The First Date
Contents ( 35)
- The First Date
- ZARA STONELEY
- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 13
- Chapter 14
- Chapter 15
- Chapter 16
- Chapter 17
- Chapter 18
- Chapter 19
- Chapter 20
- Chapter 21
- Chapter 22
- Chapter 23
- Chapter 24
- Chapter 25
- Chapter 26
- Chapter 27
- Chapter 28
- Chapter 29
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
- Also by Zara Stoneley
- About the Publisher
The First Date
ZARA STONELEY
One More Chapter
a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020
Copyright © Zara Stoneley 2020
Cover design by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020
Cover images © Shutterstock.com
Emojis © Shutterstock.com
Zara Stoneley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008363185
Ebook Edition © 2020 ISBN: 9780008363178
Version: 2020-03-25
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by Zara Stoneley
About the Publisher
For my fabulous sisters – who are, simply, the best. With love.
Chapter 1
There are so many things I’d imagined might go wrong with this date (and when I say many, I do mean many) but this was not top of the list.
He has NOT TURNED UP!
This was not even on the list.
I thought I’d actually been quite comprehensive:
- Don’t recognise the guy because his profile picture is at least twenty years old – dating back to the time when he had hair.
- Has a totally squeaky voice (think David Beckham on helium – sorry, David, I do totally love you, even my mum does) that is so off-putting it makes me feel judgy even though I really don’t mean to be.
- Is wearing so much aftershave it makes me gag. I hate too much aftershave; Dad used to spray it on liberally when I was a child and I’d get an eyeful if I was within 100 metres.
- Hasn’t got socks on. Sorry, the trousers, shoes and no socks thing speaks to me in all the wrong ways. And feet, you’d end up seeing bare feet at inopportune moments. Not everybody has nice feet.
- Goes for a kiss on the cheek as I go for a handshake and it turns into a weird dance and ruins the whole thing.
- I am unable to speak. At all. This has happened before.
- He will hate me on sight and head off to the loo within two seconds of meeting me and never be seen again.