It's Not You It's Him: An absolutely hilarious and feel-good romantic comedy

by Sophie Ranald

  Maybe in a group, it would. Maybe if Josh and Luke and the other boys were there, I wouldn’t feel like such an outcast. And I could meet Josh’s eyes, talk to him, smile at him. Not feel ashamed to be in the same room as him.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’ll come.’

  Twelve

  ‘Good morning, everyone,’ Daria addressed the group filling the Luxeforless boardroom. ‘I’m so excited to welcome you all here today for the official launch of our mentorship scheme.’

  The mentors, sitting on the right-hand side of the room, looked at the group on the left with encouraging smiles, and the mentees looked anxiously back.

  ‘Over the coming months, you’ll be working together to exchange knowledge and experiences in a way that I know will be equally rewarding and challenging for all of you. I can’t emphasise enough that this is a two-way process, and that mutual trust and openness are essential to the success of the programme.’

  I glanced sideways again, wondering which of the assembled girls and boys would be allocated to me. A couple of them had come in suits, which I thought was sweet and showed seriousness. Most were in jeans and jumpers, and a handful were in clothes I thought they must have designed themselves, none of which were as striking as Chelsea’s designs.

  ‘Most importantly, I want you all to know that I and Jules and the whole team at HandsUp Mentorship are here to guide and support you. And, of course, in six months’ time this first phase of the programme will come to an end and we’ll have a partaaay!’

  Everyone went, ‘Wooohooo!’ a bit tentatively.

  ‘And now,’ Daria went on, ‘it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for. We’ve assessed our mentees’ goals and talents – which, let me tell you, are highly impressive – and matched them up with mentors whose skill sets best complement them. It’s been a bit like coupling up on Love Island, let me tell you.’

  There was a ripple of laughter at this, although of course it was nothing like Love Island at all.

  ‘So, without further ado, let me introduce the first of our mentors. Kris Cross…’ Kris’s name always made me giggle. Seriously, what were his parents thinking? ‘… is the footwear buyer at Luxeforless. Kris graduated from Central Saint Martins here in London, but he’s worked in Tokyo and Paris as well. Highlights of his CV include a stint in the merchandising department at Manolo Blahnik.’

  Kris stood up. He was wearing, presumably in honour of the occasion, red patent thigh-high boots over his skinny jeans, and a flowing cream silk shirt. His head was shaved and his beard neatly trimmed. I’d got so used to his appearance over the years it barely registered with me, but now, seeing him through the mentees’ eyes, I realised how intimidatingly out-there he might seem.

  ‘Kris has been paired with Alfie Blake, whose family have been cobblers for almost two hundred years. Alfie’s goal is to take the family business to the next level and future-proof it for the next generation.’

  One of the boys in suits, the one with ginger hair who’d been alternately blowing his nose and sniffing throughout Daria’s presentation, stood up, looking terrified.

  ‘Gents, please go through to the next-door meeting room, where you can help yourself to coffee and pastries and get to know each other. Next up we have the brilliant Savita Patel, one of the newest arrivals in our Digital Design team. Savita is…’

  Daria carried on, and I watched as pair after pair was formed, until there were only five of us left: a slim blonde girl wearing fishnet tights under her ripped jeans, another boy in a suit, Devon from Marketing, Mischa from the Content team, and me.

  Something was wrong. There weren’t enough mentees to go round. I wondered if Daria had noticed. She must have – even the two remaining mentees had, I’d seen their heads duck together as they briefly whispered to each other – but she was calmly carrying on as if everything was going exactly according to plan.

  Devon got the girl with the ripped jeans, smiling warmly and giving her a quick hug as they went off together.

  ‘Mischa started her career interning at Vogue when she was just seventeen.’ Daria glanced down at her notes. ‘She’s since worked at Elle and Harper’s and been published at The Pool, all while working on a novel. We’ve paired her with…’

  Not much of a surprise there, I thought. It looked like I hadn’t been considered good enough to be trusted with any of these bright young minds. So why had I even been allowed to come to the meeting? I felt an angry flush creep up my neck and sting my cheeks. Was it some ruse of Barri’s to humiliate me as punishment for standing up to him?

