Page 8 of Dancing Fools and All That Jazz
I met Max through the dating app. We only dated the once. We barely spoke over our single drink before going back to his. Hell, I barely made it into work the next day. The memory makes me quiver.
Then the following week I checked the app to approach him for another date, but he’d disappearedwithout a trace.
I think back and picture Max’s genuine smile of surprise when we met by chance a few months later. Monica and I had been to see a dance show at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. We walked to Piccadilly to catch the train home and there he was, all by himself. He sat next to us on the train, and we talked all the way back to his stop, a few before ours.
We swapped numbers – that was a first – and he suggested we meet up again. I had to confess my name was not Scarlet.
‘I like Ruby better. Deeper shade of red,’ he’d muttered with a lascivious smile.
We’ve been seeing each other for almost a year now. He said he’d acted completely out of character on that first date. He made me agree we wouldn’t have sex for at least a month until we’d got to know each other better. Going home after only one chaste kiss each time we dated – excruciating. But the restraint thing, if I’m truthful, it made it even sexier.
He came to a weekend festival with me last autumn, us and a few mates. After dancing in the mud and the rain twenty-four-seven, I knew he was my kind of guy.
‘Ruby Anderson, you’re starting to turn my head.’ Those words still ring in my ears.
Heck, even Will likes him; I can tell. And I know Monica will like him when they meet properly. He’s like her, completely genuine.
I think back to Monica’s reaction that night on the train going home from Manchester. Monica insisted onknowing how we’d met. She could sense the chemistry sparking between us and was intrigued as to why Max thought I was called Scarlet. Well, I’d had a few drinks and felt on a high after Max took my number, so I ended up confessing the whole meeting-others-for-sex thing.
Wow. Was Monica shocked. She didn’t believe me at first. I had to show her the app on my phone.
‘God, Monica, have you really not seen a dating app?’
‘Why on earth would I have seen one?’
‘Jeez, you have to get yourself on social media, woman.’ I told her. ‘You haven’t a clue what you’ve been missing.’
Her astonishment soon turned into an insatiable appetite to know everything. She wanted all the gory details.
I smile as I recall our conversation. Now that would have made some presentation.
We giggled all the way home as I told her about my spontaneous encounters. I deliberately kept it light. The good, the bad and the downright comical. And there was a fair variety of each. Snatches of our exchange replay in my head.
‘How do you choose which ones to meet? I mean they could make up any of that stuff they write.’
‘And believe me, they do. I send a tester email first. If I think they’re too serious or dull or creepy, I say thanks, but no thanks. Then I always ask certain questions.’
‘Like what?’
‘What’s your favourite food? No, seriously. You can tell a lot about a person by what they eat. And if theymention meat and two veg…’
‘Stop.’
‘Which brings Freddy to mind. Big on his roast dinners…’
‘Ruby.’
‘He was a sound engineer with a touring show performing in Manchester. Only here for a few months. Unusually, we met a second time. He’d rented out one of those Salford Quay apartments. Had no conversation whatsoever. God, was he dull. I was going to make excuses to leave early on our first date, but the minute he turned the lights down and put on tracks from Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, he transformed into a gyrating, sexy beast. Wow, was he hot. You do realise you are showing a very unhealthy interest in this, Mrs Thornton. Should I be worried?’
‘What? This is better than the erotic book I purchased on my kindle by mistake. Tell me more.’
‘OK. Well, at first, I thought I’d find my match, settle down and do the whole commitment thing. But I soon got bored. I rarely went out with someone more than two or three times. The serious ones scared me. I mean, Will and I are perfectly happy by ourselves – no one else to interfere with my parenting or disrupt our lives. Besides, I love the thrill of being with someone for the first time. Sadly, it soon wears off. I confess it, I’m an addict and why stick to one man when you can have loads?’
‘I only had a couple of boyfriends before Vince.’
‘Honestly?’
‘I was barely out of college when we married. Butstop changing the subject Ruby Anderson, or should I call you Sassy Scarlet? Tell me more about all these dates.’
