missed out on the window of opportunity when everyone else had seemed to build up a close network of people they could hang out with, go on holiday with, make memories with. All documented with accompanying Instagram stories and hashtags.
The next day, I turned up at the gym with a cake I’d baked, Mike and all the regulars sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to her, a group of us went out for a few beers, and that had been that. Dani and I were mates. And still, months later, I caught Mike looking at us with a slightly smug expression on his face, and I knew it wasn’t just because he saw us challenging each other, motivating each other, but because he knew he’d been instrumental in giving us what we’d both been missing: a friend.
‘Shall we do chin-ups next?’ Dani asked now. Chin-ups were her favourites, and watching her pull herself up on the bar again and again, her strong arms straining until she got her whole head over it, was total life goals.
‘Sure. I’m just going to get some water.’
I crossed the gym towards the water cooler, glancing around me. It was quiet, as was usual for the middle of the afternoon – there were only a couple of hench guys doing bench presses by the weights racks, a woman chatting to Mike by the doorway and a guy finishing off a run on the treadmill.
The machine slowed as I watched, and he stepped off, towelling his face. He was tall and lanky, and something about his easy grace reminded me of Joe. I waited for the familiar twist of pain, but it didn’t come – I could just discreetly and appreciatively check out this sweaty but handsome stranger, who was also approaching the water cooler, his aluminium drinks bottle swinging from one hand.
We reached it at the same time.
‘After you,’ he said.
‘No, it’s fine – no rush. You go first. You look like you need it.’
He wiped his face again, making his damp hair stand on end, and grinned ruefully. ‘That obvious, is it?’
I smiled back. ‘Yeah, it kind of is.’
‘Well, I’d better go ahead then, before I collapse from dehydration.’
‘We wouldn’t want that to happen.’
He leaned over and pressed the tap, and I enjoyed the view of his broad shoulders under his wet Lycra vest. We’d only exchanged a few words, but there’d been something in the way he’d looked at me that was – maybe? – flirtatious. But what did I know? I hadn’t flirted with anyone since forever. My memories of flirting were dim, ephemeral things, lost in the mists of time.
He turned back to me and smiled again, showing straight white teeth Dani’s boss would have been proud of – or possibly not, if they were like that naturally rather than representing her next Caribbean holiday.
‘All yours,’ he said.
‘Thanks.’ I bent over to fill my own water bottle.
‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’
I felt my heart give a little jump that had nothing to do with the thousand metres I’d just completed on the rowing machine. Was he about to ask me out? Me? Right here, in the gym, on the very day on which I’d decided that it was time to do something about my single state? I remembered the last words the Stargazer app had pinged into my phone:
Fortune favours the brave.
If he did, I resolved, I was damn well going to say yes.
‘Ask away,’ I said, turning and sipping water as alluringly as I could.
‘Um… my name’s Stephen, by the way. I’m here most afternoons, same as you.’
I nodded. I’d seen him there, just never had the benefit of a close-up before.
‘I’m Zoë.’
‘Hi, Zoë. Uh… God, this is awkward.’
I smiled, touched by his shyness. ‘Take your time.’
I looked over to the pull-up bar, where Dani was finishing off her second set, and his gaze followed mine. Dani dropped down off the bar and rubbed her trembling arms.
Now, Stephen’s words came out in a rush. ‘Your friend – the girl you train with?’
‘Dani.’ My warm glow of anticipation melted away, like I’d just chucked the contents of my water bottle over my head.
‘Dani.’ His tone was all kind of reverent. He might as well have been saying ‘the blessed Virgin Mary’. ‘Does she have a boyfriend at all?’
‘Ooof,’ Robbie said, when I relayed the story to him over our shepherd’s pie prep later that afternoon. ‘That must have smarted a bit.’
‘Tell me about it. And when I told Dani afterwards, she