We Were On a Break

by Lindsey Kelk

  ‘They make amazing cocktails here,’ Henry said, returning from the bar and placing a tall glass, shaped like an oversized bamboo shoot, on the table in front of me. ‘The rum drinks are incredible.’

  ‘Great, thank you.’ I took a sip through one of the two straws sticking out of the glass and sat back. ‘Wow. That is good.’

  He nodded, stirred the same concoction then discarded his straw, drinking straight from his glass. ‘Yeah, I usually drink whisky but these are so good.’

  ‘Is that right?’ I asked, grasping for something to say. ‘Come here often?’

  Henry’s wide mouth broadened into a smile. ‘Good one.’

  It was the strangest feeling. This man was a complete stranger, we had exchanged all of five short messages, not enough words to take up two minutes, and now here we were. Sitting in a bar, pretending this was perfectly normal, neither of us about to acknowledge we were standing at a starting line with no idea where the finish might be.

  ‘I hope you weren’t waiting long.’ I glanced down at my grandmother’s watch on my left wrist and immediately wished I hadn’t worn it. She would have approved of Henry’s face but she would not have approved of this situation at all. Except for maybe the rum, my nan loved her rum. ‘My train was a bit late.’

  ‘And you were talking to that chap down there for a good five minutes,’ he said, tapping on the window to where David stood, messing about with his phone across the street. I shrivelled into nothing in my seat, more embarrassed than I actually thought possible. ‘Wait, is he texting you?’

  My phone pipped its response before I could reply.

  ‘Is this your “get out” text or your “he’s not a murderer” text?’ Henry asked.

  ‘It’s a bit early for either,’ I replied, the rum and the situation flaming in my cheeks. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Let’s have a look, then,’ he nodded and I obediently produced my phone. ‘What’s it say?’

  ‘Boneable?’ I said, my hot cheeks turning nuclear.

  There was that smile again.

  Henry leaned over the back of his chair and waved to David. My best friend, my knight in shining armour, ride or die BFF, looked up, squinted into the window and then ran away. Turned on his heel, ran down the street, and disappeared into the night.

  ‘This bit’s always awkward,’ Henry said, turning back to the table as I tapped out the word ‘wanker’ before stashing my phone back in my bag. ‘Do you like the look of me, do I like the look of you, where to start, what to say. You can always tell the people who have done a lot of online dating in the first two minutes.’

  ‘Always?’ I took a gulp of my drink and felt the cold sparkling liquor cool me down from the inside out. ‘Do you do this a lot?’

  He leaned forward slightly, his shirt yawning open at the neck to reveal a sprinkling of chest hair. ‘I wouldn’t say a lot, but I’ve definitely been here before,’ he replied. ‘Is that bad?’

  ‘I feel so special,’ I muttered with the straw still in my mouth.

  ‘You should,’ Henry replied. ‘I could have ended up anywhere in the world tonight, with absolutely anyone, but here we are. I think that’s special, don’t you?’

  I eyed him carefully for a second. The cheesy bastard. I’d put on eyeliner for this?

  Adam was the kind of person who was always moving. Unless he was working on something in his workshop, there was always a foot tapping or a hand clenching but Henry seemed so still, even his breathing was calm and steady and I didn’t like it. This whole thing was a mistake.

  ‘Does that work often?’ I asked, the reality of the situation settling my nerves. Suddenly I knew I could do it. First-date nerves be damned: here he was, armed with his practised lines and steady smile and I was altogether too clever to fall for it. Or at least too cynical. I had been spending a lot of time with Abi, after all. ‘It’s a great line.’

  This would be easy, maybe even fun. I would finish my drink, say goodnight to this joker then hunt David down like a dog and kick him all the way home.

  ‘No,’ he said, with a burst of surprised laughter, some of his stillness slipping away. ‘Not once. No, that’s a lie, it did once but she was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Lovely girl, and I don’t want to be an arsehole but, no, that wasn’t going anywhere.’

  ‘So, you’ve done this before.’ I pulled my skirt back down over my thighs with a mental note to tell Abi that I had been right, it was too short, as soon as we both got home. ‘Serial dater. I should have known.’

