I poked him in the side. ‘Oh, don’t pout. It’s only noodles.’
‘Also known asthe devil’s food.’
I choked on a laugh. ‘Wow, you’re a big food snob, aren’t you?’
He glanced down at me, the frown creasing his brow over my choice of lunch was so ridiculous it was hilarious. ‘Hating a chemical-induced heart attack in a cardboard pot is hardly being a food snob. I’m pretty sure it’s called having standards.’
Tilting my head back to look up at him, I moaned, ‘But it’ssodelicious.’ My exaggeration was purely for his benefit. He couldn’t look more appalled if he tried.
‘This needs to be rectified immediately,’ he said.
We reached the clinic, and before I could stop him, George walked ahead of me to grab the handle of the door and held it open.
‘My hands work, you know.’
Gesturing with one of his big hands, he smiled. ‘So do mine.’
I tried to keep the scowl on my face, but my heart wasn’t in it.
As I drew level with him, he dipped his head down. ‘I’ll pick you up at seven tomorrow.’
I stopped short. ‘Uh, what for?’
‘Date number one.’ My words didn’t get a chance to come out before he winked and strode away, melding with the crowd.
The day progressed as frustratingly as it had begun. Lawrence gave me the side eye whenever he saw me, throwing his arms in the air when I’d roll my eyes at him. Then a rambunctious rabbit jumped off the table in the exam room and tried to make a break for it to avoid having his temperature taken. Every male I came in contact with today was being melodramatic. All except one.
Despite the chaos, I couldn’t stop the smile from pulling at my lips.
13
Cold night airnipped the end of my nose. I hopped into my truck, immediately turning the heating full blast. Nervous energy skipped around my body, making my limbs twitch with the need to shake it out.
My ability to run a successful business and carry a tune without someone calling the police might be questionable, but I knew how to plan a date. So why this one was making me doubt that ability was a thread I wasn’t prepared to pull at.
I could plan a simple date.
Well, I knew how to plan dates with someone whowantedto go on a date. Planning a date for someone who compared the act to scooping out their eyeballs with a rusty spoon was a little more complicated. Seeing as this was going to be her first proper date ever—one drink with that posh twat didn’t count—it needed to be perfect.
The worry that this wasn’t special or good enough niggled in the back of my mind as I drove through the city. This morning, I’d sent her a text telling her when I wouldpick her up. She went monosyllabic when I refused to answer all of her probing questions about where we were going or what we were doing. Her inability to let go and not control every aspect of her life was almost funny. She couldn’t relax even when I told her to trust me and that I knew what I was doing.
An hour later, she texted me, informing me not to pick her up from her flat. She sent me a different address. All my follow-up questions had gone unanswered. Her version of payback, I presumed.
My confusion grew by the second as I pulled up outside a townhouse on the outskirts of London.
I knocked on the bright yellow front door. After a few seconds, several locks clicked, and it slowly opened to reveal a woman in a floaty forest green, ankle-length dress. A dozen necklaces of different makes and sizes hung around her slender neck. I didn’t need more information to know this was Rosie’s mother. Thick round glasses perched on the end of the same sloped nose, wild hair with a flare of grey spreading from her roots frizzed around her shoulders. Her face held the same sharp angles as Rosie’s, and her eyes were a familiar blue.
‘George,’ she breathed my name with a faint smile, like she knew something I didn’t.
Remembering my manners and desperately wanting to make a good impression, I held out my hand, smiling politely. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
She clasped my wrist with both hands. Instead of shaking it, she held it gently, turning it over to expose my palm. She stepped forward to peer intently at my hand, muttering softly. I caught a powerful aroma of incense floating out of the house.
I had met a few parents in my life, but this definitely tooktop billing as the weirdest encounter I’d ever had. I shuffled my feet on the front stoop and cleared my throat.
‘Is, uh, everything okay?’
Her head popped up, eyes blinking as if I’d pulled her out of a trance.
