Never Fall for Your Back-Up Guy by Kate O’Keeffe

Chapter 10

Dear Dad

I’m going on a date with someone I really like! I know, it’s been a while, especially if we don’t count Zack (and I definitely don’t count Zack).

George is deadly handsome, from a family even Granny would approve of (a miracle, right?), and he’s messaged me a bunch of times already. I’m not going to get ahead of myself and say something outlandish like ‘he’s the one,’ but Dad, he might be the one!

We’ll see. Wish me luck!

Miss you. Love you.

Your Za-Za xoxo

I’m pullingon my outfit for my date with George when my phone buzzes for about the fifteenth time in the last ten minutes. It’s another message from the man himself, Gorgeous George as I’m now calling him.

I’m into power, and that’s what the men have got.

We’ve been discussing the finer points of tennis, specifically why women’s tennis is so much more interesting to watch than men’s (me), and why the current World Number 1 man is technically incredibly accurate but actually kind of boring (him).

I tap out my reply.

Hello? Have you seen Serena Williams play?

Good point. There is one thing to say that women’s tennis has over men’s. Two words: short skirts.

I giggle as I reply.

I can’t believe your flirting technique is to talk about other girls’ clothing.

I watch as dots appear on the screen, telling me he’s messaging me back.

I’d be more than happy to flirt with you over any topic.

I grin as I read my screen. I haven’t even laid eyes on him and already this evening’s date is going brilliantly.

Another message pops up.

See you in fifteen. Just getting in my Uber now.

I glance at the time on my phone. Eek! I’m running late. I zip my dress up and slip my feet into my heels. Collecting my phone from my bed, I order an Uber, apply another layer of lipstick, and head out into the living room. I find Lottie, Kennedy, and Tabitha lounging on the sofa watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, our usual Tuesday evening ritual which I’ve had to forgo for tonight’s date.

It’s not been a tough decision.

“Can you believe that woman?” Lottie is saying. “She’s so rude.”

“That’s the show, babe,” Tabitha explains, stroking Stevie’s fur as she sleeps on her lap. “They say things the rest of us might be thinking but would never actually come out with.”

Kennedy adds, “And they look so good while they’re doing it, too.”

“Some of them are a little ‘caught in a wind tunnel’ for my liking,” Tabitha says as she pulls her face taut with her palms.

“They’ve got to have something to do with all those stacks of cash,” Lottie tells them.

I stride over to the TV and turn to look at my friends. “How do I look?”

“Beautiful,” Lottie declares as Tabitha says, “Perfection,” and Kennedy says, “So pretty.”

Tabitha pauses the TV show and I beam at them.

“I’m so nervous about this date. I want it to go so well.”

Tabitha replies, “You fancy the pants off one another. It’ll go well. Believe me.”

“No, we don’t,” I protest, but I know it’s true. Every time I think of Gorgeous George, I get a wonderful fluttery feeling in my belly and I find myself smiling. If that’s not a good sign, I don’t know what is.

“Go, have a great time, and report in,” Lottie instructs.

“But only if you can tear your eyes from his for more than two minutes,” Tabitha adds.

“Or her lips,” Kennedy teases as she nudges Tabitha.

The thought of kissing Gorgeous George has a smile almost cracking my face in two. “Well then. If you don’t hear from me, you’ll know I’m having a good time.”

My phone alerts me to the fact my ride is one minute away. “Gotta go, girls. Be good, Stevie,” I say as I dash from the room and collect my handbag on the way to the front door.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Tabitha calls out.

“Babe, that rules out nothing,” Lottie retorts.

“Hey!” is the last thing I hear from Tabitha before the front door slams shut behind me.

Twelve minutes later, I arrive at the restaurant, thankful the traffic was light enough to get me here on time. I step out of the car and look around. I’ve not spent much time in this part of London, but I take a mental note to come back. The street is lined with boutiques and cafés, and the restaurant itself is one of those friendly neighbourhood places that’s welcoming and unpretentious, but you just know the food is going to be fantastic.

The white and blue colour scheme tells me it’s a Greek restaurant, and the music coming from inside fits.

Being a warmer than usual evening, there are a bunch of people at tables on the footpath, sitting under a wisteria-covered trellis with gorgeous purple hanging flowers. I glance at either side of me, looking for George as I head for the entrance.