  ‘How’s that?’ he asked, green eyes still fixed on me, seemingly enjoying himself.

  ‘Well, you were so keen,’ I explained as I pushed my drink back and forth in front of me. ‘And there was no messing about, was there? Just, hello, I’m Henry, want to get a drink on Friday?’

  He considered it for a moment. ‘What else should I have said?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘But everyone else was a bit more chatty, asked more questions. You don’t even know what I do for a living, I don’t even know your last name.’

  ‘What do you do for a living?’ he asked.

  I fought back a smile.

  ‘I’m a vet.’

  ‘And my last name is Maddox.’ He held both hands up in the air. ‘Done. Can I ask you a question?’

  I nodded.

  ‘All those men who asked you all those questions,’ he said, kicking back in his chair. ‘Where are they tonight?’

  Ooh. Sneaky.

  ‘Point taken.’ I stirred my drink with the straw. Was it me, or was it getting stronger nearer the bottom?

  ‘Here’s how it went …’ Henry pushed his sleeves up to his elbows. Good forearms, strong wrists, nice. ‘I was bored so I was flicking through Tinder. You came up in my matches, I liked the look of you, and I decided I’d rather spend an evening getting to know you over a drink than doing anything else.’

  ‘What were your other options?’ I asked.

  ‘Are you always this cynical?’ he asked.

  I nodded hard.

  ‘Fine. I could have gone for a drink with some of my mates, I could have gone to the birthday party of someone I work with, or I could have stayed home and, I don’t know, worked? Watched telly?’

  ‘Had a wank?’ I suggested.

  ‘You really don’t do this that often, do you?’ he replied. ‘But yes, obviously.’

  ‘Then I am honoured,’ I relented slightly. Despite the odds, I wasn’t having the worst time ever. ‘So, what is it that you do?’

  ‘When I’m not being grilled by Tinder dates or having a wank, I’m a graphic designer,’ he said as the live music, wherever it was, ended to a surge of applause and the chatter in the bar grew slightly louder. ‘Freelance. But I’m working for the local paper at the moment, some online rebranding stuff.’

  ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘I do,’ he replied, rubbing his stubble beard. ‘I like working with different people, I love the design element of it. It’s never the same day twice. You?’

  ‘You’d think every day would be different for a vet but at the moment it feels like Groundhog Day.’ I rattled the ice around in my glass to shake out any last dregs. Either I’d hoovered it up like a first-class lush or it had been mostly ice in the first place. Only there didn’t seem to be a lot of ice. ‘I work in a village, the village I grew up in actually, so it’s more or less the same people, same animals.’

  ‘Do you like it though?’ Henry asked, thankfully finishing his drink before I wrote myself off as a drunk.

  ‘It’s more of an “I love you but I don’t always like you” situation,’ I explained with what I hoped was a wry smile. ‘It is what it is.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked with a small shrug of his broad shoulders. ‘You can’t leave? Surely you could be a vet anywhere.’

  For a moment, I’d forgotten he didn’t know me.

  ‘It’s sort of complicated,’ I said, hoping he didn’t think I was complaining about my diamond slippers being
too tight. ‘Family business, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Nothing’s set in stone, you know,’ he said, scratching his beard. ‘Life isn’t a straight line, we don’t have to be tomorrow who we were today.’

  ‘That’s a bit heavy for the first drink,’ I replied, tapping my nails on my almost-empty glass. ‘But yeah, I don’t know. If we’re doing deep and meaningful, right now I feel as though I’m on a rope bridge and there’s a massive drop on either side with crocodiles waiting for me to slip and fall.’

  ‘Now that is a bit heavy for the first drink,’ Henry laughed. ‘At least get rid of the crocodiles.’

  I sat back in my chair and smiled down at my hands. ‘You asked.’

  ‘It seems to me I’ve met you at an interesting time,’ he said. ‘How many more drinks is it going to take for you to tell me what’s really going on?’

  ‘More drinks than they have here,’ I replied, pointing at his empty glass. ‘But I think I will have another, same again?’

