I don’t want to join them, however; I have no wish to see Jake. I just came to meet Charlotte before she went inside to thank her again and give her more of a personal low-down on things, and check that she’s definitely okay about doing it. I can’t say no to a drink, though, because she’s my friend, she’s lovely, and she’s basically doing me an enormous favour.
‘You can obviously back out if you’d like to,’ I say, really hoping that she won’t. I don’t want to have to organise a different evening this week. Sonja extracted written promises from us that we would do something on a weekly basis with exceptions only for illness, holidays and extreme personal events.
‘No, no, I’m here and as you say what’s the worst that can happen. Especially since you’re coming in with me to start off with. And Idothink it will be an interesting experience. Plus I saw him on TV and he’sgorgeous. So smouldery.’
I clamp my lips together to stop myself from correcting her. She’s got the wrong ‘sm’ word. What he actually is, is smug. And smirky as well. Not smelly, I’ll give him that. But not smouldery either.
‘You’ll have a fantastic time,’ I say.
‘Starting with a lovely drink with you,’ she says, and grabs my hand. ‘Let’s go.’
The second we get inside, I realise that I am in fact quite pleased that Charlotte brought me in. It’s very interesting being in a social situation operated in complete pitch-darkness. It will also be interesting witnessing the first meeting between Charlotte and Jake.
We’re being led by the hands by a woman towards the bar.
I’m completely and utterly clueless within seconds about my surroundings. I have no idea how far we’ve walked or what direction the door we came in is, or… anything.
(Apparently there are lights in the loos – you’re led to your fully lit cubicle, released inside and then afterwards taken back to your seat. Charlotte specifically checked about that before she agreed to the date.)
We’re both guided onto bar stools (which have backs, luckily, because the darkness seems to affect balance too) and then a deep voice says, ‘Hi. I’m Jake,’ and I nearly fall off mine.
I hadn’t really registered before how very deep his voice is. I was too busy being furious, initially about his disdain forthe romance genre, the reading of which makes alotof peopleveryhappy, and then about his apparent desire to trash my reputation and career.
His voice isreallydeep. Being a romance writer, I’d have to call it gravelly. And if I were one of my own characters, I’d have to mention that it’s caused the little hairs on the back of my neck to stand up. I think the reason for that is – even though I did know we were meeting him here – I didn’t expect him to have arrived first, so hearing him speak was a bit of a surprise.
‘Hi,’ says Charlotte. ‘I’m Charlotte.’
‘And I’m here too,’ I say quickly because I suddenlyreallydon’t want to know what Jake’s like in flirt mode. I think it might make me feel sick. ‘Freya.’
‘Oh, right.’ And, yes, his voice has definitely changed, got colder. Clearly he dislikes me as much as I dislike him.
‘I thought it would be nice if she came in and introduced us,’ Charlotte explains. ‘Shared a drink with us at the bar.’
‘Great,’ says Jake in an unenthusiastic tone.
I glare in the direction of his voice and say nothing.
A silence almost as dense as the darkness begins to envelop us, and then, just as I’m beginning to feel very guilty in case this is awkward for Charlotte, and am considering starting up some basic conversation, there’s a bit of shifting around from what I think is her direction, and then she gamely says, ‘So, national TV and a challenge. I’m guessing you’ve entered into this as reluctantly as Freya has?’
Jake laughs (clearly going for fake charm – I’ve just thought of another ‘sm’ word for him – smarmy) and says, ‘It’s certainly a strange one. And I think Freya might have drawn the short straw. Whatever she does, I don’t think she’s going to be able to convince me that there’s no everlasting love in my future. Whereas all I have to do is get her to fall in love.’ I don’t like his tone. Sarky. He put a lot of emphasis on the wordwhatever.As though he thinks I’m going to go down the setting him up on disastrous dates route on purpose.
Charlotte is not stupid. ‘Are you perhaps imagining that Freya thinks there isnopossibility that you could fall for me?’
‘Ha, yes, no,’ Jake says. ‘Perhaps I worded that badly.’
‘Yes, you did,’ I inform him. ‘Charlotte is one of my best friends. And also very attractive by anyone’s standards.’
‘Great,’ replies Jake, even more sarkily. ‘I’m sure we’ll hit it off very well then.’
‘Frankly,’ says Charlotte, ‘I’m tempted to walk out at this point, but I’m actually quite interested to experience the restaurant part. Happy to stay with Freya instead of you, though.’
‘Sorry,’ says Jake. ‘I would very much like to spend the evening with you. I, er, just couldn’t resist a little – entirely joking – dig at Freya because we had the small disagreement that led up to this challenge.’
Ilovehearing him grovel.
‘Are you just saying that because you have to – because of the contract with the production company?’ I can’t resist asking. I’d be extremely happy to have dinner here with Charlotte in his stead and tell Sonja that he reneged. That would pretty much be a win for me straight off.
‘Certainly not,’ Jake says, doing something with his voice that makes it sound almost caressing, and makes me want to reach out in the dark and punch him, frankly. ‘I’m very much looking forward to getting to know Charlotte.’