Something catches my attention out of the corner of my eye.

“Zara!”

I turn to see George walking towards me, a grin on his handsome face, and I catch my breath at the sight of him. He’s wearing a pair of jeans that fit him just right, a lilac and white striped shirt that’s open at the neck, and he’s wearing his sandy blonde hair a little scruffy and a lot sexy.

He plants a kiss on my cheek, and I breathe in his woodsy and masculine scent. “You look so beautiful tonight.”

I grin at him as my tummy does all kinds of flips and flops. “Thanks. You look pretty good yourself.”

“I’ve got us a table over here.” He gestures at a table covered in a classic blue and white check tablecloth with white chairs over at the far side. “That is if it’s okay to sit outside?”

“It’s perfect.”

He slips his hand into mine and leads me through the crowded outdoor tables. I notice a well turned-out middle-aged couple at the adjoining table smiling at me, and I return their smile as George pulls my chair out for me and I take my seat.

“I’m so glad we’re doing this,” he says once he’s sitting opposite me.

“I am, too. Is this your local? I’ve not been to this place before, but I love that wisteria.” I tilt my head up and look at the beautiful flowers, hanging from the trellis.

“Is that what’s it called? It’s just flowers to me.”

I giggle. “You’re such a guy.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It’s not at all.”

“Good.”

Our gazes lock and things zing around me at a hundred miles an hour. Oh, my, is this man hot! I feel giddy just looking at him.

“So, you’re a tennis player, I take it?” he asks as he waves his phone in front of me.

“Oh, not really. I like to play sometimes in summer, and I’ve been to Wimbledon a couple of times, but that’s mainly for the strawberries and cream really,” I reply, referring to the famous Wimbledon dessert.

“There are a lot of cheaper and easier ways to get strawberries, you know, Zara.”

“But it’s not as fun to go to the supermarket and just simply buy a punnet. Where’s your imagination?”

He laughs and it reaches inside and tickles my belly. I pick up my menu. “So, what’s good here to eat? I’m starving.”

“I always have the moussaka. It’s so good. Creamy and delicious.”

My mouth waters. “Sounds good to me.”

His eyebrows ping up. “What? No salad? No ‘I’m on a diet so I can’t afford all that cheese?’”

“Who says that?”

“Women, that’s who. Not you, and I like it.”

“You like the fact I want to eat moussaka? Wow, you’re easy to please.”

His eyes dance. “What can I say? I like a girl who eats.”

“Well, I’m definitely a girl who likes to eat, so I guess we’re a match made in heaven.”

His gaze intensifies. “I feel like we might be.”

I ogle him in disbelief. This guy is one in a million! No game playing, no beating about the bush. He wants me to know he likes me and he’s serious about me.

I feel like pinching myself.

Thank you, Scarlett.

“Don’t you?” he asks.

“Yeah. Maybe.” We grin at one another.

A man with a thick black moustache approaches our table with a notepad and pen in hand. “You ready to order?”

George looks up at him. “How are you doing, Nick?”

The waiter’s eyes dart uncertainly from George to me and back again. “Good. Good. You?”

“I’m great, Nick. Just great. This is Zara, my date.”

Nick turns his attention to me and says, “Hello.” It’s obvious to me that he’s got no clue who George is, but I’m not going to say anything to embarrass him.

“Hi, Nick. Nice place you’ve got here.”

“Yes, is very good. You order now?”

George collects my menu from me and hands them to Nick. “I’ll have my usual, thanks, and Zara here will, too.”

“Your usual?” Nick questions, his features tense.

George laughs. “Nick, you’re killing me. The moussaka, my man. You know I always have that here.”

Nick’s face morphs into a smile. “Moussaka! Good choice. Two moussaka coming up. You want bread, olives, dolmades?”

“A bowl of olives?” he asks me, and I nod. “One bowl for the lady.”

“Okay. Olives, moussaka.”

“Thank you, my good man.”

Nick throws us a final uncertain look before he turns to leave.

“Well, that was embarrassing,” George says once he’s out of earshot.

“I know. I felt so bad for you. But I wouldn’t let it bother you. He must see hundreds of customers a day. You can’t blame him for not recognising you.”

George’s jaw locks. “I meant that he couldn’t remember my usual order.”

Right.