  ‘Yes,’ he stood and scooped my glass up in his hand. Big hands. ‘I’ll get them.’

  He had already started towards the bar before I could object. Not that I was planning to object that hard, but still, it would have been nice to have had the chance. I quickly emptied the contents of my handbag on the table, phone on one side, powder compact on the other. Quick as a three-legged cat, I popped the compact, checked my lipstick and powdered my nose. Second, I swiped my phone into life to find a text from Abi and two Facebook notifications. I opened Abi’s message first.

  Leaving work at 8.00. Let me know if you need an out. Hope he’s not mental!

  Poor cow, I thought, working this late on a Friday night. Maybe I should have asked her to come and work with me instead of Cass, get her away from the test tubes and mouse spleens.

  I glanced up to check on Henry’s whereabouts. The bar was even busier than it had been when I arrived, people were crowding around the walls, hanging around and hoping for a table. I hadn’t noticed it get so busy but then, I’d been preoccupied. I still wasn’t certain as to whether or not I was having a good time but I was definitely having an interesting one. The Facebook notifications were from David. He had posted a photo of me. Thankfully, his artful editing and flattering filters remained and I smiled at the thought of actually looking like that. This girl, she could absolutely be out on a Friday night with a fit graphic designer who had a lovely pair of forearms. This girl was brilliant, charming, and if she spilled her drink, she’d be ready with a lightning fast pun to distract everyone. And the internet agreed. Six likes already! Six! At seven forty on a Friday night! David, of course, Abi, Cassie and Chris, David’s friend Jeremy and – oh, Adam.

  Adam Floyd likes your picture.

  And there was the guilt and the nerves and the overwhelming sense of misery again.

  ‘Here you go.’ Henry placed a glass in front of me and I stuck my phone in my coat pocket, forcing a smile onto my face. ‘It’s still rum but it’s a bit different. What do you think?’

  ‘I think I like it,’ I said as I took a big sip and let the rum wash away all those awful feelings. The first sip took the edge off but they were still there. How many rum cocktails did it take to cause short-term memory loss? ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Cheers,’ he took his seat and held up his glass in a toast. ‘To new friends.’

  I clinked my glass carefully against his.

  ‘To new friends,’ I repeated, wincing at the tartness of the cocktail. ‘And strong drinks.’

  ‘Anyone would think I was trying to get you drunk,’ he said, tasting his own drink and sticking out his tongue. ‘Christ.’

  I pinched my shoulders up to my ears and let them go in a loose shrug.

  ‘You never know,’ I replied, steeling myself for a longer sip as his face relaxed into a lopsided smile I hadn’t seen yet. ‘I might let you …’

  Two drinks later, light-headed and ready for bed, I tottered down the staircase and out into the cold air of Pelham Street. Town was really only just getting going but four rum cocktails were more than enough to put me on my arse. Henry had argued a persuasive case for one more but I was just about sober enough to know what a bad idea that was.

  ‘I’m going to the train station,’ I announced, the wind whipping up around us and ruffling my skirt, thankfully anchored down by my coat. Those poor girls with their bare, painted-on midriffs, I thought. You couldn’t pay me to be eighteen again. ‘Which way are you going?’

  ‘You are not getting a train back to Long Harrington at this time of night,’ he said with a shake of his wavy head. ‘We’ll get you a taxi.’

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ I assured him. ‘I’ve got the train home a million times at night, you don’t need to worry.’

  Even though he had almost a foot on me, he was definitely the most drunk, I knew for certain when he declared his intention to end the night with a kebab. At least I knew he didn’t fancy me, I thought confidently, no one had ever attempted to seduce someone when their thoughts were already full of lamb doners. And given that I’d spent most of the night wondering what exactly Adam was up to, in spite of his charming conversation and absurdly handsome face, I was relieved.

  ‘I’m calling you an Uber.’ Henry produced a giant smartphone from his inside chest pocket and waved it in my face. ‘You’ll do as you’re told.’