  ‘Tansy, I’m sorry,’ Daria said. ‘It looks as if…’

  Then we both turned, hearing the clatter of heels on the floor outside. The glass door burst open and a voice I recognised said, ‘I got delayed. I’m not too late, right?’

  It was mid-afternoon by the time I got back to my desk. Felicity looked up from her computer screen and asked, ‘So how did the do-gooding go?’

  ‘The do-gooding was good,’ I said. ‘I got paired with a super-talented girl called Chelsea, who actually lives just round the corner from me, so I’ll even get to sneak off home early some afternoons after I’ve met with her. Look, I’ll show you some of her work on her Insta feed.’

  I didn’t tell Felicity how late Chelsea had been, and how awkward I’d felt, left alone in the room on my own. I didn’t relate what Chelsea had said when we were alone, sitting across from each other with cups of tea.

  She’d looked down at her mug and muttered, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t apologise,’ I replied. ‘You’re here now, that’s the main thing.’

  ‘Mum said I had to come,’ Chelsea said. ‘I told her what happened when you came round to the flat, and she gave me the biggest telling-off ever. Like, ever. She properly bit my head off, and told me if I carried on throwing away opportunities like that I’d never get anywhere in life.’

  ‘Harsh.’ I sent up a silent prayer of thanks to Mrs Johnston.

  Chelsea met my eyes. ‘But true. You wanted to help me and I told you to…’

  She looked down again.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘accepting help is tough, especially when it’s not the kind of help you think you need. And it might not be – this whole thing might turn out to be a total waste of both our time. But it might not. And you did change your mind – you applied for the scheme and they chose you. You should be bloody proud of yourself. Now let’s put that behind us and decide how we’re going to work together. Right?’

  ‘Right.’ Chelsea had flashed her rare smile.

  ‘Nice stuff.’ Felicity said now, handing me back my phone. ‘Bit niche.’

  She was trying to sound indifferent, but I wondered whether she was a bit jealous, deep down, regretting not volunteering. That could account for how subdued she seemed. Or, of course, it might be something else. Something to do with what she’d been doing in the office that Sunday night. Maybe, if I had some time alone with her, I’d get the chance to ask her about it.

  ‘Fancy a drink after work?’ I asked. ‘We could go to that new place in Soho. They do cocktails and crazy golf.’

  ‘Crazy golf?’ Felicity laughed like I’d suggested she join me for a happy meal at McDonald’s. ‘Not really my kind of thing, to be honest. And anyway, I’m busy tonight. I’m going out for dinner with… But thanks for asking.’

  ‘You’re going out with Renzo? Cool.’ I forced a smile. ‘How’s that going?’

  Renzo, I thought with a pang, would absolutely love cocktails and crazy golf, being insanely competitive and naturally good at anything remotely sporty. I took him bowling, I remembered, and he didn’t even mind that I won. That was the first night we kissed. The first time he called me fragolina – little strawberry – which became his pet name for me. I wondered if he had a pet name for Felicity, and what it was. The idea was almost too painful to bear.

  ‘Good. We’re having fun together. You know, taking things slow. It’s early days. And he’s off to New York f
or a week tomorrow with work.’ She rolled her eyes and then said, ‘Thanks for asking.’

  I wasn’t going to get anything more out of her, even if I genuinely wanted to know the details of her and Renzo’s fledgling relationship. Which I kind of did, in a masochistic way, and kind of didn’t. Like when you’ve got a ragged cuticle and no nail clippers to hand, and you know that if you grip it with your teeth and pull it will be gone and stop annoying you, but it’ll also hurt like hell and probably bleed all over your clothes.

  Except a torn cuticle would heal, and my heart was showing no signs of doing that. I wondered whether, if I’d originally told Felicity my true feelings for Renzo, she’d have told him to sling his hook.

