Behaving Like Adults by Anna Maxted Read Free Book Online Page B

Flaky expect to get a man when she dresses like Andy Pandy?’
    I sighed. Every time I see Sam, her vulnerability takes my breath away. She makes it hard for herself. There are men who regard weakness on a par with cockroach infestation. They spot it and get the urge to bash it flat with a sledgehammer. Sam applied to GMB because the love of her life ended their relationship. That was six years ago and she won’t stop talking about him.
    â€˜He’s the man,’ she told me sadly, ‘who’s going to ruinmy wedding.’ I didn’t say – although I could have – ‘
What
wedding?’
    I was hoping, that night, to introduce Sam to a new recruit, Bernard. Bernard was rare in that he was a fortysomething male who wasn’t looking to meet a twenty-two-year-old girl. Sam was thirty-four. For a woman, in dating agency terms, that’s past it. You think I’m joking? After a year in this business I know that men would rather meet the Devil on a dark night than a thirty-four-year-old woman. To them, thirty-four spells desperate. It means she wants to be married, pop out some kids,
yesterday
. I like men as a gender, but sometimes I could knock their heads together.
    Talking of which, I never got to introduce Sam to Bernard because I was too busy fending off Nick. As you know, Nick has an advantage: he makes me laugh. It kept us together longer than it should. I now realise that his refusal to be serious, while amusing, cut every conversation dead. I’d stop talking to laugh, then lose my train of thought. He’d never encourage me to find it again. If I ever wanted to pursue a discussion to its bitter end, I’d have to bleat, ‘But anyway, to go back to what I was saying . . .’
    But after seven weeks of practised frostiness, my armour was chink-free. Nick would
not
make me laugh. It helped that my members kept rushing up to me, wanting to chat – every time Nick embarked on a quip he got cut off. Stuart, though, wasn’t acting as possessive as I’d hoped. He tailed me like a shadow, fetching me glass after glass – at some point, the orange turned to alcohol but it was rude to object – and resting a hand gently on my back, showing himself to be the gentleman where Nick was not. But he also seemed nervous, as if he didn’t want to trespass. He kept glancing uneasily at Nick.
    I couldn’t blame him – with every fresh drink or touch, Nick twitched with menace. While Stuart’s deference was inconvenient, it endeared me to him. I thought it showed sensitivity. I had a burst of affection. ‘Stuart,’ I said, andcurled a finger at him. When he bent his head, I kissed him on the mouth.
    Nick flipped.
    I felt the breeze as he ran at Stuart and jammed him against the wall. ‘Stay away from her, alright, you little prick! Stay away from her! –’
boff!
Through bleary eyes my blearier brain registered that ‘
boff!
’ was the sound of Nick’s fist making violent contact with Stuart’s mouth. My reflex thought, I’m sorry to say, was ‘Lucky it’s so loud and crowded in here, hardly anyone’s noticed’. In other words, I was less concerned that Stuart might be missing teeth than that the party wasn’t spoiled for my members.
    Stuart looked terrified. ‘Take it easy, mate,’ he stammered, his shoulders hunched. ‘Take it easy.’
    Now I’m the first to pass blame if I can get away with it, but this
was
my fault. Again.
    â€˜Nick,’ I said, grabbing him by the collar. ‘Jesus!’ He shook me off and glared at Stuart. I had the urge to say, ‘Hang on, soldier, I thought this was about
me
?’
    Rachel – she doesn’t miss a trick – thundered over. ‘Babes? You okay?’ I rolled my eyes and giggled. Terrible what alcohol does to you, removes your social inhibitions, revealing your more primitive self.
My
more primitive self