Chapter 13 #2
‘Probably better than us,’ he replies.
‘Let’s just try to make the most of it, shall we?’
Shocker – I’m the one having to be the adult here.
‘You know my dad has essentially tricked us into having a date, right?’ he says.
I scoff chaotically.
‘This is not a date,’ I insist.
‘Yeah, obviously, but that was his intention,’ he replies. ‘He thinks he can shove us at a table together and we’ll hit it off. I can read him like a book.’
‘Now you’re making me wonder if my mum co-signed the plan…’
‘My dad is obsessed with me dating,’ he explains. ‘He thinks I have a problem – that I’m not meeting people, that I’m not doing the right things when I do. It’s exhausting, having him take such an interest.’
‘Hmm, I’m starting to get the feeling my mum has a similar idea about me,’ I explain. ‘Of course, taking no blame for the situation, given that she’s living in my house, cramping my style.’
‘We can’t be that bad, can we?’ he replies. ‘So hopeless that even our parents are embarrassed by us…’
‘Okay, well, if this is structurally date-shaped, then we might as well use it to our advantage,’ I tell him.
‘Use it? How do we use it?’
‘As practice.’
Nico leans back in his seat.
‘We practise dating with each other?’
‘Exactly, it’s a kind of testing. We do it at work – not with dating, obviously, but we run simulations, see how things go,’ I explain. ‘I can tell you what’s wrong with you, you can tell me what’s wrong with me.’
‘You want me to criticise you?’
‘I thought you’d jump at the chance,’ I reply.
He smiles and tips his head as though that might be true – the dick.
‘Neither of us is interested in the other, so it’s low stakes. We just treat it like an exercise.’
‘Very romantic.’
‘It’s not meant to be romantic. It’s practical.’
‘Well, if that’s your dating mantra, that’s your first problem right there,’ he replies.
‘And that’s yours,’ I clap back. ‘Try being nice.’
‘I thought we were roasting each other?’
‘No, we’re giving practical dating advice,’ I correct him. ‘We assess performance, flag bad habits, give tips – this isn’t an excuse to make fun of me.’
He pouts playfully.
‘Saying that, though, one man’s bad habits are another’s personality,’ he says.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Do you tend to be early, on time, or late?’ he asks.
‘Early,’ I say confidently.
I mean, it’s the best answer, right?
‘It ensures you’re there on time, you can pre-empt any problems – it shows that you care.’
‘See, I look at things differently, because if someone is late, it doesn’t always mean that they don’t care,’ he insists. ‘Some people are busy with work, because they have really cool jobs, or they live such an adventurous life that things don’t always happen on time.’
‘No, that would infuriate me,’ I reply quickly. ‘Ooh, you’re too cool to show up on time?’
I say that in a silly, whiny voice.
‘If someone is a little late and you get that angry, then you’ll let it ruin the whole date, then it’s dead in the water from the word go,’ he tells me. I try to resist acknowledging that there’s a little truth in that, I suppose. ‘Looking back, has turning up early ever helped you?’
I feel my cheeks flush. Nico’s eyebrows rise, like he’s reading my mind. Yes, there’s a story there, and it’s all over my face.
‘Well, now you have to tell me what happened,’ he says. ‘A good date has good stories.’
‘It’s an embarrassing story,’ I confess.
‘Embarrassment is an unavoidable part of the human existence,’ he tells me.
‘Plus, you can tell me, I’m not a real date.
I can tell you if it’s a story that you should keep to yourself from now on but, you know, I think showing a little of that side of you will bring out your more relaxed side.
Show that you don’t take things too seriously. ’
I take a deep breath – am I really going to tell him this?
‘Okay, well, I was meeting a guy at a country pub, and didn’t want to be late, so I turned up early, but when I got there I noticed he was already there, in the beer garden, with another woman…’
‘Oh,’ Nico says simply. ‘Well, that’s…’
‘That’s not the end of the story,’ I interrupt him. ‘I was worried he might be on another date, like he’d booked them back to back – in which case, I knew that he wouldn’t tell me, so I needed to be sure…’
‘Okay…’
‘So I snuck around the back, and I saw that they had this kids’ play area, with this big wooden castle, and it was right by where they were sitting, so I thought, if I went in I could get close, hear what they were saying, realise I was probably being silly, it was just his sister or something, and then turn up “on time” in good faith. Except…’
Nico stares at me. He’s on the edge of his seat, waiting to see how this one plays out. I would say I was almost too scared to admit it, but I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone on the hook like this.
‘Except…’
‘Except I guess, you know, the castle was just for kids, it couldn’t take my weight, and my foot went right through one of the panels, leaving me with one leg dangling out of the bottom, over the seesaw. Someone had to come and help me out – needless to say, the date didn’t happen.’
I look at Nico, waiting for his reaction.
‘Right, yeah, okay, never tell that story to anyone on a date,’ he insists with a laugh. ‘I take back what I said. There’s humanising embarrassment, and then there’s that.’
Hence me keeping it to myself all this time. Ugh, I feel even more embarrassed now.
‘So, in some video games, there are branching narratives,’ he starts.
‘Speaking of things that put girls off…’ I joke, trying to offload some of the embarrassment, but it doesn’t work; he just laughs.
‘Listen – so you can have multiple endings. You make choices, see how the story changes – you go back and try again, see if things would have been different.’
‘Right…’
‘So, what I’m saying is, you could play that day again, a thousand times.
In one playthrough you could leave the second you saw him with another girl.
In another, you could confront him and find out it was his sister.
In another, you could have married the man and only realised when it was too late that he’d cheated on you for your entire relationship… ’
I furrow my brow as I wonder what he’s getting at.
‘So?’