Love at First Fight
Mary Jayne Baker
First published in the United Kingdom in 2021 by Aria, an imprint of Head of Zeus Ltd
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Copyright © Mary Jayne Baker, 2021
The moral right of Mary Jayne Baker to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
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This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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E ISBN 9781800241640
PB ISBN 97811800246164
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Cover design © Head of Zeus
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Aria
c/o Head of Zeus
First Floor East
5–8 Hardwick Street
London EC1R 4RG
www.ariafiction.com
Print editions of this book are printed on FSC® paper
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
Also by Mary Jayne Baker
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps…
Much Ado About Nothing (act 3, scene 1)
One
Bridie peered through the peephole of her house from the wrong side, trying to see if Hattie was up yet.
If her housemate was already in the living room, Bridie had no chance of sneaking in unnoticed through the front door. She’d have to walk round to the corner shop and buy a magazine or something so she could pretend that was why she was up and about at this time in the morning. Pretty hard to pull off when she was still in the same little black dress she’d worn out to the restaurant the night before. But if Hat was still in her bedroom then there was a chance Bridie could creep into the house, get back to her own room and throw on her pyjamas before her housemate realised she hadn’t come home last night.
No, it was no good. The peephole was a dead loss. God only knew what they did to the glass in those things to make them work, but she couldn’t see a thing from this side.
Dare she try the letterbox? The hinge was a bit creaky, but if she was really, really careful… Very quietly, very slowly, Bridie bent down and pushed it open.
Nope, that was no help either. She could see the standard lamp, the telly, the back of the sofa, and that was it.
‘I can see your knickers when you bend over like that, you know.’
‘Shit!’
Bridie jerked straight up, pulling her tiny dress down to cover her bethonged bum. Hattie’s boyfriend Cal had appeared behind her, smirking.
‘As, in fact, can the rest of the street,’ he said, waving one hand around the sleepy cul-de-sac bursting with May blossom. ‘You were giving the old chap across the road quite a show there, Bride.’
‘What the hell are you doing spying on our front door?’ she demanded, giving her dress another yank as she tried to cover a bit more flesh.
‘Well I wasn’t hanging around waiting to get a view of your pulling undies, if that’s what you’re thinking.’ He nodded to a cardboard carrier he was holding containing three takeaway coffees. ‘I’m bringing Hattie coffee in bed before she gets up for work, aren’t I? Like the almost indecently perfect boyfriend I am. Why the hell are you breaking into your own house?’
‘I’m not.’ She snatched up her handbag from the step. ‘I was just trying to see if Hat was up yet.’
‘I get it.’ He brushed past her to unlock the front door with Hattie’s key. ‘Home in the early morning, desperately trying not to be spotted, wearing the same clothes as when you went out on your date last night. So it’s the classic walk of shame then, is it?’
‘No. Shut your face.’
He shook his head solemnly as she followed him inside. ‘Bridie Morgan, you shameless harlot. And you a teacher, responsible for all those impressionable young minds. I’m shocked, really. Shocked and appalled. Shocked and appalled and disgusted. Shocked and appalled and disgusted and—’
‘God, I hate you.’ She glanced longingly at the third coffee on his tray. ‘Is that for me?’
‘That was the idea, yes. I had assumed when I went out for it that you were tucked up all snuggly in your own bed, alone. I’m innocent like that.’
‘God, I love you.’ She snatched at the coffee, sat down in the armchair and swallowed some down, hardly caring about the way it scorched her throat in her desperation for a caffeine hit. ‘Ahhh. That’s the stuff.’
‘Hattie!’ Cal called down the hallway. ‘Come on, you’re missing all the fun. Bridie’s been staying out past her bedtime with unsuitable boys and she just flashed her tiny knickers at me.’
Bridie was sure she heard that running-in-the-air sound effect from the Scooby-Doo cartoons before, within literally a fraction of a fraction of a second, her housemate appeared in the doorway.
‘Oh my God!’ Hattie said, hurtling into Cal in her rush to get into the room. He caught her deftly and pushed a cup of coffee into her hand before pulling her down onto his knee on the sofa, none of which even broke her concentration. ‘Tell tell tell! What happened, Bride? Did you get a humpable one at last?’
‘Not exactly.’ Bridie fortified herself with another mouthful of coffee. ‘Do we have to do this now, Hat? I’m badly in need of a very long, very cold shower to wake me up a bit before work. I’m knackered.’
Cal grinned. ‘I bet you are. Scarlet woman.’
‘I notice you stayed over again last night, you enormous hypocrite,’ Bridie said, glaring at him.
