She waved at Michelle and feigned a smile, beckoning her over to the table at the rear of the café. It had taken a week of messaging to persuade Michelle to meet Mandy. And even now, Mandy didn’t know why she wanted to meet her either, but some invisible force inside her told her to pursue it.
‘Can I order you a coffee?’ Mandy began.
‘No, I can’t stop for long. I’m on my lunch break,’ Michelle replied, politely but curtly. ‘I’m still not really sure why you wanted to meet me.’
‘Well, like I said in my messages, I was Matched with Richard and I wanted to know more about him. We never got the chance to meet and I know the two of you were … close.’
Michelle cautiously eyed Mandy before she leaned forward on to the table. ‘All right then, what do you want to know?’
‘What was your relationship like? Did you love each other?’
Michelle smiled at this. ‘Rich and I had an on and off relationship. I was in my last year at university when we first hooked up, and he was working at the gym.’ She paused, clearly wondering how much she should say. ‘I was pretty much in love with him, but Rich? Well, I reckon he might have been at first but then he started pulling away. In the end, I felt like he was just using me for hook ups.’
‘Really?’ Mandy said. She was surprised, but deep down secretly satisfied that even pretty girls sometimes got used.
‘Yeah, and I got the feeling he had a few of us on the go, like some of the older women he trained at the gym. They were always flirting with him, especially the married ones. I just don’t reckon he was the type to settle down and have one regular girlfriend.’
‘Oh.’ Mandy suddenly felt very deflated. ‘Maybe that’s when he did the Match Your DNA test. He knew you weren’t the one and didn’t see any point in continuing it.’ She regretted her choice of words as soon as she saw a glimmer of hurt in Michelle’s eyes.
‘Maybe,’ Michelle conceded. ‘But I was surprised when you said you’d been Matched. Rich was adamant he never wanted to do the test.’
‘Really?’
‘He said something like it’d take all the thrill out of the chase and that life without risks wasn’t a life at all.So there was no way in hell he’d be told who he was supposed to fall in love with.’
‘Maybe he changed his mind.’
‘Possibly, but I doubt it.’
Mandy leaned back in her chair and stared at the table as the mental picture of Richard she’d spent months painting, with the help of Pat and Chloe, faded before her.
‘I guess I knew in my heart he wasn’t the one,’ continued Michelle. ‘I’ve read about how it feels when you meet your Match, and I didn’t get any of that with him. But he was a nice boy and we had a lot of fun. And can I be honest with you?’
‘Please do.’
‘And I’m not saying this because I’m jealous you’ve been Matched with him or anything, but if things had been different, no matter how much the two of you might have been in love, I still don’t reckon Rich was the type of guy who’d throw all his eggs in one basket. He’d have played around on you.’
‘Really,’ Mandy said, her tone flat. ‘Now you just sound bitter.’
‘Honestly, I’m not. He was just too much of a free spirit. He wanted to travel the world again and the last thing on his mind was settling down and having kids. He didn’t even like them that much.’
‘Didn’t like what, children?’
‘Uh-huh. They got on his nerves. We once had to walk out of a TGI Friday after our starters because there was a children’s party at the next table. They drove him mad. He even said – although he did admit he was ashamed of himself – that he was glad his sister didn’t have kids so he wouldn’t have to pretend to like being around them.’
‘Why did he get his sperm stored then? Pat and Chloe told me all he wanted was a family of his own?’
Michelle’s eyes suddenly widened. ‘You know Pat and Chloe?’
Mandy nodded.
‘Then take my advice and steer well clear of them. They’re a couple of freaks those two. No wonder Rich never wanted me to meet them.’
‘Freaks? Why, what did they do to you?’
Michelle moved closer to Mandy, her voice low and her expression grave. ‘So, you won’t believe this. A few weeks after Rich’s accident they found out who I was and that I’d been seeing him and they turned up at my house. The conversation began a lot like this one actually – wanting to find out more about Richard that maybe they didn’t know – but by the end of the night, they were offering me his sperm to have his baby. What the hell is that all about?’
Mandy felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand to attention. ‘They wanted you to have his baby?’ she asked quietly.
