Two Dates (The Stuart Family #1)

1

There’s this idea that every day, we make incredibly insignificant choices that can completely alter the trajectory of our lives. They’re called sliding door moments. Not every choice we make is a sliding door moment, but it’s scary to think that any one of the countless decisions we make daily could be the one that sets our life on a brand-new course. And that new course could be good or bad, there’s just no way of knowing.

There’s a film from the late 90s all about it. Gwyneth Paltrow stars in two storylines; one where she gets on the train to get home in time to catch her partner cheating, and one where the doors slide closed before she can make it. Do you see what they did there? With the sliding doors? Clever, right?

In one storyline she gets a really cool haircut and meets a new man and in the other, she is being cheated on and going slowly crazy with suspicion. It’s one of those films where you think you can see the ending and you think that one storyline is the best one, until the end when you realise it’s not.

And it’s that terrifying thought that I think about at least once a day, usually at around 4 a.m. when the anxious woman who lives in my brain is awake and contemplating deep thoughts while refusing to let me sleep.

I am only twenty-seven, but I think I have already lived through a few sliding-door moments. Like the time I decided to pick up the phone with an old acquaintance even though I knew she never had anything good to say. That phone call was awful, but it saved me years of lies and betrayal.

Or like the time at university, when I decided to invite the quiet girl who lived next door to one of our flat parties. At the party, she would meet a guy and go on to date, and eventually move in with him. In fact, the decision to invite Daisy–said quiet girl–to that party where she met Harry, led me to where I am right now.

It’s a Saturday night and, after much protest, my best friend Emme has managed to get me out of the house. Harry and Daisy are having a housewarming party and even the long trek to a postcode that really shouldn’t be considered London couldn’t stop Emme from making me attend.

She claims that I don’t leave the house often enough, which is very true. So, here I am. At a party, I don’t want to be at, but the jokes on Emme because I have been hiding for a while now and have left her to fend for herself .

If the labels on the boxes are anything to go by, I've shut myself in a room that will eventually become Harry’s home office. The room itself is inoffensive. The decorating has clearly started because the wallpaper is sparse. The bare walls that peek through beneath it sport a bleak grey colour that reflects my mood pretty aptly right now.

I’m spinning slowly on a cracked, leather chair when my phone pings beside me. I look at the screen to see that it’s Emme asking me where I’ve gotten to. Swiping the message from my screen without opening it, I spin a little faster and hope that she doesn’t decide to come and look for me. I am not that well-hidden.

Although I am sort of annoyed at Emme for making me come here tonight, I know I would have felt bad if I had chosen to stay home instead. For someone with an intense desire not to leave the house ever, I sure do get a lot of FOMO.

Harry and Daisy are good friends of mine though, and their new house is great. I’m just not really in the mood to celebrate them buying it. I guess that makes me a bad person, right? Why am I not happy that my friends are in love and starting their lives together in a house paid for by generational wealth? Lucky, lucky them!

I sigh and spin a little faster, immediately regretting it when the world starts to streak past me. The world was already a little unsteady when I came in here, mostly because I thought I could get through this party a little easier if I got drunk enough. But it turns out that even alcohol can’t save you from some things. Shocking, I know.

Alcohol isn’t the answer, of course, but, when I heard that Harry was planning on proposing to Daisy tonight, I decided a healthy dose of gin might make it bearable.

Spoiler alert: it didn’t.

It did give me the courage to sneak away from Emme, though. She was chatting up some guy she always fancied from our university halls when I saw my opportunity to slip away.

It’s not that I’m not happy for Daisy and Harry, I am. I am! Or at least, a very small part of my brain that isn’t a bitter, man-hating shrew is. The rest of my brain is so much bigger and louder and overpowering though, and well, that part of my brain just didn’t want to sit there and watch it all unfold.

Public proposals should be outlawed.

You should have to pay compensation for the emotional damage you cause the people who have to watch such an intimate moment play out in front of them.

And even if I wasn’t the most awkward little ball of a person and I could stomach a public proposal, I’ve had entirely enough of weddings for this week. This year even.

My oldest friend, Tilda, is getting married. And, while she and her husband-to-be are some of my favourite people on earth, it’s just another reminder that I’m a 27-year-old spinster who is likely to die all alone .

Already a burden to my family…

So, this fading, cracked leather chair is probably the best place for me. At least in here, no one can hear the bitter and sarcastic remarks that are bound to come out of my uncontrollable mouth—made even more uncontrollable by the very, very large gin I brought into my hiding space with me.

