by the pictures he’d sent me, they weren’t the only thing that had). It was bizarre. For the first time in ages – possibly the first time ever – I’d felt purely, viscerally physical, a bit like how I did when I was in the gym, but also so very differently.
I felt consumed by desire, but also felt desirable – like there was some kind of digital thread of lust connecting me to this man I’d never met. We didn’t even appear to have that much in common, and we hadn’t talked about anything meaningful – well, I suppose sex is meaningful, isn’t it? And we’d talked about that, a lot. I’d promised myself that if I felt uncomfortable at any point, I’d stop and block him – but I hadn’t felt uncomfortable. Not one bit.
From his pictures, he wasn’t even anything special – nice enough to look at, with cropped dark hair that was covered by a hat in quite a lot of his photos, and eyes that were a kind of tawny light brown, but not the kind of handsome that stops you in your tracks. He was older than I’d have ideally wanted, too, right at the upper limit of the age range I’d specified.
But none of that mattered. I was like a woman possessed. In spite of my tiredness, I felt giddy with excitement all that morning, racing through my tasks in the kitchen, running up the stairs to change into my gym kit at three in the afternoon, almost unaware of how tough my workout was, or that Dani wasn’t in the gym at her usual time – again.
Oh, and checking my phone. I did that a lot. Every time it chirruped with an alert, I grabbed it like I was worried it might run away. When it was only a calendar reminder or a push notification from Stargazer, or a message from someone I’d been speaking to on and off on Tinder and assumed had gone off the boil, I felt a lurch of disappointment, but that did little to dull my giddy excitement.
I understood, now, what Robbie had meant when he talked about going to a stranger’s home for sex. Not caring if it was dangerous, or reckless, or stupid – just feeling a total, all-consuming longing to tear off my clothes and sleep with someone. A particular someone.
And Seth felt the same, I was sure. When we signed off the previous night, he’d said that, next time, it would be in real life. I didn’t care if we had a drink first, or even if he liked cats.
Robbie, to his credit, managed to put up with my distractedness all day. It was only when we were cleaning up after the evening service had finished that he said, ‘Now. Listen up.’
‘What?’ I jerked out of my reverie.
‘I know you’re my boss and everything. But you need to get your shit together, Zoë. Today you left the deep-fat fryer unattended and you could have burned the place down. You almost used the tongs I’d been turning chicken with to serve up the tofu. You would’ve sent a dessert out with beetroot ketchup on it instead of raspberry coulis if I hadn’t stopped you.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been all over the place. It’s lack of sleep. I’ll be fine tomorrow.’
He gave me a hard stare. ‘You will not be fine until you get that man out of your system. When are you seeing him?’
‘Weeelll… he did mention meeting up on Thursday. But that’s your night off, and—’
‘Night off, schmight off. I’ll swap with you. You go off on your date, and afterwards maybe you’ll be able to get through a service without bringing shame on this pub.’
I didn’t need telling twice. I thanked him, apologised again, and got straight on my phone to see if there was a local salon that could fit me in the next day to have every surplus hair on my body waxed off in preparation for my date with Seth. Bollocks to my feminist principles.
Nine
Passion is your governor today, Aquarius. Be guided by your heart, but remember that those who play with fire risk getting scorched.
I lifted my martini glass, carefully so as not to spill any of the clear, icy liquid that filled it, and took a sip. My lipstick left a red smear on its rim, and I wondered what I was supposed to do about that – ignore it? Try to lick it off? Wipe it