I need to back pedal. “Oh, that? Yes, that was embarrassing for him, not for you. Obviously.”

He regards me with suspicion. “That’s right,” he says slowly.

I need to salvage the situation, and fast. “Anyway, let’s get back to what we were talking about before the waiter arrived. Strawberries. That was it.” Where can I take the conversation from strawberries? What are your top three berries? Are you a banana man? Actually, that last one has probably too much potential innuendo for a first date with a guy I might want to get serious with some day.

In the end, George swoops in and saves the day. “I know what. Tell me about what you do. You work with Scarlett, right?”

My job. Yes. That’ll work.

“We own an interior design business together called ScarZar. We’ve got a shop in Kensington and we both consult. It’s so fun working with a friend.”

“Could you do my place?”

A smile spreads across my face. “Of course. What do you need doing?”

“I don’t know. All of it? It’s old and needs updating, but I think it has what they call ‘good bones.’ You know, high ceilings, crown mouldings, big windows. That sort of thing.”

“It sounds amazing.”

“I’ll have to show it to you. You know, so I can get your professional opinion of course.”

“Of course.”

We grin at one another, and I take a sip of my water.

“And maybe so we can sit on my sofa and snog,” he adds, and I splutter my glass of water over him in surprise.

“Sorry,” I say as I grab my napkin and dab at his shirt.

He takes my hand and holds it still. “Don’t worry about it. I caught you off guard, didn’t I?”

“A little.”

“The thing is, I’m very attracted to you, Zara, and I hope you feel the same way about me.”

My belly does so many flips it’s a miracle I’m not thrown from my seat. “I am,” I reply coyly.

His smile spreads across his face. He removes the napkin from my hand, turns it over, and places a soft kiss right in the centre of my palm.

I swear, every nerve in my body instantly redirects to that spot.

Nick arrives at our table to deliver our wine and olives, and I reluctantly pull my hand away.

Conversation flows between us over a bottle of wine and the moussaka, and before long we’re talking and laughing, our fingers laced together on top of the table. I feel close to him already, and we’ve got so much in common. We both went to uptight boarding schools, we both escaped our well-meaning but sometimes overbearing families to live a life of freedom in London, and we’re both old enough to have got the London party scene out of our systems and want something more from life.

“You know, Zara, my parents will absolutely adore you.”

Warmth spreads through my limbs. “You think?”

“Oh, I know,” he says assuredly.

Him telling me his parents will adore me is a massive seal of approval. “That’s a nice thing to say.”

“Would you like to meet them?”

“I would.”

“How about now?”

Wait, what?

He wants me to meet his parents now? On our first date?

“Why don’t we order dessert and plan it for another time?” I say with a laugh, because he can’t be serious. Surely not.

“I always say there’s no time like the present.” He reaches over to the middle-aged couple at the adjacent table and places his hand on the man’s arm.

“What are you doing?” I ask, my brows knitted together. Has he lost his mind?

The man looks directly at me and his face breaks into a smile. His face that looks a lot like…. No! It can’t be!

“Hello, Zara. It really is lovely to meet you, and we feel like we’ve learnt so much about you tonight.”

“Maybe too much, at some points,” the woman at the table with him says. “Although I do respect your providence as a sexual being.”

My what as a what?

“George, what’s going on?” I ask, hoping the conclusion I’ve jumped to is way off base.

“Oh, how rude of us, Mary,” the man says. “Anthony and Mary,” the man says as both he and the woman rise to their feet.

“Anthony and Mary?” I question.

“That’s right, dear,” the woman says. “We’re George’s parents.”

My jaw almost hits the table in utter horror. “You’re…what?”

“Oh, look at her, George. She can’t quite believe it,” the woman, Mary, George’s mother says with a laugh to her son.

Her son.

George’s grin is gigantic. “No, she can’t. Can you, Zara? Isn’t this wonderful?”

Uh, no?

“Come and give me a hug, dear,” Mary says as she opens her arms and beams at me. “You passed the test with flying colours.”

I blink at them with incomprehension before I slide my eyes back to George. He too is beaming at me as though he’s won the lottery. “These are your parents?” I ask him, my eyes wide. “And there was a test?” Humiliation trickles down my limbs.

This can’t be happening.

“Go on, give Mum a hug,” George instructs as he looks proudly on.