‘Hey, me and Hattie have been together a year. You can’t compare our loved-up long-term-relationship shagging to your one-night bounceathons with randoms off Tinder.’
‘Come on, Bride, you have to tell,’ Hattie said. ‘It’s not fair to roll in at this time and not share the gossip. Did you meet someone good at long last or not?’
Bridie sighed. ‘Well, I thought I might have. This guy Jake really seemed like he might tick a few boxes, at least as far as being worth a quick roll-around to break my long run of celibacy. I mean he was good-looking, well-groomed, plus he didn’t manage to bore me into a coma within the first hour of the meal, which is about as much as I expect of blokes these days. But…’
‘But?’ Cal said.
Bridie frowned at him. ‘Do we have to
have you here for this? This is girl talk, Cal Kemp.’
He shrugged. ‘I can do girl talk. Men, am I right? What a bunch of bastards. With their leaving the toilet seat up and their inadequate foreplay and their… socks.’
‘Is that the best you can do?’
‘Ah go on, Bride, let me join in. Your disastrous dating stories are always worth sticking around for.’
‘Yeah, let him stay,’ Hattie said, snuggling comfortably back against him while he buried his face in her neck. ‘You know I’ll tell him later anyway.’
Bridie shook her head. ‘Traitor. What about sisters before misters and all that jazz?’
‘Hey. Cal and me have no secrets from each other.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ Cal murmured into the ear he’d started nuzzling.
‘You think, do you? I’ve seen your browser history.’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘All right, in that case we have no secrets from each other.’
‘Besides, it’s only Cal,’ Hattie said to Bridie, tilting her head to give him better access to her ear. ‘Who’s he going to tell?’
‘Fine,’ Bridie said, folding her arms. ‘I’ll tell you both. But only if you cut out the heavy petting – it’s making me queasy.’
‘Don’t see why we should,’ Cal mumbled from Hattie’s neck. ‘Even you got some action last night, probably for the first time since school. Me and Hat can’t be lagging behind just because we’re in a long-term relationship, can we? Otherwise we’ll be doomed to Mateus-Rosé-fuelled dinner parties and Sunday afternoon garden centre trips for all eternity.’
‘It would’ve been the first time in nearly a year, if you must know. Not that I actually got any action in the end.’ Bridie finished her coffee and put the empty styrofoam cup down on the table. ‘Although I did go back to his place with that in mind, yes.’
‘Tsk tsk tsk. And on a school night too.’
‘I’ve been celibate for ten solid months, Cal. School nights be damned, I say.’
Hattie pushed Cal away from her neck so she could lean forward, the better to absorb all the juicy details. ‘Well, what happened? Did he ask you to dress up in his dead wife’s lingerie or something?’
‘Worse.’
‘Oooh, I love this!’ Hattie said, clapping her hands. ‘“Guess the Pervert” is my favourite post-Bridie-date game. Did he want to draw you like one of his French girls?’
‘Or wear one of those Furry suits?’ Cal suggested.
‘Ball gag?’
‘Sex swing?’
‘Gimp mask?’
‘Strap-ons?’
‘All right, you maniacs, stop.’ Bridie groaned. ‘Again, I’m going to have to say, worse. God, I don’t even know if I can tell you. It’s just too humiliating.’
‘You have to tell us after a teaser like that,’ Cal said.
‘Only if you promise not to breathe a word to a soul, both of you.’ She frowned at him. ‘Especially you, Cal. I’d never hear the end of it if your brother found out. I bet he’d pay the roaming rate from South America just to ring me up for a gloat.’
‘I swear he won’t hear it from me.’ Cal licked the end of one finger and crossed himself solemnly. ‘There. Spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch, as we used to say at Sunday school. Now go on, spit it out.’
‘Yeah, what was wrong with Jake?’ Hattie asked. ‘He looked normal enough in his Tinder photo.’
Bridie sighed. ‘He still lives at home. With his parents.’
‘How old is he?’ Cal asked.
‘Same age as me.’
‘All right, I’ll admit his parents being at home is a pretty big mood-killer,’ Hattie said. ‘Still, it’s a bit unfair to judge him just on that, Bride. Lots of people in their late twenties are forced into that situation these days, aren’t they?’
‘That wasn’t the only problem.’ She scrunched her eyes closed and moaned faintly. ‘You know, he really had me fooled with the sharp suit and the normal job and everything. I should’ve known Tinder could never match me with just an ordinary, well-adjusted human male.’
Cal shuffled Hattie off his knee to get a better view of his old schoolfriend’s abject misery.
‘Go on,’ he said with a grin. ‘I bet this is going to be good.’
‘He shared a bedroom with his brother,’ Bridie muttered.
