Page 29 of Crazy in Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop
So, Noah was far from an unknown quantity and yet on all those other first dates with men she hardly knew, a lot of them just a tiny pic on a phone screen and a couple of messages, she hadn’t been nervous. There’d just been that delicious champagne tingle of excitement, of what if-ness, but now as she crossed over to Charing Cross Road, fighting her way through the crowd of people spilling in and out of Leicester Square station, Nina felt quite sick with apprehension and despite the chill of the February night she was sweaty in places she didn’t want to be sweaty: her hands, her armpits, and, despite the fact that she’d spritzed her make-up with fixing spray, there was a tell-tale clamminess on her forehead and upper lip.
‘It’s only Noah,’ she told herself, as she waited at another set of lights. Their meeting point was just across the road and like a teenager on her very first date, Nina was too scared to look to see if Noah was already waiting for her.
But as soon as she crossed the road, before she had time to scan the faces of other people waiting for their dates to arrive, she felt a hand on her arm.
‘Nina,’ said a voice, Noah’s voice, and she sucked in a breath before she turned round with a smile that was completely faked.
‘Hi,’ she said in a peppy voice that was faked too. ‘Hope you haven’t been waiting … long.’
‘I only just got here,’ Noah said and he leaned across so he could kiss her cheek, which quickly became awkward when Nina offered Noah the other cheek, because didn’t everyone do two kisses?
Apparently Noah didn’t because he was already stepping back. ‘Look, when I asked you out, I didn’t realise that today was Valentine’s Day,’ he said with genuine distaste so that Nina immediately felt embarrassed that she’d ever suspected otherwise. ‘But anyway, hi. Hello. You look nice.’
Nina pulled a face. ‘Well, I don’t but thanks anyway.’ To go along with the nerves, she’d also had a wardrobe crisis. Most of her first-date outfits involved tight dresses with plunging necklines but she didn’t want to give Noah the wrong idea or false hope and so she’d had to scrap that and go with a plan B. Plan B was jeans though Nina rarely did jeans; a high-waisted, dark-denim, fifties-cut jean with a wide turn-up, which she was wearing with a leopard-print twinset and motorcycle boots. No wonder she was hot and sweaty and felt as covered up as a nun, so nice didn’t even come close. ‘You look good though.’
It was Noah’s turn to pull a face. ‘Oh, this old thing!’ he said tugging at his navy peacoat. ‘So …?’
‘So …?’ Nina echoed and wondered whether she should launch into her ‘this is not a date’ speech. It couldn’t make things any more awkward than they already were. But where to start? ‘So, look … Noah. You seem like a—’
‘So, I was thinking—’
Oh God, now they were both talking at the same time. Noah pinked up and Nina was sure that her make-up, despite the very expensive fixing spray, was now completely sliding off her face.
‘Sorry.’
‘No, I’m sorry.’
‘You were saying—’
‘What were you saying—’
They were talking over each other again. Nina held up her hand. ‘You go first,’ she said a little desperately.
‘Are you sure?’ Noah asked.
Nina shut her eyes because she couldn’t look at the doubt on Noah’s face a moment longer. Like, he was regretting his decision to ask her out in the first place. Which was fine, she felt the same way, but he didn’t need to make it so obvious. ‘Yes,’ she gritted. ‘What were you going to say?’
She opened her eyes to see Noah swallow hard and mutter something she couldn’t catch. ‘Right,’ he said more decisively. ‘What I was going to say was that I don’t know about you but I really need a drink. To clarify, a drink that contains alcohol. Does that sound like a good idea?’
Nina had never heard of a better idea. ‘Yes,’ she said fervently. ‘For the love of God, yes.’
‘If I had caused the cloud, it was my duty to make an effort to dispel it.’
Nina would have sworn that she knew her way around Soho blindfolded, but as they walked along Old Compton Street, Noah guided her left then right then down a tiny alley she’d never noticed before.
Very soon they were seated opposite each other in a booth in a burger joint called Mother’s Ruin. The jukebox was playing Elvis, the burgers were dirty and piled high and they each had an Old Fashioned in front of them.
‘This might be my new favourite place in the world,’ Nina told Noah and he raised his glass and clinked it against the side of hers.
‘I passed this place a couple of weeks ago and I remember thinking then that it would probably be your kind of thing,’ he said, making sure to look Nina in the eye so she couldn’t mistake the intent of his words. ‘Because I’ve been thinking about you a lot these past couple of weeks.’
Nina blushed, which was starting to become a nasty habit, even though she’d had many similar compliments. Not once before had she blushed.
‘So, my awesome sales technique has been keeping you up at night?’ Never before had Nina had to try so hard to come up with cheeky banter.
Noah’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Not that your sales technique isn’t awesome but that’s not what was keeping me up all night.’ He screwed his eyes tight shut like he was in pain. ‘I mean, I haven’t beenupall night thinking about you. Just …’ He shook his head. ‘Let’s look at the menu. Are you hungry?’
If this were a proper date then Nina would probably have said lasciviously, ‘I’m starving and not for food,’ but it wasn’t a proper date so she settled for a truthful, ‘I could eat.’