All-in-all, I think my plan was the best choice for everyone. I can’t offend them, and they won’t have to clean up the mess when my head explodes from the second-hand embarrassment of a public proposal. We’re all winning really.

The only thing that could ruin my plans is if Emme comes to find me. Then, I guess I’ll just have to kill her which would be a massive inconvenience because I’ll somehow need to cover our extortionate London rent on my meagre wages.

I sigh and stop spinning for a moment to take another generous sip of my gin when the door cracks. I jump, catching myself before I slosh gin over the shirt I sacrificed a decent chunk of my savings for.

Eyes wide and heart pounding, I am battle-ready and prepared to defend myself to Emme, but it’s not Emme; it’s a guy. A very tall guy with a neck tattoo who looks completely out of place at this gathering of very middle-class, Russell Group University friends.

Perhaps he’s here to deal cocaine to the upper echelons of our extended friendship group. Daisy does work in finance after all.

He doesn’t seem to see me at first and slithers into the room as though he, too, is hiding. He closes the door slowly and waits, facing it for a second, then he exhales and turns to face me.

I snort as he jumps at the sight of me.

“This room is very much occupied,” I slur at him, realising suddenly that I might actually be too drunk to tell him he needs to fuck off in any kind of eloquent way.

He raises a dark eyebrow and leans back against the door. “No room for a little one?”

I snort again as I take in his tall, broad build.

I’ve got to stop snorting.

He grins, crossing his tanned arms over his chest. He’s wearing a plain black t-shirt that makes his biceps look delicious when he does it. His bottom half is clothed in a pair of black jeans, and to round off the whole I-could-play-a-hot-drug-dealer-in-a-movie look, he’s got Dr Martens on.

“Oh, come on. It can’t be fun hiding all alone,” he says, smirking.

No, lovely stranger, you’re right. Let’s hide together, winky face emoji. Or something less predatory and much more like the sober version of myself who doesn’t want to hit on suspected drug dealers.

“Who says I’m hiding?” I ask, doing my best impression of someone who isn’t hiding—whatever that looks like.

“Your general demeanour,” he says, pushing off the door and moving towards one of the many still-packed boxes in the room. He scans them quickly, clearly looking for one that will actually take his weight. I’m sure that with those big biceps, and what I can only imagine is an eight-pack and strong thighs beneath those jeans, a cardboard box is going to need to be sturdy to hold him.

Or something less creepy.

“Hey, I didn’t say you could stay,” I say, shooing him with my hands, “This is my hiding place. Go and find your own,”

He snorts, shaking his head at me and sinking down to perch tentatively on a box.

“Strength in numbers, my darling,” he says.

I really consider arguing with him. Or the tiny sober part of my brain does. She’s really quiet though, and the much louder, drunk part wants to hang in a room with this guy who looks like if Khal Drogo was in a biker gang. I never hang out with guys who look like him. Quite frankly, I didn’t think they existed outside of Hollywood, but whatever.

I roll my eyes, feigning annoyance. I mean, I don’t want him to think I actually want to chill with him. Can’t have men thinking I don’t hate their presence, can I?

“Fine, but the password is the reason you’re hiding too,”

He breaks into a wolfish grin and it transforms his face. His dark eyes suddenly light up into something happy, something like sunshine on an otherwise dark and stormy day.

“Oh, so you admit you’re hiding, do you?” he asks, raising one of his dark eyebrows and still grinning that sunshine smile.

“Well, I was,” I mutter, fighting with all my might not to smile back at him, “I’m clearly not very good at it though, am I?”

He chuckles, light and melodic. Another incongruity with the biker-chic, broody Viking look he’s got going on.

“I would say spinning around on a chair in the only empty room in this very big house is probably not the best hiding place,” he says, “But who am I to judge, I chose this room too. I mean, granted, the guest bedroom was occupied by a couple making some very suspect sounds. And, it just felt plain wrong to hide in Harry’s new bedroom,” he adds, smirking a little.

“Suspect noises?” I ask, arching a brow.

He nods, his face solemn, “Very suspicious,” he says, looking like he’s trying to keep a straight face, “Especially when I’m almost certain that I saw Harry’s very-married boss head that way a few minutes ago,”

“How does one become ‘very-married’?” I ask, doing that annoying air quotes thing and leaning back in my chair to study him.

