The First Time We Met: An utterly heart-warming and unforgettable love story

by Jo Lovett

  Sam turned around. Barney had already disappeared. Liv was leaning against the wall, arms folded across her chest. Sam couldn’t face talking to her right now, other than a bit of basic reassurance. He needed some time to work out what to say.

  ‘I love you, Liv,’ he said. She snorted. He reached out to her, but she moved sideways, away from him. Alright. ‘I’m going to clear the kitchen up and then I have work to do.’ Completely avoiding the issue. Fantastic parenting.

  Sam had intended to speak properly to Liv on Sunday but in the end she and Barney were out with his parents all day while he finalised the application for the senior role that he did and did not want. He wouldn’t have had time for sightseeing, in the end. And then, as so often, the week slipped away from him. He knew that he should talk to Liv, but he couldn’t do it by email or by phone, and he was still too incredibly busy to get home in good time.

  He did have some email correspondence with Izzy. He composed a lengthy apology for Liv’s hostility and then deleted what he’d written and replaced it with a one-liner about teenage girls being very difficult at times. Any more of an apology and he might have ended up in ‘She’s worked out that I have feelings for you’ territory, and he wasn’t going there.

  Izzy’s emails, about the rest of their New York sightseeing, their flight home, Wednesday’s painting (Girl with a Pearl Earring; apparently Izzy was not a gifted portraitist), how Emma and Rohan were bickering a little again, were somewhat stilted at first but settled back to normal. In his turn, Sam ranted as usual to Izzy about his job and told her how pleased he was that Luke had asked him – by text because Sam had had to cancel evening drinks – to be godfather to one of his children for the third time.

  The good news, which he certainly wasn’t going to mention to Liv, was that he might be able to get to see Izzy again soon, and alone finally.

  Hey Izzy,

  And FINALLY we get to Friday night. A very long week.

  No time for a run today so did push-ups in my office—temp secretary barely in her twenties walked in as I was doing some with claps. She giggled for hours.

  Question: I’ll be back in London on business Weds—Fri week after next. Kids at school and staying home with Mrs H. Can you fit me in for dinner that Thursday evening between art and climbing? Love to catch up if so. Fully understand if not.

  Climbing good this evening?

  Hope you’re over your jetlag.

  S x

  He’d caught Izzy’s capitalisation habit. She liked to stress words when she was speaking. Look at that, he was smiling just thinking about her.

  He was pretty much desperate for Izzy to say yes to dinner, which was why he was doing the trip the week after next, instead of this coming week when she and Ruby were going to be away in Dorset. Obviously the twins still took precedent, but after Saturday’s awkwardness it would be great to see Izzy and clear the air. At least that’s what he was telling himself.

  He finally managed to catch Liv for a conversation over pancakes on Saturday morning while Barney was at basketball training. He made a few attempts to move the conversation naturally in that direction before just going straight in there, because no natural segue was happening.

  ‘Liv. Honey. You know how much I love you and Barney. I got the impression that you were unhappy when Izzy and Ruby came over last weekend. There’s no need to be unhappy.’ He should say more, but it was difficult.

  Liv turned her mug round a few times and then said, ‘I really don’t like her. I don’t think you should see her any more.’ Oh-kay. Sam needed to choose his words carefully.

  ‘Izzy lives in London and we live in New York. She and I are friends and nothing more. I’m sorry if you got a different impression and that upset you. I would never want to hurt you in any way. You and Barney are more important to me than anyone or anything else.’ That was absolutely true, even though, if he was honest, Izzy had also become very important to him. Maybe he shouldn’t see her for dinner.

  ‘Do you miss Mom?’ Liv looked at her plate, spearing some pancake on her fork and putting it in her mouth slowly, before finally looking up into Sam’s eyes. There was only one possible answer.

  ‘Yes, I do. Very much. She was my best friend.’

  ‘And no-one could ever replace her?’

  ‘Correct. She was your mother.’ True. ‘I loved her like I’ll never love anyone else.’ Which was also true. He and Lana had become parents for the first time together; that was pretty irreplaceable. And he had loved her.

