‘I’ll follow you if you don’t let me walk with you. Which will totally creep you out!’

***

He walks me home, stops on the doorstep and kisses my cheek. ‘Thank you for a nice evening, Rosie Brown.’

‘You’re welcome, Noah Adams. Thank you for a nice, a nice, er, not-date.’

‘It was actually more fun than a lot of my real dates.’ He wrinkles his nose. ‘Weird. Well you’ve got my number if you want a taster session!’

‘You won’t be upset if I don’t?’

‘I won’t.’ He kisses the tip of my nose. ‘But think about it, eh? Now, bugger off to bed before I forget my good intentions, Miss Temptress!’

I stand and watch him go, the tips of my fingers resting on the spot he kissed. He doesn’t turn back, but I can’t help but grin. Taster session! Gawd, some men will call it anything!

Chapter 3

My head is all jumbled up with thoughts about the totally unsuitable, serial first dater, Noah, and my no-show not so perfect guy, Gabe. This means I can’t sleep.

I have puffed up and thumped my pillows about. I have thrown my duvet off, then pulled it back on when I realise my shoulders are freezing. I have been to the loo several times. I have drunk about ten gallons of water, to try and avoid a hangover, and then been back to the bathroom several more times.

I stare up at the ceiling and wonder if Noah’s tutorials would be all talk and no substance or involve total practical hands-on stuff. And what about practice? Would I get homework? Oh, hell no, what is my drunken brain doing to me? I do not need to go down this route.

This has to stop.

I kick the duvet off for the umpteenth time and text Bea. She’ll be asleep, but it will concentrate my mind on the fuckwit who didn’t turn up. Which is good.

‘He didn’t show! x’

‘Who? What? xx’

Bea is not asleep.

‘My date x’

I add an unhappy face.

My phone starts ringing almost instantly. Bea is like that – I can rely on her, totally. She is like the big sister I never had. We are totally different in so many ways, but it works. ‘You had a date tonight!’ squeals Bea in my ear. In the still of the night she sounds even more high-pitched and deafening than she does normally – which is pretty loud anyway when she’s excited.

‘You knew I—’

‘You didn’t say it was tonight! Why didn’t you tell me, how could you not tell me? That’s mega! What did you wear?’

‘I didn’t tell you cos he wasn’t a proper date.’ I sigh, sit up and twiddle my hair round my finger, feeling a failure.

‘What do you mean, not proper? A man, a date, that’s proper!’

‘I found him on a dating app.’

‘Oh.’ There’s a pause. I hadn’t told her that bit. ‘That still counts as a proper date though, you noddle.’