Nick returned to the booth with their bottles, sat down and took off his coat.
Neither knew where to begin.
‘So how’ve you been?’ Nick said eventually.
‘Good, thanks. Pretty busy at work, you know. You?’
‘Yeah, same here, same here.’
Both men simultaneously looked down at their drinks, unable to maintain any prolonged eye contact and risk a repeat of what they’d felt the first time they’d met. Two choruses of an old Oasis song played in the background before either of them said another word, both feeling cripplingly self-aware.
‘Actually, things aren’t good,’ admitted Nick. ‘There’s no easy way for me to say this without sounding like a total idiot, but I need to get this off my chest before I back out. The more I try not to think about it, the more it becomes the only thing I can think about at all. It’s about what happened … the first time we met.’
He paused, realising how ridiculous he sounded. He looked at Alex hoping for confirmation that he might be feeling the same, but Alex’s face gave little away. In for a penny, in for a pound, Nick thought and continued regardless. ‘That feeling I got when I looked at you as I was leaving; I’ve thought it through a thousand times since and I still can’t explain it properly. None of it make sense. I’m not gay.’
‘I’m not gay either,’ Alex replied.
‘So why do we have this link?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I’ve not so much as kissed a guy, not even for a laugh or when I was drunk.’
‘Me neither.’
‘So if neither of us are into blokes, then what’s happening here?’
‘It’s simple. The test is fucked up, they got us mixed up with other people,’ Alex said resolutely.
‘That’s what I said. I even emailed them to check, but they sent out this standard reply saying the test isn’t flawed and to date they haven’t had one mis-Match. But, anyway, it doesn’t explain what I felt. What I think we felt. Are we in denial or something?’
Alex shifted uncomfortably in his seat and took several gulps from his bottle, before leaning forward and, with a lowered voice, said, ‘Mate, all I know is that something inexplicable happened after I gave you physio. I didn’t feel anything when we met, when you took your T-shirt off, when I touched you or when we shook hands afterwards, but then … I dunno … something happened.’
Nick breathed a sigh of relief, pleased to hear Alex describe what he had felt too.
‘What was it like for you?’ he asked.
‘Honestly? Like a thousand small explosions going off inside me all at once, but not in a bad way … It was like they woke me up. I suddenly felt more alive than I’ve ever been before and that’s the only way I can describe it, as lame as it sounds.’
‘No, no, it’s cool. I know what you mean. It was exactly the same for me.’
‘But why you and me? From the conversation we had last time, do we even have anything in common? I love sport, you love computer games. I’m going back home to live in New Zealand in a couple of months and you enjoy your city life.’
‘And we both have girlfriends.’
‘And we both have girlfriends,’ Alex agreed.
‘So why am I sitting here with butterflies the size of eagles circling my stomach and I can barely look at you, and then when I do, I can’t take my eyes off you?’
Nick shuffled his leg and felt his knee briefly brush against Alex’s. For a split second, he felt like goosebumps were spreading to each pore in his body. A moment later, Alex slid his leg back over so their legs remained touching.
They looked at each other square in the eye, neither needing to say a word to know what the other was feeling.
Chapter 35
ELLIE
On Ellie and Tim’s second date, time passed as swiftly as the click of a finger as they tucked into their meal.
Ellie had dined in yam’Tcha, Le Sergent Recruteur and Tour d’Argent – three of the most critically acclaimed restaurants in Paris – and Jean-Christophe Novelli and Hélène Darroze had even cooked for her in her own home, but she couldn’t remember a meal she’d appreciated more than the one she was sharing with Tim at this modest brasserie. It certainly wasn’t the menu she found appealing – everything she’d ordered had either been cremated or doused in garlic – but she ate it without complaint as she welcomed the effort he’d made in organising their night.
Tim was a kind, genuine man, the sort she hadn’t met in a long, long time. Was she attracted to him? Yes, she decided, but not in the way she’d expected to be. Ellie had spent enough time in the company of couples who’d met through Match Your DNA to know what two people who were head-over-heels in love looked like. She and Tim didn’t have that. She had erected so many barriers over the years that theirs was likely to be a slow-burner rather than an all-consuming, all-guns-blazing relationship.
With the meal completed and their coffees drained, Ellie had allowed Tim to pay before he held her vintage Alexander McQueen coat open for her to slip her arms into. She suddenly felt guilty for wearing it in his company, as it had likely cost more than what he’d earn in a month. In fact, she knew for sure that it did, as her private detectives had disclosed to her Tim’s bank statements. But while she regretted intrusively checking up on him, she knew she shouldn’t feel guilty for buying nice things. It was her hard-earned money to do with as she pleased and, in the same way she encouraged Tim to be himself when he was around her, she should be true to herself also. And she was a girl who loved her clothes.
Tim held open the door as they left and she gave in to the urge to entwine her arm inside his, immediately feeling the radiating warmth of his body. Suddenly he stopped in his tracks and offered her the widest beam, then leaned towards her for a kiss. Ellie closed her eyes and as their lips met, she felt the unexpected release of pheromones she had heard about surge around her body making her nerves twitch and her heart flutter. For a second, she thought she might have even seen stars.
But her moment of elation was brought to an abrupt halt when she heard a female voice shriek from behind them, ‘You fucking bitch!’
Together they turned to find a scowling, middle-aged woman hurling something in their direction. On instinct, Tim tried to step between the woman and Ellie, and was hit with the brunt of a whole can of red paint, which was now all over his face, shirt and jacket. A generous amount also hit Ellie too, splashing against her arms, hair, cheeks and the restaurant window behind them.
‘You’ve got blood on your hands for what you’ve done,’ the woman yelled at Ellie, before throwing the can into the gutter and scurrying away along the road into the night.
Ellie remained frozen in place as a stunned Tim wiped the paint from his face.
‘What did you do?’ he asked, his voice filled with disbelief.
The shock had rendered Ellie immobile. It wasn’t the first time she had been subject to an attack, although most of the others had been of a cyber or verbal nature, with the exception of the religious nut who’d stabbed Andrei with a broken bottle. It was precisely for this reason she had hired him and his team to escort her in public. Only that evening, she’d needed to remind herself what it felt like to be a normal person going on a regular date. As she and Tim had kissed, Ellie’s defences were down and she was lost in the moment.