  Liv smiled at him for the first time in a week.

  At the movies with Liv and Barney that afternoon, sitting on the back row, which he’d booked so that he could surreptitiously use his phone during the film, Sam found two new emails.

  There was, very unusually, one from his mother.

  Dearest Sam,

  I’m resorting to writing to you because I’ve been trying to speak to you alone for months, but you never seem to have time to talk.

  I’m worried about you, and I’m worried about Liv and Barney.

  You appear to be so busy and so stressed. You don’t seem to have the time to enjoy your children, your family and friends, sport, all the things you’ve always loved.

  I don’t think it can be good for Liv and Barney either.

  Your father and I love you so much and we’d love to help in any way we can.

  Your mom

  Jesus. It was lovely that they cared, obviously, but it wasn’t like he could do anything about his shitty work-life balance. And now his mother had just made him even busier, because he was going to have to spend time fashioning a reply to her.

  He had an email from Izzy, too, which, given the conversation he’d had with Liv this morning, wasn’t as welcome as it would normally be.

  Good morning.

  Quick one.

  Press-ups – head or bottom facing towards door?

  I can do Thursday after next for dinner! Have booked babysitter!

  Climbing good. Emma might have met someone! There was a new man. Very attractive in a young Tom Cruise kind of way. They were flirting outrageously.

  THEN we got home and were chatting with Rohan, and I mentioned that Emma might have exchanged numbers with someone and next thing he’d gone very stand-offish. And normally he gives her a lift but they went home separately.

  Good day today?

  I xx

  Izzy had gone to the trouble of arranging a babysitter. He couldn’t pull out of dinner now. And he was going to be in London anyway, after all. He’d just be meeting a friend. And he ought really to apologise in person to Izzy for Liv’s rudeness. No need to mention it to the kids.

  Hey.

  I’m starting to think that Rohan has a thing for Emma? Only possible explanation?

  Push-ups: My (obviously manly and clenched) buttocks were facing the door.

  I’ll look forward to next Thursday—eight fifteen? I’ll book us a restaurant somewhere near your house. And I’ll say right now that it’s my treat.

  Cooking your prawn pasta and apple crumble recipes tomorrow. Kids shopping for ingredients later.

  If you’re still sure about doing it while in Dorset, Barney will look forward to your session as always.

  S x

  And he was looking forward to dinner with Izzy.

  Twenty

  Izzy

  Izzy looked at the three dresses on her bed. Okay, calm. Decision time. She had seven minutes until she needed to leave the house. Lucky that she’d decided to do her hair and make-up before she did Ruby’s bath. This was what going out for dinner with someone you had a massive crush on did to you. Normally it didn’t take her that long to decide what to wear. Now she was making Ruby in a unicorn shop look decisive.

  It was an unusual situation, though. This evening felt strangely illicit. Dinner last weekend at Sam’s had been excruciating. Firstly, it had been awkward telling Emma about it, and unpleasant feeling that she was going behind Dominic’s back in some way. Which wa
s utterly ridiculous. She’d been wondering if she and Dominic might become close again, but so far nothing had actually happened between them. She was single. Still uncomfortable, though.

  Secondly, Liv had clearly not wanted her there, and both she and Sam had been at pains to emphasise how missed Lana was. Understandably. Sam had briefly mentioned Liv’s behaviour in an email, and had attributed it to her being a teenager, but it had felt to Izzy as though it was personal.

  So having dinner now felt odd. Irresistible, though, to finally to get the chance to talk properly, alone, with Sam. And it wasn’t like it would be more than a one-off.

  Okay. Time to focus. Five minutes. The shimmery gold dress and the red heels.

  No. Too glitzy.

  Four minutes. But down to two dresses.

  The green one.

  Or maybe she should check her wardrobe again.

  No, she shouldn’t. She and Ruby had been all the way through it already. These were her best options. She was going with the green one. Except she’d been wearing a green top when she met Sam and the twins in Peter Jones and a green skirt in New York. Okay, the blue one. But she loved the green one.

  The green one it was. Only one minute until she needed to leave the house.