Hattie’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Oh my God!’
‘There’s more.’ Bridie buried her face in her hands and lowered her voice to a pained whisper. ‘It was… bunk beds.’
Cal let out a snort of laughter, then covered his mouth.
‘Oh God. Sorry, Bride, that just slipped out,’ he said. ‘This Jake surely didn’t think you were going to do it with him while his brother was in the bottom bunk, did he?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ The absurdity of the situation finally ate through her epic humiliation and Bridie’s lips twitched into a smile. ‘His brother was in the top bunk.’
‘Shit! You didn’t actually do it, did you?’ Hattie said, her eyes widening.
‘Course we didn’t. There isn’t enough wine in the world, Hat.’
‘Then where’ve you been all night? Topping and tailing with the brother?’
‘No. I didn’t have the fare for a taxi on me so I kipped on their sofa until the buses started running. His mum woke me up half an hour ago with a fried egg sandwich.’
Hattie shook her head. ‘This twenty dates in twenty days challenge you set yourself is not working out, Bride. I really think you ought to jack it in.’
Bridie watched as Cal half unconsciously trailed his fingers over his girlfriend’s thigh. ‘What, so I can sit here every night watching you two touching each other up like love’s young and excessively randy dream? No thanks, it’s too depressing.’
‘Why don’t you just date normally, like normal single people? Wait for the good matches to pop up before you swipe right? There’s no need to cram a year’s worth of dates into a few weeks. I always said it was a daft idea.’
‘Cramming them in is the whole point.’ Bridie pushed herself to her feet and went into the kitchen to hunt for something carbohydrate-based for breakfast. ‘I’m trying to prove something to myself here, guys,’ she called back through the open door to the living room. ‘After this little experiment is over, I’ll either have found The One – or at least someone who doesn’t make me want to swallow my own eyeballs every time he opens his mouth, which when you’ve been single as long as me amounts to the same thing – or I’ll have seen enough of men to finally accept that true love is a fiction created to sell boxes of Milk Tray and embrace my inevitable singledom with resigned contentment. I think if I can just do this, it’ll teach my brain that there’s no need to have any regrets about giving myself up to spinsterhood.’
After hunting through all the kitchen cupboards, she discovered a half-pack of jaffa cakes that were two weeks out of date and took them back into the living room.
‘How many of the twenty dates are left?’ Cal asked.
‘Two, then that’s it,’ Bridie told him. ‘I haven’t had a single decent match so far, and I can’t imagine the last two are going to be any better. Come this time on Sunday, I’ll be resigned to my fate and looking into cat adoption.’
‘The male of the species aren’t all lost causes, you know,’ Cal said. ‘I’m all right.’
Bridie snorted. ‘That’s a matter of opinion.’
‘Hey. I brought you coffee, didn’t I?’ He folded his arms with an air of self-satisfaction. ‘And I don’t even want to get into your pants. Just did it out of the kindness of my heart. That’s pretty noble, right?’
Hattie patted his knee. ‘You’re a prince among men, darling.’
‘You see, that’s the whole problem. He actually is,’ Bridie said to Hattie, nibbling around the edges of a stale jaffa cake.
‘That’s more like it,’ Cal said, nodding. ‘Cheers, Bridie. Nice to be appreciated.’
‘Hadn’t finished, had I?’ She glanced back to Hat
tie. ‘You know why? Because the rest of them are setting such a stupidly low bar. These days, any bloke who brings his girlfriend a takeaway coffee and manages to keep his knob in his knickers for five minutes thinks he’s treating her like a bloody princess. The problem with heterosexual men en masse is that for every Cal there’s also far too many…’
‘Too many Bens?’
‘Yeah,’ Bridie said with a thin smile. ‘The sort of arrogant, swaggering twats who shag their way around every woman within a ten-mile radius and are convinced they’re God’s gift to the female sex. The thing that really pisses me off is that so many women actually seem to fall for Ben’s brand of laboured charm. It reflects badly on the rest of us.’ She finished off her jaffa cake and helped herself to a second.
‘You two do know that I’m sitting right here while you’re slagging off me and my brother, right?’ Cal said. The girls ignored him.
‘I’m reliably informed that you liked Ben well enough once, Bridie,’ Hattie said with a knowing smile.
‘Yes, well. I was a kid then; too naive to know any better. He soon showed his true colours.’
‘So that’s why you’re so down on the rest of us?’ Cal asked. ‘Because my brother stood you up the night of your sixth-form leavers’ ball ten years ago? I mean, I hate to go all #NotAllMen about it, but… well, that’s just Ben, isn’t it?’
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