  I wasn’t sure. After all, it wasn’t like we were close friends, or had even known each other that long. We were colleagues who’d been out a couple of times, that was all. She didn’t owe me any loyalty. And, given the choice between going out with Renzo and pissing off a woman she barely knew, and turning down the chance of dating a man who was by anyone’s standards a hell of a catch – well, what would you do?

  What would I do? Because, I realised, I was now in exactly the same position Felicity had been in. In getting back the man I thought of as mine, I’d be stealing her boyfriend from her. Or at least, I would be if he was a possession, like a car, rather than a human being capable of making his own choices.

  Wearily, I forced my attention away from this dilemma, and returned to my emails. It was all far too flipping complicated. At least with an order for fifty dresses that had turned up in navy blue instead of black, I knew where I was.

  Thirteen

  As the days passed, I began to get used to Josh being there. But it still felt strange to see him emerging from the room I continued to think of as Charlotte’s each morning, dressed in his running gear. The smell of his shower gel and deodorant in the bathroom still sometimes brought me up short, surprised. And the fact that someone, for the first time since I’d moved in, was actually using the kitchen, was downright bizarre. There was actual food around: blocks of cheddar and feta cheese; vegetables that needed to be peeled, chopped and cooked before you ate them; jars of curry paste and miso and anchovies, which weren’t there to be spread on toast or eaten with a spoon while standing by the open fridge door.

  And he seemed so take up so much space. It wasn’t just his height, and it wasn’t that he was untidy – he wasn’t. It was more that when he was home, I was constantly conscious of his presence. He played the guitar sometimes, and even though he used headphones and an amp, the sound of the strings was audible from my bedroom. He talked to people on the phone, not loudly or late at night or in any way antisocially, but it made me aware that there was another presence in the house. The house felt alive, I realised, for the first time in ages. It felt like a home where people did more than just shower, sleep and drink coffee. It felt comforting – and that, together with Josh’s always-on smile and casual good humour, made me sometimes almost forget that I hated him, and why.

  The next Friday, the first batch of samples arrived for my new collection. Even though this was my fourth season at Luxeforless (if you don’t count the weird in-between bit we call ‘cruise’ in the industry, when a load of linen trousers and straw trilbies go up on sale in the middle of winter and hardly any of our customers buy them, but we have to list them anyway because everyone else does), it still gave me a huge thrill to see the garments I’d worked on in the flesh for the first time. Well, in the fabric, I suppose, if you wanted to be literal about it.

  I’d asked Chelsea to come along and see the unveiling. She was on her best behaviour, standing back as we arranged the samples on a rail and checked the quality of the workmanship, the cut and whether the colours were true to the swatches we’d sent the supplier. She listened intently as we discussed launch dates and pricing models, and asked Abi, the lead designer, some intelligent questions about why a particular fabrication, length or detail had been chosen. Then she thanked us all politely (for her, anyway; the word ‘Thanks’ was definitely used, and that was good enough for me) and said she’d better be off because her shift at Superdrug was starting in an hour.

  By five thirty, I was done. It had been a good day – a good week, really. One of those that made me remember why I loved my job, in spite of all the whingeing I did to my colleagues and, far more often, in my own head, about management, which we all knew meant Barri.

  ‘Hey, Tans,’ Felicity said when she saw me putting on my coat. ‘Fancy Annabel’s tonight? Pru’s chap’s with his olds in Gloucestershire this weekend, and so she’s gone off to a spa for a freebie they’ve been offering her for ages.’

  And Renzo’s in New York with work, and that means you’re at a loose end, I thought. With him away, my original motivation for hanging out with Felicity and her sister was null and void, so to speak. I liked Felicity, I enjoyed her company, but part of me suspected that her reason for asking me to come out with her that night was no purer than my own had originally been: she had nothing else to do. But my finances wouldn’t stretch to another massive night in Mayfair, even if I’d wanted to go more than anything. And, thinking about it, I found that I didn’t want to, funnily enough.

  I was tired, the nice kind of tired you feel at the end of the week when you’ve worked hard and done well. I was wearing flat shoes and battered leather trousers that definitely weren’t Annabel’s-ready, my hair was scraped up into a knot because it needed a wash, and the idea of going home and spending the best part of two hours trying and failing to make myself look my best had absolutely zero appeal.