  * * *

  Fourteen minutes later, she was on her way through the hall, in the green dress.

  ‘You look amazing.’ Lily, Izzy’s next-door neighbour’s seventeen-year-old daughter was babysitting. Izzy could have asked one of her friends, but then she’d have had to tell someone where she was going.

  ‘Thank you.’ Izzy beamed at Lily. She did love this dress. The top half was fitted, the waist was cinched in and the knee-length skirt was full, so it didn’t just flatter a generously boobed and hipped woman, it required generous boobage and hippage. She had her gold Anya Hindmarch clutch, a present a couple of years ago from Dominic, and was wearing gold mega heels, which she couldn’t really walk in but which she knew from her mirror made her calves look a lot more defined and her legs a lot longer than they actually were. The elegance gain was very much worth the foot pain.

  Her phone pinged while she was in the cab on the way to the restaurant. It was Sam.

  Hey,

  Looking forward to seeing you soon.

  S xx

  Stomach-droppingly date-like. They were going to spend the whole evening together. Now her throat was getting dry. Too much anticipation. Honestly, she was being ridiculous. It was not a date.

  She should let him know that she was running late. She typed out a quick ‘Me too, there in ten, xx’ reply to his email and pressed Send.

  ‘You on a date?’ The taxi driver looked at her in his rear-view mirror and winked. ‘Messaging the boyfriend?’ To be fair, Izzy had just been smiling at her phone.

  ‘No, just meeting a friend.’ She shook her head and tried to arrange her features into an I’m-not-going-on-a-date look. It totally felt like a date. But it wasn’t. She was just meeting a friend. Who she totally fancied, but anyone would, in the same way that anyone would fancy George Clooney.

  The restaurant was a Sicilian trattoria, in a quiet, residential street about a mile from Izzy’s house, sandwiched between a florist’s and a vintage comic shop, and otherwise surrounded by narrow terraced houses. Izzy had never noticed it before.

  Izzy’s non-date was waiting outside the restaurant, wearing smart navy jeans and a black shirt with a tailored jacket. There was something about a very handsome man in a dark shirt. And the way Sam wore his thick, wavy hair slightly long with no apparent regard to styling added a bit of a devil-may-care attitude to whatever he was wearing, which, obviously, just made him even more gorgeous.

  As Izzy’s cab drew up, Sam moved forwards, opened the door and put his hand out to her. His slow smile was spreading across his face as though he’d developed that smile just for her. Izzy literally got a stomach tingle as she took his hand. She hoiked herself out of the cab, caught one of her heels in a crack in the kerb and wobbled spectacularly, while Sam held her up with no apparent effort. His arm had to be strong, because she was not tiny.

  ‘Good to see you,’ Sam said when she’d finished wobbling and had two feet stable on the pavement. He leaned down towards her, still holding her hand, and they exchanged a cheek-kiss. The tiny scratch of his stubble against Izzy’s face massively upped her stomach-tingling. ‘You look beautiful. Lovely dress.’

  ‘Thank you. Not looking so shabby yourself.’ Understatement.

  ‘Why, thank you.’ His smile widened. Possibly the most attractive man she’d ever seen in her entire life. ‘We’re in here.’ Sam let go of her hand to push open the door to the restaurant and then held it so that Izzy could walk in ahead of him.

  She loved his natural chivalry. Like when he’d scrabbled around on the pavement on his hands and knees for several minutes picking up her scattered groceries. She knew he’d have done it for anyone – man, woman, young, old, someone he fancied, someone he didn’t – and he wouldn’t be expecting any kind of gratitude in return.

  Sam placed a hand lightly in the small of her back as a smiling waiter directed them towards a table for two at the back of the restaurant. The room was small, very busy and full of the sounds of happiness and the smells of Mediterranean cooking.

  From Sam’s one little touch, Izzy’s whole body was on high alert, even her shoulders, even her feet. Even her ear lobes. All of her. Like if he touched her anywhere else she might explode in fireworks. What she needed was a glass of water with a lot of ice in it. When Dominic had put his hand on her back when they went for their tea at the Carter, it hadn’t felt more than comfortable, familiar. Now, as she walked, she was fantasising about leaning right back into Sam, feeling him behind her, his hand sliding round her waist, moving across her body.

