It Had To Be You: An absolutely laugh-out-loud romance novel

by Keris Stainton

  I nod, scanning down the sheet of white card. I’m starving. ‘Yeah. He’s really nice. We’ve been out a couple of times, so it’s very early days, but… yeah, it’s good.’

  Tom puts his menu down. ‘Is it Henry?’

  I drop mine and it slides under the table. ‘Shit!’

  Tom turns his menu round to me. ‘No worries. I already know what I’m having.’

  I shake my head. ‘No, it’s not Henry. Jeez. I’ve told you that we’re just friends. So many times!’

  ‘I know, I know.’ He shrugs. ‘I just like the two of you together. I think he’s good for you.’

  ‘He’s great,’ I agree. ‘But no. It’s not Henry.’

  The waitress comes and takes our drinks order – we both get a Peroni – and once she’s gone, he says, ‘So tell me about him then. It is a “him”, right?’

  I smile. ‘Yes, it’s a him.’

  ‘’Cos my second guess was going to be Freya.’

  I grin. ‘His name’s Dan and he’s a trainee accountant.’

  Tom raises one eyebrow at me.

  ‘I know. Shut up.’

  ‘I know I’m your hero,’ he says, brushing his forefinger over his eyebrow. ‘It’s very flattering…’

  I laugh. He’s such an idiot. ‘Yes, all these years I’ve been looking for someone just like you and I finally found him.’

  ‘Hey,’ he says, fake-frowning. ‘You could do a lot worse.’

  ‘And my membership to hot-accountancy-dating-dot-com has finally paid for itself.’

  ‘Bloody hell. Do you think that’s a real site? Can you imagine?’ He grins. ‘I’m looking for someone to crunch my numbers…’

  ‘Oh my GOD!’ I cover my face with my hands.

  ‘And spread my sheets… This could work.’

  I peer at him from between my fingers. ‘Please stop talking.’

  The waitress arrives with our drinks – thank god – and we order our food: steak and fries for Tom and linguini with king prawns for me.

  ‘Oh, and can we get deep fried courgette to share?’ Tom says, smiling up at the waitress. ‘You’ll eat some, right?’ he asks me.

  I nod. It’s more likely he’ll eat them all, but I know he feels better about getting them to share.

  ‘So,’ he says, once the waitress has gone. ‘His name’s Dan and he’s a trainee accountant. Is that all you’re going to give me?’

  ‘For now,’ I say. ‘Yeah.’ I know that whatever I say will go straight to Mum and it’s too early for her to start getting excited.

  ‘He’s nice to you?’

  ‘Of course,’ I tell him. ‘I wouldn’t have gone on more than one date if he wasn’t nice to me.’ This is not strictly true. Because Anthony wasn’t very nice to me and I went out with him for months. But Tom doesn’t need to know that. And I’ve learned from my mistakes. I hope.

  ‘That’s my girl,’ Tom says, smiling.

  Warmth flutters in my chest. When Mum first told me about Tom, I didn’t know what to expect. I was fourteen, my dad had been gone for two years, and I’d heard Mum crying much more than I’d ever wanted to. She’d wait until after me and Matt were in bed, but the walls in the house were thin and I could always hear her, even if Matt slept through it. I knew she’d met someone before she even told me because not only did the crying stop, but she started singing around the house and just generally looked much happier and healthier.

  Eventually, one night over dinner, she told me and Matt. She said she’d met someone she thought she might really like and she wanted us to meet him too. I remember me and Matt looking at each other across the table. He looked furious and tearful at the same time, but I was keen to meet him. I felt like Mum needed someone. Matt said she shouldn’t have needed anyone but us.

  We met for the first time in a Harvester. He didn’t look at all like I expected – Dad is thin and dark and clean-shaven, I’ve never even seen him with stubble. Tom was bigger – both taller and more solid – with grey hair and a full beard. The first thing I thought was that he could make a good Father Christmas. He was kind and funny and clearly as into Mum as she was him. They started out sitting a couple of feet apart on the bench seat, but moved gradually closer until she was pressed up against his side. When I got up to go the buffet, I saw that his arm was curled around her waist. He made her laugh. He made me laugh. He even made Matt laugh, which was quite a challenge at the time.

