Chapter 4 #3
‘Well, my mum isn’t like that at all. She’s friendly, but she’s not one for picking up strangers.’
He smiles, as though it’s on the tip of his tongue to ask if I am, but he doesn’t say it.
‘You tricked her here – the least you can do is leave her to enjoy herself,’ he points out.
I look over again. She really does look like she’s enjoying herself. Obviously, I didn’t expect to have a nice time myself, I wasn’t here looking for someone, but somehow I’ve found myself saddled with Nico, and I can’t say I’m a fan. It is nice to see my mum looking so happy, though.
She’s laughing again – and I mean really laughing – and Hank is gazing at her with a level of interest that makes me think he does really like her.
‘You didn’t expect this?’ Nico asks.
‘I thought it would be a first step, towards getting her back out there, but that we would mostly come away from it with a hangover from the cheap booze and a few funny horror stories to tell the people we met on the next one,’ I reply.
‘Well, the first part can still be true,’ he says, nodding towards my empty glass. ‘I’ll grab us another two.’
I don’t protest this time.
I can’t help but watch my mum and Hank as I wait for Nico to come back.
I mean, this is exactly what I wanted, for Mum to find someone she liked, someone she could spend time with, freeing up more time for me to spend alone, getting on with my life.
And yet somehow I feel like I should have warned her that, I don’t know, she didn’t have to settle for the first man she didn’t want to strangle the second he opened his mouth.
Everyone else I spoke to – Nico included – said so much stuff, stuff that would be enough for me to call time on our interaction.
I didn’t get to talk to Hank alone. I wonder if he has any red flags. His son certainly does.
Nico returns with two cocktails and two bags of crisps.
‘Cheese and onion or salt and vinegar?’ he asks me.
I take the salt and vinegar ones.
‘Thanks,’ I say softly.
‘No problem,’ he replies. ‘If these two hit it off, you can get the next ones.’
He’s joking but it still rattles me.
‘You’re very calm about all this,’ I point out.
‘Am I?’
‘Annoyingly so,’ I reply.
‘I could start panicking, if that would make you feel better?’
‘I’ll pass, thanks,’ I say, annoyed he’s not taking this more seriously.
‘You need to relax,’ he suggests – and it’s a suggestion that usually triggers the exact opposite reaction.
‘And you need to worry more,’ I clap back. ‘Do you even care about anything, or is it all easy-breezy with you?’
He smiles.
‘You think you’ve got me all figured out, eh?’
I shrug.
‘It’s a good job they didn’t give us speed dating forms, so that we could leave notes on each other. You seem like the kind of girl who would write an essay…’
‘You seem like the kind of guy I could write an essay about,’ I reply.
Oh boy, first things first, I should not be enjoying this as much as I am because – secondly – Nico seems like the kind of guy I would usually avoid.
He’s too… at ease. I know, that doesn’t sound like a bad thing, but believe me, it is.
He’s so laid-back he’s lying down, he doesn’t care about anything, he isn’t paying attention.
He’s happy for everything to simply wash by him while he floats on his lilo.
There is something irritatingly unbothered about him that makes me want to bother him, just to prove that I can.
‘Oh no, a random girl in a bar who has known me for less than an hour doesn’t think I’m cool, however will I recover?’ he asks with a sarcastic whinge.
‘If your dad wasn’t talking to my mum, I would have left by now, without a doubt,’ I tell him.
‘If your mum wasn’t talking to my dad, I wouldn’t even be here,’ he replies. ‘I actively avoid bars like this.’
‘Excuse me.’ A member of staff interrupts us. ‘Someone left a wallet here yesterday – I remember serving you last night. It wasn’t you, was it?’
For the first time I see Nico look slightly uncomfortable. Well, I just caught him in a lie.
‘Nah, mate, it wasn’t mine, thanks for checking though,’ he says. Then he turns to me. ‘Okay, so I brought my dad here last night, at his request.’
‘You don’t have to explain yourself to me,’ I reassure him. ‘It’s not like you can impress me at this point.’
‘She does look really happy,’ he says, almost reassuringly, as he looks over at my mum and Hank. I don’t say anything. ‘He looks really happy too.’
It’s nice, if only for a moment, to see a side of Nico that I don’t hate. It’s not enough to make me like him, we already know that isn’t possible, but to see a bit of a human lurking in there somewhere.
We talk a little, not about anything in particular, or we sit in silence, sipping our drinks. The night seems to move a little quicker when we don’t try to pretend we’re friends.
By the time the host is telling everyone it’s time to call it a night – and making completely inappropriate jokes about people making their final choice about who they plan to sleep with – I finally feel like I can head over to where my mum is sitting.
It’s funny, I didn’t think I would get her through the door, and yet she seems like she’s had the best time. I know, that was the goal, but now I feel a little uneasy about it.
‘Ready?’ my mum asks me with a smile – wow, she even sounds happier. Almost like it’s changed her voice.
‘Absolutely,’ I reply.
Nico glances at me once, briefly, before heading off with his dad, and I feel like it’s a look that says he’s as glad to see the back of me as I am of him.
Eventually, Mum and I head outside too. It feels nice as the cool air hits my warm cheeks. I feel like I can finally breathe again.
‘Well, that was…’
I let my sentence fade out, so that she can take the lead.
‘Amazing,’ she replies. ‘Hank is great. He’s quite funny, intelligent, easy to talk to. He isn’t afraid to share his opinions. He seems like he likes to travel, he runs his own construction company, although it sounds like he doesn’t do much of the hard work these days. What was his son like?’
‘Oh, I, er…’ I wasn’t expecting her to ask that. Well, why would she? It’s not like I was on a date too. I was her wingwoman, Nico was his dad’s wingman. Nothing more. ‘I don’t know,’ I say eventually. ‘We didn’t really talk.’
‘That’s not what it looked like from where we were sitting,’ she replies with a knowing grin. ‘Well, in case you were wondering, he’s thirty-four, he lives with his dad, and he sells video games.’
‘Wow, what a catch,’ I say sarcastically. ‘I prefer yours.’
Mum laughs, because she knows that’s a joke.
‘Well, Nico sounded nice, the way his dad spoke about him,’ she informs me. ‘And he’s not bad looking either, is he?’
‘I can’t say I noticed,’ I lie.
Of course I noticed. But he’s got the sort of personality that simply turns off that part of your brain. I find it impossible to find someone attractive if I don’t like them so, despite Nico having all of the ‘right’ components, he’s definitely not for me. Hot or not.
‘Well, Hank and I thought it looked like the two of you were getting on,’ she says as we get in the taxi.
‘Ooh, Hank and I,’ I tease her. ‘We were only talking because we were the two odd ones out.’
‘I see,’ she replies – not sounding at all like she does.
I know, she might think he’s handsome, and his dad might have nice things to say about him (which is obviously just because he’s his dad, so he has to) but I spent enough time with him to know that he’s not my cup of tea. In fact, I hope I never see Nico again.
And for my sake, I hope my mum feels the same way about Hank, too.