The conversation isn’t exactly flowing. I need to do something, to liven things up.
‘I know, let’s play a game,’ I suggest.
Oliver raises an eyebrow.
‘A video game?’ he replies.
‘No, like, a real-life one,’ I say. ‘Like a party game.’
‘Such as?’
‘Truth or dare,’ I say, because why not?
‘I’ve never played, but isn’t it kind of dumb to pick dare?’ he replies, clearly missing the point.
I can’t help but laugh. I suppose he has a point.
‘Okay, fine. We’ll stick to truth. But if you don’t want to answer a question, you have to drink.’
I glance down at his tonic water, realising how silly that sounds.
‘Well, yeah, it’s fine, just… let’s just see how it goes,’ I say.
He shrugs.
‘All right, fine. You first,’ he says, not sounding all that into it.
I tap my finger on my chin, pretending to think hard.
‘What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?’ I ask – more than anything, I just want to know, to get a sense of what I’m dealing with here.
He takes a moment, clearly digging deep for something wild.
‘Well, I was visiting a site for work, and I heard they had this, well, this really tall tree, growing in the woodland nearby. We’re talking really tall – you’ve never seen a tree so tall, or so old. So, I crossed the train tracks to go have a look.’
‘Oh, wow,’ I say, not meaning it in the way he takes it.
‘They were clearly disused tracks,’ he reassures me, ‘but I’d stated in my health and safety report that I wouldn’t be going near them.’
He gives me a look that makes me feel like he thinks he’s Jason Statham right now.
‘Oh, you bad boy,’ I say flatly, barely managing to keep a straight face.
‘Right?’ He grins, clearly thinking he’s nailed it. Then he thinks for a moment. ‘Worst date you’ve been on?’
Oh, is he joking?
‘And the best,’ he adds quickly. ‘Tell me both.’
I take a sip of my cocktail, stalling.
‘You know what, they might actually be the same date,’ I confess.
‘How so?’ he asks.
I bite my lip, as I try to carefully let just some of the memories come to the forefront of my brain.
‘I had an absolute dream date with this really cool guy,’ I tell him. ‘Everything was going perfectly. But then… things started going wrong, really wrong. I’m talking disaster movie, criminal-damage levels of wrong. It was like whatever we had between us was so powerful that when we got together, there was, like, a fallout zone – a blast radius of carnage around us. You know what I mean?’