  On the way home in the car, Mum asked us what we thought. ‘He’s great,’ I’d said. ‘He’s all right,’ Matt had said. But Matt was the first to ask when we’d be seeing him again. Matt was the one to suggest he came with us when we made our traditional pre-Christmas pilgrimage to the garden centre – we always buy a new decoration and then get mince pies and hot chocolate in the cafe – and Matt ended up being best man at Mum and Tom’s wedding two years later. Now I can hardly remember what our family was like before he was a part of it. Mum jokes that I love him more than I love her. I don’t, of course, but I do love him a lot.

  ‘So any other news?’ he asks me.

  I shake my head. ‘Not really. Shop is same as always. Everything’s fine at home – Adam and Celine are fighting even more than usual, but other than that… How about you? Mum OK?’

  He nods and his face goes soft as it always does when he talks about Mum. They’re still as much in love as they ever were and it makes me so happy. ‘She’s great,’ he says. ‘You know she’s been working in that vintage store? She loves it.’

  I nod. ‘She keeps sending me photos of different clothes she’s tried on.’

  He laughs. ‘Bought, more like. I think she spends more than she earns, drives me mad.’

  It doesn’t, of course. He loves it.

  ‘Did she show you the ridiculous peacock coat?’

  I laugh. ‘No!’

  ‘It’s not actually a coat, or so she tells me. She says it’s a beach cover-up type of thing? I said to her “Where are you going to wear that? The Co-op?” And then she talked me into booking a week in Spain, just so she can show it off.’

  ‘Yeah?’ I say. ‘When’s that then?’

  ‘End of this month,’ he says. By the time he’s finished telling me about how they’re flying, where they’re staying, the various excursions and events they’ve got planned – Tom loves arranging holidays – our food has arrived.

  ‘Do you want some of mine?’ he asks me, already cutting off the end of his bloody steak, ready to drop it onto my plate.

  ‘No,’ I tell him. ‘I’m good, thanks. It looks good though.’

  He pops the piece he cut off in his mouth, and smiles and gives me a thumbs-up as he chews.

  ‘Your mum misses you,’ he says, once he’s swallowed, and drunk some of his beer. ‘Are you going to get a chance to come home soon? Maybe after we get back from Spain.’ He puts his knife and fork down and beams at me, his eyes twinkling, ‘Or you could come with us!’

  I laugh. ‘Thank you. But no. It’s your holiday.’

  ‘Your mum wouldn’t mind!’ he says. ‘She’d love it actually. Go on.’

  I shake my head. She wouldn’t love it, I know she wouldn’t. She loves being alone with Tom, she really doesn’t want me around. I’ve felt a bit left out in the past because they love each other so much and they’re so self-contained that it’s a little bit hard to be around. But they give me hope. I know that a perfect, safe, warm love is real because they have it. I know they do.

  ‘If you change your mind…’ he says, waving some fork-speared steak at me. ‘Just give me a call.’

  ‘You’ve just finished telling me all your plans!’ I say.

  He shrugs. ‘Plans can be changed. Have you had enough beer yet to give me a bit more gossip on your young man?’

  I laugh and then finish the bottle. I put it down on the table and say, ‘No.’

  ‘But he’s good to you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And he makes your heart race?’

  I twirl some linguine around
my fork.

  ‘That’s always how I knew,’ Tom says without waiting for me to answer. ‘When I was a kid. And then with Janine. And of course with your mum, but you don’t want to hear about that.’

  Janine was his first wife. She left him for her driving instructor, which he now finds hilarious and loves to tell people. And he and Janine are good friends now. Tom’s godfather to her kids.

  ‘You know, with some people it all feels right, but something’s missing. But if you have that palm-sweating, heart-racing feeling…’ He shakes his head. ‘You can’t mistake it.’

  I stab a king prawn and stuff it in my mouth. Heart-racing and palm-sweating is fine. I’m sure it’s fine. I’m sure that’s what lots of people want. But it’s not what I want. I want to feel the way I felt in the dream and that wasn’t heart-racing, that was warm and safe and loved and secure. Palm-sweating and heart-racing doesn’t sound secure. It sounds terrifying.