  ‘Oh, will I now?’ I replied, tipsy and coquettish. Or tipsy and belligerent, depending on how he took it. I didn’t like him telling me what to do but I didn’t hate the thought of being chauffeured home at someone else’s expense. Would Germaine Greer have an issue with this? Would I be able to look Emma Watson in the eye again? Not that I’d looked her in the eye yet, but still.

  ‘I wouldn’t feel right, letting you get the train,’ he said, one hand lightly rubbing my arm as he carried on swiping at his phone. ‘If I can’t walk you home, I at least want to know you got there safely.’

  ‘You really don’t need to get me a taxi,’ I told him without the slightest hint of conviction in my voice. I could throw myself under the king’s horse another night – right now, it was cold, I was tipsy, and someone was offering to pay for a cab. Case closed. ‘Also, did you know that you’re more likely to get murdered by your Uber driver than your date? True fact.’

  ‘A lot of women expect this, you know,’ he said, tapping his screen triumphantly, his other hand still wending its way from my shoulder down to my elbow and back again. ‘I’ve been on dates where girls have actually demanded I get them a taxi home.’

  ‘I don’t want to offend you …’ I watched his hand go up and down, hypnotized. ‘But I don’t think those dates went very well.’

  ‘You don’t need to tell me that,’ he replied. ‘I wouldn’t be here now if they had.’

  The broad, sleepy-eyed smile he’d brought out at the beginning of the evening had been completely replaced with a beautiful lopsided grin that lit up his entire face. I noticed how he cocked his head slightly to one side every time, as though his smile was weighing him down.

  ‘I had a really good time tonight,’ he told me, tightening the grip of his hand so that he was squeezing my shoulder and I felt tingles run all the way down to my fingertips. ‘Thank you for not being boring.’

  ‘That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me,’ I said, a dizzy smile on my face. ‘Thank you, Henry.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ he said as we moved ever so slightly closer together. I looked up into his eyes. There was a chance I had been wrong about the kebab. ‘And thank you for those shoes you’re wearing. I love those shoes.’

  ‘Really?’ I looked down at my black patent Mary Janes. I’d chosen them because the heel wasn’t too high and, worst-case scenario, the ankle straps would help hold my foot in place if I needed to make a run for it. ‘When were you looking at my shoes?’

  ‘I saw them when you came in,’ he said, winding my hair around his hand and pulling it lightly. It was all I could do not to fall down in the street. ‘Ev
ery other man in the bar was hoping you were his date, you know.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, not moving. ‘Right.’

  He didn’t say anything else. Instead, with my hair still in hand, he slipped his palm around the back of my neck and drew me to him. His lips were soft and we both tasted the same, warm and tangy. I rested my hands on his hips as we stumbled backwards against a recessed wooden door, the heat of his body mixing with the rum cocktails to sweep away any concerns I might have had about snogging a stranger in a doorway on a Friday night. Adam and his Angelina-lookalike be damned. Henry’s stubble prickled my face but I didn’t push him away; instead I pulled him closer, tipping my head back to encourage more kisses, eyes closed, mouth open, body all his.

  Until a shiny black Honda Jazz beeped its horn behind us.

  ‘You call an Uber?’

  Henry broke the kiss and laughed awkwardly before turning to give the driver a thumbs up.

  ‘Give us a minute, mate?’ he called before turning back to me. The driver sighed audibly and turned up his car stereo.

  ‘I should go,’ I said, staring at those green eyes.

  ‘What?’ He automatically reached up to brush something nonexistent from his face. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I replied, reaching up on my tiptoes to kiss him again much to his delight. I had forgotten the thrill of kissing a man I didn’t know and had no idea of what came next. Adam’s kisses could be easily categorized: a morning peck, a goodnight kiss, an open-mouthed, proper tongue, we’re-definitely-having-sex-in-the-next-ten-minutes snog. This was all brand new. It felt strange. Objectively, it was a good kiss, there was no getting around that, but something about it was off.

  ‘I could come with you,’ Henry suggested as I pulled away, pressing my lips together in a thin line. ‘If you wanted.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea.’ I shuffled sideways out from under him and waved at the Uber driver. He looked up from his phone and rolled his eyes before getting back to hammering out a text message so hard I had to assume his phone had done something to offend him.