Page 3 of Love at First Sight

Look. I know this isn’t really real. I know this is all in my head. I know it cannot be that eyes meet across a crowded room (or crowded back entrance at Whole Foods), et cetera.

And yet.

‘Cal,’ the man says, offering his hand after a beat longer than polite has passed. Hehasto be feeling this too. His eyes roam my face and I actually believe what he’s just said – that he genuinely thinks I’m beautiful. I flush pink, unaccustomed to such forthright flattery. I take his hand and second contact is established. He shakes it, and I think we both realise it’s strange to shake handsaftera hand-held walk.

‘Jessie,’ I say, and then we laugh, about what precisely I have no idea, but we’re both doing it, and urgh, this is so embarrassing, but later, when I tell India about all this, I’ll sayand everything else just melted away into the background. Like, those words will actually leave my mouth. Mortifying. It’s just me, and him, looking and trembling and smiling and falling. Until a staff member booms out a thanks for our cooperation over the megaphone, anyway.

‘The firefighters are at the front of the building dealing with the situation,’ they yell, forcing Cal and I to releaseone another so we can cover our ears. They talkloud, man. ‘It’s a small fire in one of the waste-paper bins, nothing serious. It shouldn’t be much longer before you’re free to go.’

‘Quite the original hostage situation,’ I say to Cal, when it’s safe to lower my hands.

‘I’d have preferred being held against my will in, say, a spa,’ he replies. God, his voice is sexy.

‘The man likes a spa, does he?’

Cal laughs. ‘Who doesn’t?’ He answers his own question with a wag of his finger: ‘A liar, that’s who.’

I nod, conceding his point. ‘Iampartial to a massage.’

‘Hot oil, Swedish or Thai?’

‘Sport.’

He nods, digesting this. ‘Bit of an athlete then?’

I shrug, feeling the most self-aware and self-conscious I’ve ever felt in my life, like everything matters: the bow of my head, how I’m stood, all of it. ‘I’ve been known to lift a weight or two, yeah,’ I say, my voice sounding more confident than I feel. ‘Makes me channel my inner badass.’

‘Something tells me you don’t need weights to feel that way.’

‘You’d be surprised.’

‘Would I?’

We look at one another again. I’m feeling things, loads of things, all at once. Animated and bold and like I want to throw caution to the wind and justtalk. Not entertain, not banter, but really talk, in a way that feels so impossible in my dating life normally. Cal has appeared out of nowhere and it’s nice chatting with him. So, sod it. I have to trustthis connection, have to believe I can be my full self in front of another person and it be received well. I want this man to know me, all of me, as soon as possible.

‘It’s been a long weekend,’ I admit. ‘It’s feeling like a long … life? Don’t get me wrong, I’m doing my best. It’s just thetryingof it all, if that makes sense. But I don’t have to try at the gym. Not in the same way. I go in, switch off my brain, and push my body to do these awesome, cool things. And that’s …’

‘Badass,’ he supplies, looking impressed. ‘I get that. I work out as well. Running mostly. Some cycling. I wonder – not to sound too “Women 101” – if you feel badass lifting weights because it’s subversive, too? I like exercising, and get glimmers of what you’re talking about, but nowhere near as strongly.’

‘Perhaps you’ve not found yourthingyet,’ I say. ‘Have you tried pole dancing, perchance?’

‘There’s a stag weekend in Amsterdam with video evidence of such an occurrence, as it happens. I have tried to destroy said evidence, but my so-called friends have a master copy. I suspect it’ll come out at my own wedding, if that ever happens.’

‘Ever come close?’ I ask. I don’t know why. It just slips out. It’s the sort of information other women might wait months for.

‘Once.’ He nods. ‘But I was twenty-three, and although I couldn’t see it at the time, I have the benefit of hindsight to say: thank god she didn’t say yes.’

‘Oh no!’ I say. ‘You proposed and got turned down?!’

‘Not very badass at all, huh?’ Cal says. His eyes twinkle naughtily, letting me know he’s totally fine with how it all turned out. ‘File me under “loser” if you must.’

I pull a face, jutting out my bottom lip like I feel sorry for the poor little baby.

‘Pity.’ Cal laughs. ‘The sexiest of all emotions.’

‘I find anguish quite sexy myself.’

‘Lots of crying in the shower and eating thewholepack of biscuits?’

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