He seems to ponder this for a moment, “I’d say you’re very-married if you have kids,” he says, “You know, so if you break up it’s gonna take more than just splitting your money?”

I raise an eyebrow, “You could just split the kids,” I say.

His brow furrows, “You want to split children in half?”

I snort again. “Well, I meant the wife gets one half of the brood and the husband the other, but if you think physically splitting them would work…” I trail. And then I remember that, even if I am the funniest person I know, I might not be that funny to other people. My ex certainly never found me half as funny as I find myself.

Because he sucked, obviously.

The stranger startles me with another melodic laugh. He scrunches his nose and I notice a nose ring. I mentally check it off the list of reasons this guy might just be the coolest person I’ve ever met.

“So, why are you hiding?” he asks, his eyes twinkling as he swerves back to the subject I was trying not to get into with this attractive Viking guy.

“I neither confirm nor deny that I am hiding,” I say, leaning back for my gin.

“You admitted it a second ago,” he says, arching an eyebrow and folding his arms. A daring move since the box he is sitting on doesn’t look particularly sturdy and I, personally, would want my hands free for when I fell straight through it. He doesn’t look concerned though. He’s just staring at me, waiting for my reply.

I am realising that I did, in fact, admit to hiding approximately three minutes ago, but my gin-brain forgot. I scramble to not look like I have short-term memory loss and hit him with a very mature, “You first,”

I put my gin back on the desk and sit forward, putting my elbows on my knees and my chin in my hands, waiting.

He grins at me, uncrossing his arms and pushing a stray strand of hair behind his ear.

“I heard Harry was going to propose. Your turn,”

Something between a laugh and a horrific snort rips from my throat and his eyes widen before he bursts out laughing. Seriously, why can’t I stop snorting? Is this the price I pay for making a hot guy laugh? I can only snort from now on????

“That’s why I’m hiding too,” I say excitedly.

“I got that from the horrendous noise you just made,” I snort again and this time I think I might have done it on purpose.

“So, why do you object to proposals?” I ask, once I’ve stopped laughing at myself, “Commitment issues?” I add, winking at him. Or at least, I think I’m winking. With the volume of gin I’ve consumed tonight I might have just blinked at him.

He laughs, “No, actually. Public proposals make me want to find the nearest cliff and jump off it,”

“Me too!” I say, slightly louder than I would were I not quite as tipsy as I am.

He doesn’t seem to notice though, instead, he just nods. “ I used to work in bars and the amount of public proposals I saw, I don’t know man, it kind of sticks with you,” he says, looking like a man who has seen some stuff.

And I’m right there with him. You can’t work waitressing jobs and not see a fuck-tonne of shiver-inducing public proposals. They range from the spur-of-the-moment, drop-to-the-knee ones in the pub on New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day to the militarily organised, rose petals, chocolate name swirls, and conveniently timed flowers that I experienced working in a high-end restaurant.

Each one is unique and beautiful, or so I am told.

Each one is also like another wrong letter for the hanged man, and my ability to cope in public when I see a guy reaching for a tiny little box.

“Right,” I say, nodding so vigorously it hurts my neck, “And it’s not even that they might say no. I mean, sure it’s fucking horrendous when they do, but my God, even saying yes to someone in public makes me want to move to the mountains and never communicate with another human again,”

I’m trying not to reveal quite how fucking crazy public proposals make me, but I’m also disassociating slightly at the thought of having to experience another one.

“So, this room, is in effect, your mountain cave?” the stranger asks, looking at me like he’s pondering my current mental state.

I look around my metaphorical mountain cave. The bare walls. The exposed floorboards. The chair I’m sitting on has seen better days, and most of the boxes in the room seem to be labelled ‘taxes,’—like enough that I’m starting to wonder quite how high Daisy and Harry’s tax bill is. It’s bleak but it’s a comfort, being locked away in this room.

I glance back at him. “You’re lucky I let you in,” I say like he should be pleased he gets to hang out with me, “I’m usually much pickier with the people I let into my cave, but the copious amounts of gin I’ve consumed this evening have made me a much more amenable person,”

“Ah, the classic drinking the awkward away,” he says, nodding like he totally gets being as awkward as I am.

Pfft. Hot guys like this avenging-angel-Viking-boy don’t feel anxiety.

“You’re just jealous you didn’t think to bring supplies,” I say, sticking my tongue out like I’ve been possessed by the soul of Prince Louis, and grabbing my drink once more.