  ‘So?’ he says. He’s finished his beer too now and is gesturing for the waitress. ‘He does, yes?’

  ‘He does,’ I lie.

  * * *

  Tom pays while I’m in the loo and we stand outside the restaurant, while he pats his pockets to make sure he’s got his keys, wallet and phone.

  ‘Do you need any money?’ he asks me.

  I shake my head. ‘No. Thanks. I’m good.’

  He pulls his wallet out of his pocket and opens it, flicking through the cash. ‘Take this.’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘Honestly, I’m fine. Keep it.’

  He folds a few notes and pushes them into my hand. ‘Take it. If you don’t need it, use it on something nice. Take your new boy out to dinner.’

  I smile at him. ‘Thank you.’

  He smiles back. ‘No problem. Love ya.’

  ‘Love you too,’ I say.

  He wraps his arms round me and I press my face against his neck, inhaling his familiar scent and rubbing my nose against his stubble. He’s always been a brilliant hugger – solid and soft and with just the right amount of squeezing.

  ‘Keep in touch,’ he says, letting me go and holding me at arms’ length. ‘And ring your mum. Oh shit! I promised I’d tell you to ring Matt. Mum thinks things aren’t great with Lydia.’

  ‘I’ve left messages,’ I say, even though I haven’t for ages.

  ‘I told her you would’ve done. You’re a good girl.’

  So now I feel bad. ‘I’ll ring him,’ I say.

  Tom pulls me to him again and drops a kiss on my forehead. ‘Later, tater.’

  I laugh. He used to say that when I was younger, but hasn’t for years. ‘Later.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  I’m in the park. Dan is sitting on the bench and I walk over and sit down next to him. He smiles at me and then turns his face up to the sun. I think about kissing him, but I don’t know how to tell him that’s what I want. I wait and hope that he’ll turn and kiss me, but he doesn’t, he just sits there and when I look at him, his eyes are closed. I lean against him – his arm is warm alongside mine – and I close my eyes too.

  And then I wake up.

  * * *

  ‘I don’t think they’re a couple,’ Henry whispers to me. We’re both behind the counter, staring over at the customers.

  ‘Because they’re both men?’ I whisper back.

  ‘No! I just don’t think they are.’

  One of the men has a shaved head and a sleeve of tattoos down to his knuckles – it looks like he’s got roses on his hands, but I can’t make out the ink on his arms, I think it’s just patterns. The other man is wearing red jeans and a blue cagoule and is humming under his breath. They came in together, but they’ve been on opposite sides of the shop since.

  ‘I think they’ve been together for a long time and they just don’t feel the need to be up in each other’s business all the time,’ I tell Henry.

  ‘Either that, or they just happened to both walk in at the same time and they don’t even know each other.’

  Henry wanders off to change some promotional stickers in the window, but I keep watching the men. The one with the tattoos is looking at cookery books; the one in the cagoule keeps reading the backs of crime novels. I’m about to give up and check my phone – Dan’s been texting me; he’s got a couple of interviews today with a lot of waiting around in between, so he’s been distinctly chatty – when the guy with the tattoos heads across the shop to Blue Cagoule and says, ‘You done?’

  I glance over at Henry to see if he’s watching. It could all hinge on Blue Cagoule’s response. Henry has turned round to watch too.

  ‘Just a sec, hon,’ Blue Cagoule says. ‘I can’t remember if I’ve read this one.’

  He holds up the book and shaved head guy says, ‘You have, babe. You read it in Italy last summer. I remember ’cos I laughed at the title.’

  ‘Ah,’ Cagoule says, smiling. ‘You’re right!’ He puts it back on the shelf and they leave, both of them smiling over at me on the way out.

  I immediately cross to the crime section to see if I can find the book he was referring to. And I do, he’s put it back, but not quite level with the others. It’s Peter James’ Not Dead Enough. I show Henry and he smiles. ‘I think they’re definitely going to stay together.’

  * * *

  When I get back to my phone, there’s a new text from Dan:

  I don’t like this building. It’s creepy.

