“Brad, is everything ok?”
“Nothing to panic about, but Lizzie's been sick. She's ok, no fever or anything but thought you might want to know if you needed a reason to leave.”
“Are you suggesting I use our daughter's health as an excuse to bail on my date?” I ask with mock dismay.
“Only if you need a reason. Because it's not a lie, so we’re not actually jinxing her health, but she is also fine. I promise. I think she just ate too much, too quickly,” I can hear the smile in his voice.
“I’m on my way,” I hang up and flag down a black cab.
29th November2025
I tellmyself this will be my last attempt at online dating because so far, no good. Why I'm even bothering again, I don't know. No, that's a lie. It's because Brad has asked for Larissa and Lizzie to finally meet. He also announced that his mum has asked him to invite Larissa to join us all in Plymouth for Boxing Day. Just one big happy family.
Tonight's date is Ollie, thirty-eight, five kids, works as a personal trainer. He's kind of over-groomed for my usual taste but never judge a book, right?
When the waitress leads me to the table, Ollie is already sat there scrolling on his phone, which he doesn't even put down when he stands to greet me. “Shari, you are just as beautiful as your photos.”
“Thanks, Ollie. Your photos do you justice too.” Was that an awkward thing to say? Probably. I cringe at myself, internally.
As we sit, his gaze travels all over my body, and weirdly, it feels both lecherous and calculating at the same time.
We fall into stilted small talk as we wait for our food, and he continuously types and scrolls on his phone.
“You mentioned you've got five kids, how old are they?” Perhaps he's texting his ex about the kids if they're poorly or...something.
“Oh, the eldest is twelve, then ten, seven, and the youngest two are both around five-ish.”
Is it just me, or was that a weird way to word it?
“Wow, five-year-old twins must be a handful. Are they identical or fraternal?”
“Huh? Oh nah, they're not twins. They have different mums. All my kids do.”
I blink. And blink again. Two kids about the same age with different mums. And actuallyall five kidshave different mums. Alarms are going off in my head. I don't really know what to say to that, so I take a sip of my wine instead.
When the waitress comes back with our food, I can't help but notice that he seems to be checking her out. And she seems to be reciprocating.Seriously? I'm sat right here, guys! I mean, I will not be going out with him again, but still. Rude.
Not only does he check out our server, his roving eyeballs seem to get stuck on just about every woman's arse that walks past our table. When he's not engrossed in his phone, that is!
By the time we finish eating, I'm so ready to make my escape that I almost don't hear his question as he's paying the bill – I offered to go Dutch, he declined.
“So, where should we do this?”
“Where should we do...what?” Did I miss another question before this?
“Where do you wanna fuck? My place? Yours? The back alley? Bathroom? Where?”
I start laughing, but it quickly dies out when I see he's dead serious.
“Ollie, you must be kidding. This date did not go well, even if I was the type to fuck on the first date, why would I want to fuckyou?” His face turns redder with my incredulous tone.
“Because I fucking bought you dinner!” he seethes.
“Wow. Buying someone dinner does not entitle you to stick your dick in them. In fact, you'd do well to remember that nothingentitlesyou to stick anything anywhere. I also offered to pay half, so that's on you for assuming I'd be willing to put out just because you declined my money.”
“Yeah, well, you could stand to lose twenty pounds, you fat bitch. I wouldn't want to fuck your fat cunt, anyway!”
He storms off, leaving me completely dumbfounded. I'm insulted, yet relieved. And I'm sodonewith dating.
