a decent song on. And he chose this one.’
Rhys tilts his head to one side. ‘He chose this? You didn’t tell him what to put on?’
I shake my head. ‘I didn’t give him any hints at all.’
Rhys holds his hands out before letting them slap against his thighs. ‘Then get over there, mate, because that was a meet-cute, surely.’ He turns to Jonah, who’s heard the whole exchange. ‘Am I right?’
Jonah narrows his eyes and then nods. ‘Do you know what? I think it was.’ He nods at Rhys. ‘You’re learning.’
I wring my hands, my eyes flicking to the jukebox guy and then back to my friends. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘I agree with these two.’ Thea nods at Jonah and Rhys. ‘That was definitely a meet-cute. And…’ She twists on her stool to check out Jukebox Guy. ‘He is pretty cute. You should go over there and talk to him.’
I shrug, my feet still planted behind the bar.
‘I’m not sure about the whole meet-cute and find The One thing, because it hasn’t worked out so far, has it?
It feels like a massive waste of time.’ The only one who hasn’t turned into a great disappointment is Kit, but that’s probably down to the fact that I dropped his number in the back of a taxi and therefore didn’t give him the chance to be a great, big flop.
Thea looks back over at Jukebox Guy. ‘But what if he’s the one who breaks the spell? What if he’s The One?’
‘What if he’s not?’
Thea reaches out to place her hand on my arm. ‘You won’t know if you don’t give him a chance.’
I turn back to the jukebox guy, who’s laughing with his friends.
He is kind of cute, I guess, and he seems friendly and up for a bit of fun.
Could he be the one who breaks the spell?
Could he be the one I fall madly in love with, who falls madly in love with me, the one I live happily ever after with?
We already have the Take That thing in common – who knows what else we both have a penchant for?
Throwing my shoulders back, I head for the group before I can talk myself out of it. The jukebox guy is slapping his mate on the back as he roasts him about something as I approach.
‘I asked you to pick a decent song and you picked this?’ I thrust a thumb at the jukebox, and he winces as he steps away from his mates.
‘It’s cheesy, I know, but the thing is…’
I hold a hand up to halt his explanation. He looks mortified by the choice, bless him. ‘No, no, it’s okay. I’m not blasting you. This is actually one of my favourite songs.’
He narrows his eyes, studying me for a moment, waiting for me to crack. ‘This is one of your favourite songs?’
I nod, placing my hand on my chest to show my sincerity. ‘It is and I can’t quite believe you like it too. Or at least think it’s decent.’
‘Yeah, well, sometimes cheesy is good.’ He shrugs, and I nod, probably more enthusiastically than is necessary, but he’s right – sometimes cheesy is good. I knew we’d have stuff in common. ‘I’m Junaid, by the way.’
‘Christina.’
He smiles and a swoon-worthy dimple appears in his left cheek. It transforms him from ‘pretty cute, I guess’ to ‘pretty hot’. ‘Can I get you a drink, Christina?’
I scrunch up my nose and turn slightly towards the bar. ‘I’m working.’ I see Thea and Jonah watching my conversation with Junaid unfolding and turn back quickly. ‘But maybe we could meet up sometime when I’m not working?’
Junaid smiles again, the tiny dimple making my stomach flip, and I really do think this could be it. This could be the meet-cute where I find The One.