‘No, it’s fine. It was interesting. But my mum’s babysitting, so I don’t want to stay out too late.’
‘Okay.’ She smiled. ‘Some other time maybe.’
‘Yeah, sure.’ But Aidan didn’t make her any promises to call that he already knew he wouldn’t be keeping. He was almost tempted to say something definitive like ‘have a nice life’ – thatwould make it clear she wouldn’t be hearing from him again. He didn’t want to ghost her, but it also seemed too rude to say flat out that he didn’t think there should be a second date.
‘Well, thanks again for a lovely evening,’ she said as a taxi pulled up at the kerb.
‘Thank you,’ he said, leaning in to kiss her cheek. ‘Take care.’
‘So, how did the date go?’ Sheena asked him when he got home.
‘I’ve got a bone to pick with Cara,’ he said grumpily, tossing his keys into a bowl on the kitchen counter. ‘And with you, actually, since you were the one who cooked up this whole scheme of finding me a girlfriend.’
‘Oh no, didn’t it go well?’
‘You could say that.’ He flopped onto the sofa beside her with a weary sigh.
‘You didn’t get on?’
‘She was very nice, and we got on fine until she started telling me she leaves her body on the regular and goes flying around the place on some astral plane, hearing voices in her head.’
‘Oh dear.’ Sheena was obviously struggling to keep a straight face.
‘Yeah, it was the twist I didn’t see coming,’ he said dryly.
‘Well, never mind.’ Sheena patted his leg. ‘Plenty more fish in the sea. Finn’s got a vet friend of his lined up for you and Carmel’s got a woman from her book group who’s looking to meet someone.’
‘Carmel?’ Aidan groaned. ‘You’ve got her in on this too?’
‘Well, it is her area of expertise. Maybe you’ll have more luck with her contestant.’