  ‘Let me just check…’ I glanced at my phone and there, like a message from the gods of Friday night dullards, was a message from Josh.

  Hey Tansy, you in tonight? Adam and I are, and I’m cooking.

  I said, ‘Ah, I’m so sorry but I can’t. Bonding sesh with my new housemate. I’ve hardly seen the poor bloke since he arrived and I feel a bit bad. Maybe another time?’

  ‘New housemate?’ Felicity asked. ‘You never mentioned him before.’

  ‘No, well…’ I remembered the flash of inspiration I’d had, which I’d yet to act on, and hesitated for a moment. I could sow a seed in Felicity’s mind, without actually committing myself to anything, or even bending the truth.

  ‘Well what? Is he hot?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess so. Yes, he is. But the weird thing is, I knew him when I was at school. Had a massive crush on him, in fact.’

  ‘Oooh!’ Felicity said. ‘Awks, much? Or does he feel the same way? Might love blossom over the tumble dryer?’ Felicity had shown no sign of feeling any guilt about dating Renzo, or any concern that I might want to get back together with him. But I could see that, from her point of view, a hot former crush turning up in my life would solve a lot of problems.

  I smiled in a way that I hoped was enigmatic, and pulled a loose strand of hair out of my up-do. ‘We’ll have to see. Have fun tonight, anyway. Tell Pru I said hi.’

  Then I texted Josh, thanking him, saying I’d be home before seven and asking if he needed me to pick anything up from the shops.

  I made my way home through the Friday evening crowds, stopping at the off-licence near home for a couple of bottles of Australian shiraz, because even though it was clearly shittier shiraz than Josh would be used to, it seemed like the polite thing to do. And the tactical one, too.

  When I opened our front door, the first thing I saw was Adam. He was hovering on the stairs, a look of outrage on his face. I began to say hello, but he waved a hand dismissively and pointed frantically towards the kitchen.

  Oh God, I thought. The last thing I needed was for Josh to do something that would piss Adam off enough to make him move out. Finding another new person to make up the rent, which even after just a couple of weeks I’d come to count on, was far more than I was able to deal with right now. Whatever Adam was freaking out about, I’d have to deal with it and try to defuse the situation.

  I walked quietly into the kitc
hen, then stopped.

  Josh was standing by the kitchen counter, where a huge, gleaming chef’s knife lay on the chopping board. And he was holding Freezer upside down in his arms.

  My brain, already on high alert thanks to Adam, segued directly into panic mode as my eyes interpreted the situation.

  He’s going to murder the cat!

  I froze, my heart pounding and my thoughts whirling. What was going on? Had Josh and Adam had some kind of row, and Josh was holding Freezer hostage? Was he engaged in some kind of satanic ritual? And exactly what the hell was I going to say to Luke and Hannah if so much as one of Freezer’s whiskers was harmed in our house?

  Then my rational side kicked in as I took in the details of the scene. The pile of vegetables on the counter. The faint, fishy smell in the air. And most of all, Josh and Freezer’s demeanour. From the doorway, I could hear thunderous purring. The cat’s white paws were floppy, his eyes blissfully blinking. And Josh was singing to him. Well, not singing exactly. Rapping.

  ‘Hey, yo, Freezer, you da geezer

  You da pussy, you da dude

  But I ain’t allowed to give you food

  You’re one eye’s blue and one is green

  Yo, Freezer, you done owned the scene

  I ain’t been in Hackney long

  Man, I know I get shit wrong

  But the one thing I know is that

  Freezer be the pengest cat.

  ‘But no prawns for you, right, mate? They’re human food.’

  And he turned Freezer the right way up again, put him on one of the kitchen chairs and scratched him behind the ear.

  ‘Hello,’ I said, limp with relief. ‘I brought some wine.’

  ‘Cool! I just opened a beer, and I was starting dinner when this dude turned up and started demanding seafood.’