Like a zombie, I rise to my feet and get enveloped in Mary’s arms. She smells of garlic and lily of the valley, and she hugs me tight while my head spins.

“I have to say, Zara, I liked you from the moment I saw you at your birthday party. I know your mother through bridge, of course, but never met you or Sebastian. You gave a lovely speech. Didn’t she, Anthony?”

“She did. You certainly like dogs, don’t you, Zara? You’ll do well in the Honeydew family. We like dogs, and we like a woman to speak her mind. Don’t we, eh, George?”

“We do indeed, Dad,” George replies.

“Th-thank you,” I mutter. Because I’m too dumbfounded by this whole thing to know what else to say right now.

George is still grinning like a cat with an endless supply of cream.

Me? I’m like the cat that’s been turfed out of the house into the pouring rain for no good reason.

Have I really just had a first date with a guy’s parents sitting at a nearby table, listening to every last word we’ve said, right from the very moment I arrived?

I search my memory banks. We talked tennis. Fine. Then there was that whole berries conversation. Also fine. Then he kissed my palm and told me he wanted to snog me on his sofa.

Not so fine.

Hang on. He said those things to me knowing his parents could hear everything we said?

Not so fine at all.

“Let’s pull the tables together, shall we?” Mary suggests.

“Great idea, darling. That way we can have a jolly good chat.” Anthony begins to move the chairs back. Together, he and George lift the table and plonk it down next to ours as I blink at them in disbelief.

And here I was thinking this evening couldn’t get any more bizarre.

I was wrong. So very wrong.

“There we are,” Anthony says, admiring his handiwork.

I dart my gaze between the three of them. They’re acting like this is a completely normal thing to do. And what’s more, George seems to think so, too.

He’s gone from Captain America to Homer Simpson in two seconds flat—and there’s no way on this sweet Earth I want to snog Homer Simpson.

It’s all too much.

“Can you excuse me for just a moment?” I ask, reaching for my handbag that’s looped over the back of my chair.

“Of course,” George says.

“Hurry back, though. I want to hear more about your interior design business,” Mary says.

I hook my handbag over my shoulder, shoot the three of them a quick, mortified smile, and then make my way past the tables, through the door, and straight to the ladies’ out the back. I slam one of the cubicle doors closed and stand and stare at the blank wall.

What just happened?

One minute we were on a date, the next minute it took a turn for the mortifying.

My urge to run kicks in with a steel-toed boot.

Am I overreacting? Should I instead be happy I’ve found a cute guy who wants to introduce me to his family?

I pull out my phone and stare at the screen. I need to tell someone what’s happened and check that running away is the right thing to do. My instinct is to text Asher, but the last thing I want to do right now is have him say I told you so. Which he would undoubtedly do. He thought George was an idiot from the get go.

So, instead, I do a group message to my girl besties: Lottie, Kennedy, and Tabitha.

On my date with George. All good except he just announced his parents have been at the next table all night and then he introduced me to them, and now they want to sit with us. This is weird, right? I’m not being overdramatic?

The responses are swift and emphatic.

Lottie: So weird!

Tabitha: Total mummy’s boy in a sick, sick way.

Kennedy: OMG, girl. Run!

Well, that’s clear. None of them think it’s a terribly good sign, to say the least. Then, another message pops up.

Lottie: But you know what they say about guys and their mums.

Tabitha: What? That if they invite their mums on a first date, they’re totally sick?

Kennedy: Tabitha’s right, Lottie. Don’t put a positive spin in this, and don’t you listen to her either, Zee. Run. Now.

Tabitha: Agreed.

Lottie: But this is Gorgeous George we’re talking about here!

Tabitha: Stop it, Lottie! It’s beyond sick.

Kennedy: Run! And don’t look back!

I slot my phone back in my handbag, my mind made up—and I can tell you now, it’s not to continue my date with Homer Simpson and his family.

I pay for my meal and half the bottle of wine, and then I stop by the table where George is sitting with his parents. “I’m so sorry, George. Thank you for the date, but I don’t think this is going to work out. It was absolutely—” weird? horrific? beyond humiliating? “—lovely meeting you both, Anthony and Mary. Enjoy the rest of the evening. Bye!”

And before they say another word, I turn on my heel, stride out of the restaurant, and bolt down the street as fast as my heels will take me.