tell him he was worth more than that. But it was his life and none of my business. And, also, that wasn’t what he was telling me to do, I reminded myself. All I had to do was exchange a few messages with people, delete a few dick pics, then go and meet someone for a glass of wine and see if it worked out well enough for a second date.
‘You’re right, I guess,’ I said. ‘Back on the horse. Or rather, back on the fish. It’s Pisces’ turn next.’
‘Ooooh,’ Robbie sighed. ‘I dated a Pisces boy a few months back. He was proper gorgeous. Just so needy. If I didn’t reply to a text in about five seconds he’d start freaking out and asking me why I was ignoring him. Far too high-maintenance for me, so unfortunately I had to tell him to sling his hook. See what I did there?’
I laughed. ‘Did you draw a line under it?’
‘I did. He got a bit chippy with me, I can tell you.’
‘But the experience must’ve been worth it, since the sex was off the scale.’
‘I’m still a bit gutted about it, if I’m honest.’
We hooted with laughter at our lame puns.
‘Robbie?’ I said. ‘Since you know everything, apparently, can you tell me how to find a Dungeon Master?’
‘What? Christ, Zoë, I don’t want to kink shame or anything, but I had no idea that’s what you were into.’
‘No! Not that kind of dungeon. Or that kind of master, either. Here, take these sandwiches through to the bar and I’ll explain.’
Robbie picked up the platter of artfully arranged food, pushed the kitchen door open with a snake-like hip and disappeared into the bar. While I waited for him to return, I checked Tinder and updated my profile to say I was looking for a Pisces man to date.
Plenty more fish in the sea, I told myself, feeling another giggle rising in my throat. Just as well I was easily pleased – I was going to have to be, if I was to find anything in common with a bloke who, my Stargazer app told me, would be introspective, scatterbrained, forgetful and sulky. Hard work, in other words, I thought despondently.
‘So what’s this, then?’ Robbie burst back into the kitchen. ‘There’s a massive crowd out there today. Alice reckons we’ll need more sangers and we’re out of ham.’
‘Let’s do beetroot hummus and avocado. I feel bad about the avos coming from Peru and they’re certainly not organic, but what can you do? How many years on and we still haven’t reached peak avocado – people can’t get enough of them.’
‘Never mind about avocado air miles,’ Robbie said, pulling a tub of purple hummus out of the fridge. ‘Talk me through the dungeon thing. Whips and chains, or just a bit of light restraint?’
‘None. Of. The. Above. Honestly, if you’d been paying attention for five seconds, you’d know that Alice is organising a Dungeons & Dragons group in the pub. Or rather Drew was, but now Drew can’t, so I am. At least, I’ve been delegated to find someone who can, and I don’t know where to start.’
‘Google?’
‘Tried that. And there isn’t a version of Tinder that matches Dungeon Masters to groups of players that don’t even actually exist yet, unsurprisingly.’
‘Reddit?’
‘I never go on there; it’s too scary.’
‘I know, right? Full of weirdos and incels.’
Since I was quite the involuntary celibate myself, I didn’t feel qualified to comment on that.
‘We’ve got six people signed up for the game already,’ I said, ‘and I’m sure others will join nearer the time. But if we don’t have someone in charge who actually knows what they’re doing, it’ll be a massive flop, Alice will be disappointed and we’ll have to find something else to go on the social calendar for Tuesday nights.’
‘And we’ve already got the monthly open-mic poetry slam, the board-games evenings, the bingo nights on Thursdays…’
‘The stitch and bitch sessions, the pay-what-you-like lunches for pensioners…’
‘Live music once a month…’
‘The mums and tots groups…’
‘Maurice and his mates teaching people dominoes, although that’s not really a formal thing…’
‘But we’ve got to keep coming up with new stuff, to keep the place buzzing.’
‘Although quite how bringing a bunch of nerds in once a week to fight pretend monsters counts as buzzing, I’m not entirely sure,’ Robbie said.
‘Don’t knock D&D – it’s massively zeitgeisty right now,’ I argued. ‘Alice said so, anyway. And Drew Barrymore’s a fan. Anything she does basically comes with a badge of cool, right?’