Padella was its usual busy self for a Saturday night and the manager greeted me with a grin. I’ve known him for a few years and seen him on various dates, so I figured he was going to assume I was on yet another time waster with some indeterminate male. I wanted to say to him that this was different; that Owen wasn’t my usual egocentric shallow non-conquest. Instead, he was intelligent and interesting and interested.
And as freaking hot as Venus in a heat wave.
He was wearing trousers that looked like they’d been cut with the sole purpose of displaying his ass, his button-down shirt tapered in at the waist and tight around his biceps. His grin was broad and cheeky as soon as he saw me, as if he knew I was checking him out and he was perfectly happy with that because it meant he had won some battle.
“Hey,” he said, leaning over to kiss my cheek.
I wanted to lean up and take his lips with mine, but I remembered I was staying single because it was simpler while I sorted my life out. “You look gorgeous.”
“You’re not so bad yourself,” I said quietly. “I don’t mind people thinking we’re on a date with you looking like that.”
“Just say the words and this can be a date,” he said. “Anytime. You know that.”
“Maybe at some point. If you’ve not got bored of hanging around by then,” I said, cold gripping at my chest.
He gave me that smile, the one that said he knew everything and there was no need to worry. “Shall we have a bottle of wine or are you in the mood for something else?” he dodged responding to my comment.
“Wine. A malbec or rioja, but you can pick.”
That smile again.
Jake, one of the managers, came over and said hello, taking the drinks order and talking to Owen. They knew each other from a business forum and I figured this was how Owen had managed to get a reservation, as usual it was first-come first-served.
“How’s your mum managed to get a reservation here?” I said, once Jake had moved on.
“She knows Jake too. Used to babysit him when we lived near Glastonbury,” he said. “Don’t worry about her date, unless we need to intervene—and that might be more for his sake than hers. How was your spa day?”
He’d remembered, although I wasn’t surprised. Vanessa’s best friend, Sophie, owned a chain of beauticians and spas across London, including a men-only one that had been really successful. Every so often she’d give us a huge deal on a spa day if we reported back as secret shoppers and had certain treatments. Five of us had spent the day having massages, being waxed and generally managing to chill the fuck out. The waxing part wasn’t quite as relaxing as the other aspects, but the beautician had done a very good job. “It was good. Claire enjoyed it—I’m not sure Killian found looking after the baby as easy as he thought. He rang her three times in the last hour and a half.”
Owen laughed. “He was telling us this morning how easy it all was. I’ll remind him of that tomorrow. What was the problem?”
“I think he wasn’t sure how hot the milk needed to be. Then it was what she’d puked up and at the end she wouldn’t stop crying. Claire texted me when she got home to say Eliza stopped crying as soon as she got home, which really pissed off K,” I said. “How were your friends?” I knew he’d met up with some of his friends from university for a couple of hours as they were stopping over in London before catching a flight out to the U.S.
Owen nodded. “Good. It was really easy to catch up and it felt like we’d seen each other last week rather than over a year ago. We said the usual: we should meet up more frequently, but time fucking flies by, so it’ll probably be another year—unless anyone gets married.”
The conversation drifted easily from topic to topic: friends, family, work, politics, travel and books. Lots of books. We briefly looked up from each other when Dot arrived with her date, a balding guy with a thin, straggly ponytail.
“I’m not passing comment,” Owen said quietly. “Other than her taste has regressed to what it was twenty years ago, just with less hair.”
“Hopefully she’ll see that and reflect a bit on what she does want.”
“What about you? What do you want?”
“To be with someone who makes being happy easy. I know that’s a big ask because a relationship’s far more complicated than that and takes work, but my dad and mum—they row and fight but ultimately they make each other happy and want to do that for each other. What about you?”
“Something similar, I guess. I want the family bit. My upbringing was weird, and I wished I’d had a brother or sister, so I know I want the kids plural at some point and a base. I don’t want to be a nomad like I was when I was growing up,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, I’ve no hang ups or issues that haven’t been therapied out of me. Unlike down there.” His gaze went over to the window seat where Dot was sitting with her date. She was talking animatedly, her hands moving wildly and in danger of knocking something over. I braced myself for it to be the bottle of red. “This isn’t going to end well.”
It didn’t. Forty-five minutes later and we were now a table for three, with the remainders of the wine and two shots of decent tequila.
“Who turns up a date stoned?” Dot said for the sixth or seventh time.
“Aged hippies who still think it’s nineteen-seventy-two,” Owen said, looking the most irritated I’ve ever seen him. “Who dates aged hippies who still think it’s nineteen-seventy-two?” He glared at her.
Dot huffed and glared back, the father-mother resemblance uncanny. “You know, it is okay to try to have a good time when you’re older, Owen Anders. There’s nothing wrong with dating someone who reminds you of a good time in your life.”
Owen squinted at her. “Maybe I’m missing something, mum, but I’m pretty sure you’ve been having a good time for the past seventeen years or so. Maybe aged hippies no longer do it for you because you’re a different person.”
Dot raised her glass and a took a large mouthful of wine. “Maybe that’s true. But you can’t judge all people the same just because of one bad egg.” Her eyes fell on me. “I’m sorry, Payton. As you can see, Owen and I have a very open and honest relationship and have no issue in telling each other what we really think.”