  I smile at my phone.

  Creepy how?

  * * *

  It’s dark and there’s old paintings on the wall and I think a mouse ran over my foot.

  * * *

  That does sound creepy.

  * * *

  Tell me something good.

  I look up and around the shop. Something good.

  I bought Pop Tarts today.

  * * *

  I love Pop Tarts!

  * * *

  I’ve never had them before.

  * * *

  Maybe I can come and eat them with you.

  I stare at the phone. Does he mean he wants to come over, have sex, stay the night and eat Pop Tarts with me for breakfast? Or does he mean come over and eat Pop Tarts? How do people know this stuff? I screenshot the conversation and send it to Freya with

  WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

  Just as it sends, a customer comes in and straight over to the desk to ask for books on cycling. I show him what we’ve got – which isn’t much, and he’s offended to be offered Cycling for Dummies even when I tell him that’s the name of the series, and not a commentary on my perception of his intelligence – and once he’s left, I pick up my phone, expecting to see a reply from Freya. Instead, there’s another text from Dan. It says

  It means I’d like to eat Pop Tarts with you! What did you think it meant?

  with a confused face emoji.

  ‘Shit!’ I say aloud.

  ‘You OK?’ Henry calls from the stockroom. I don’t know what he’s doing in there – we haven’t had a delivery today – I suspect he’s either reading or napping.

  ‘Yeah. Ta. Just a text cock-up.’

  He appears at the door. ‘Dick pic?’

  ‘God, no,’ I say. ‘I sent something to Dan that I meant to send to Freya. It’s OK. Nothing too embarrassing.’

  ‘Show me,’ he says, crossing the shop. ‘I’m bored.’

  I’m a bit unsure at first because since the day of the London Eye and the panic attack, Henry has been a little bit cool with me. Not so much that anyone else would notice – and they haven’t, I’ve asked both Celine and Freya – but there’s definitely been something. But if he is upset with me, refusing to give him my phone isn’t going to make it better, so I hand it over. He frowns as he reads, before whistling through his teeth.

  ‘I definitely think he’s thinking of post-sex Pop Tarts.’

  ‘Oh my god! Really?’

  He nods. ‘He’s not going to come up here, eat, like, an evening Pop Tart with you and then go home. That’s basically the Pop Tart equivalent of “How
do you like your eggs in the morning?’’’

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘’Fraid so.’

  ‘So now what do I say?’ I grab the phone off him and put it face down on the counter, as if Dan can see me trying to work this out.

  ‘Well… do you want to have breakfast with him? Euphemistically?’ He reaches under the counter for the microfibre cloth and starts wiping down the desk.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I mean… I don’t think so. Not yet. We’ve only been out twice. It’s too early for that, right?’

  ‘OK. Then maybe make a joke of it? Tell him you’ll meet him in the pub and you’ll bring them with you or something. You could ask him to bring some too. Something cute.’

  ‘God,’ I say and lean forward until my head’s resting on the counter. ‘I hate this.’

  ‘Dating’s fun, innit?’ he says. ‘This is why I don’t do it.’

  ‘Is that why?’ I ask him, remembering that he said he’d forgotten who he was out with the night I got locked out. There’s no way he really had.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Is that why you don’t date?’

  ‘What? Because of Pop Tarts? No, that’s not why.’

  ‘That’s not what I mean.’ I watch him as he walks around the desk and starts wiping at random bookshelves. ‘I mean… Well, what I guess I mean is, why don’t you date? Any more?’

  He sighs so hard, I actually see some dust blow across the top of the books.

  ‘I mean… Do I need a reason? Like a dramatic reason? You want me to say someone broke my heart? Or I’m secretly in love with someone I can’t have? I just… I’m not that bothered. If I meet someone, I meet someone. I’m just not interested in going looking.’

  ‘OK,’ I say, holding my hands up. ‘Fair enough.’

  The bell pings and two customers come in. It’s the girl in the blue beanie who bought the Roald Dahl books, and she’s with a boy. He’s Asian and skinny with a white streak in the front of his black hair like a skunk. Or a vampire. Their hands are loosely linked together and she tugs him over towards the cookery books.