  And now, right now, she needed to stop comparing Sam and Dominic. Firstly there was no reason to since this was not a date, and secondly it was a lovely dinner with a friend, which might not happen again, so she should enjoy it.

  Sam visibly had his full attention on her, so much so that she couldn’t stop smiling idiotically at him.

  ‘This is lovely,’ she said, gesturing. They’d been seated at a small square table at ninety degrees to each other on cushioned benches along the walls so that they both had a great view of the whole restaurant. It had to be the best table. Maybe Sam was well-known here. Maybe he used to come here with Lana.

  ‘Yeah, I’ve always liked it. Off the beaten track, but perfect. What would you like to drink? They do a mean cocktail.’ Every time Sam spoke, Izzy got butterflies, even when she was wondering if he’d come here with Lana. It was like she had a full-blown case of teenage-style hormonal lust. Any minute she’d start batting her eyelashes at him.

  ‘I think I’m going to go for a Kir royale. Always my favourite.’

  ‘Sounds like a good choice. I’m going to go for a screwdriver, also always a winner.’

  While the waiter gave them menus and took their drinks order, Izzy spent a couple of minutes openly admiring Sam. He had very capable hands. And a very square jaw. Chiselled. He really should have become a film star. Irrespective of whether or not he could act. Some of them definitely only played one part, Handsome Heartthrob. You’d think he’d have a much better work-life balance as a rich megastar. It didn’t sound like George Clooney had many problems getting to see his twins.

  By the time they had their drinks and some truly delicious antipasti, Izzy had herself a lot more under control, mainly because Sam had been making her laugh so much about some of his no-name clients’ demands that she couldn’t think about anything else.

  ‘So not all bad then.’ She took another mouthful of stuffed artichoke. ‘Mmm, that is so good. At least you can laugh about your job.’

  ‘You know, if I didn’t laugh, I might almost be crying.’ Sam’s smile dropped suddenly and Izzy saw the tiredness round his eyes. ‘I’m aware that I’ve vented about this far too much already, but my workload’s continuing to incr
ease ridiculously and now I’m likely to get a bigger role, and at the same time, the kids seem to be getting ever more demanding emotionally. Maybe they blame me for the accident. Maybe it’s just that they’ve woken up to the fact that I’m never there. Maybe all teenagers are like this. Maybe this is when not having a mother is really going to hit home. Maybe it’s a combination of all of that. I don’t know. I do know that it’s hard. And I feel like a failure.’ Sam clearly missed Lana a lot.

  ‘I’m so sorry. You’re doing your best. You are so not a failure.’ She wanted to reach out and squeeze his arm, or hug him, comfort him physically, like she would with one of her girlfriends, or Rohan. Well, maybe not in exactly the same way. ‘I’m sure they know how much you love them and everything you do for them and that you have no choice about working long hours. And, honestly, I think pretty much every teenager goes through a tricky phase. I definitely went through an evil witch from hell phase.’

  ‘You? Really?’

  ‘Yup. And took it all out on my lovely grandmother, who I lived with from the age of ten, because my parents split up and they were both basically too busy with their new partners to look after me, so I moved in with her. You know how she dealt with it? I was being awful, I mean really awful, and she’d been so lovely throughout about a week of me ranting at her, on top of months and months of horribleness, and then one Saturday early evening, we were in the kitchen and she turned round and said to me, in a really calm, quiet voice, “I do love you, but if I’m honest you’re being a real bitch at the moment and it’s pissing me off.” Her exact words. The kind of thing you remember. It was literally the one and only time I ever heard her swear. I was so shocked that I looked at her, properly, and a little switch went inside me, and I told her I loved her. And then we both nearly cried with laughter, for a really long time and then we went out for a curry. And after that I was a lot nicer. I’m not really recommending you do that with Liv, though. Not yet, anyway. I think it’s a high-risk strategy.’