honey…ginger…passionfruit…pineapple juice. I have a feeling it’s going to be too sweet…Shall we taste it and find out?’
‘Oh no. You can’t do that,’ I say sadly. ‘No tweaking. It means people have to really think about the ingredients before they arrive.’
‘How fascist.’
I giggle again. Shit, I’m acting silly. Oh hell, the tingly tingles…Good banter, good looks…and he doesn’t seem to be angling towards asking me out. He’s flirting, but in such a delightfully playful way. It’s so annoyingly attractive.
I need someone to intervene. There must be a hint of bastardo there somewhere. I’ll locate it soon, forget about him immediately, and continue to adhere to the Rules.
‘How about lemon juice? Or lime juice?’ I suggest.
‘Yes, yes, yes.’
We chop and squeeze two lemons and two limes and add the juice to the mix in the blender. He glugs in about a third of a bottle of vodka, I add the ice, he slides on the lid rather dextrously—big hands, surprisingly strong-looking fingers, badly-bitten thumbnails, what the hot damn am I doing fantasising about being manhandled like a blender lid—and presses blend. He smiles at me and I smile back. Mmm. (Argh! Sexual frisson extraordinaire. Arrêtez.)
‘The name!’ I gasp. ‘You have to name it before the blending is done!’
‘Hot Diggity! The Hottentot! Too Hot To Handle!’ Jake shouts, then hits himself in the forehead with his free hand. ‘NO! God, that film was diabolical.’
‘What?’ I laugh helplessly at the panicked look on his face. ‘Ummm…ummm…the Gingersour? The Throatwarmer? The Linda Lovelace?’
‘Filthy stream of consciousness…’ he replies disdainfully, switching off the blender. ‘Forget all that. I hereby christen this cocktail the Minx. I think it will be sweet, refreshingly zesty and rather hot.’
I’m trying to figure out if he kind of means me, and if so what the appropriate response might be, when Mitch appears bearing a tray of used double-shot glasses behind us. ‘Alright children, let Mummy through, washing up here…Thank God I bought three hundred of these fuckers.’ He dumps them all in the soapy washing-up water. I assemble some clean dry glasses, and Jake fills them, rings the bell and raises a toast to the Minx. It’s a very good cocktail: a mix of citrusy sweetness with a warm gingeriness.
‘Mmmm. Not bad for a beginner,’ says Mitch, pouring himself a second and going through a sniff-sip-ponder wine-tasting rigmarole.‘It must be in the genes, cuz. Shame you missed Mitch’s Marvellous Medicine. It was the best so far.’
I look over at Jake and shake my head, mouthing ‘No, it wasn’t’. He grins and, as Mitch looks quickly from him to me, trying to figure out what’s going on, Jake quickly starts talking to cover it up. ‘I had some excellent help,’ he says. ‘Jesus is in my heart and helps with everything I do.’
I snort with laughter. I try to think of something witty to say back, and realise I really am, without a doubt, obviously flirting now, that he’s flirting back, that I’m planning on how to obviously flirt more, and wondering where he lives, what he does, what his neck smells like, how long it might take him to ask me out and what I might wear on our first date. In other words, I’m hellbent on breaking the Dating Sabbatical Rules and they’ve only existed for 48 hours.
I walk over to the fridge and get three bottles of Corona out to buy myself a second to think. I am almost breaking all the Rules for a tall handsome smartarse. The kind of guy I always get caught by, the bastardo kind who makes me laugh and then breaks my heart when he decides he doesn’t want me anymore. He’s like Rick. A better-looking, taller, funnier Rick. That’s all.
Right. Time to find Bloomie and get far, far away from this temptation. I hand over the beers, take a deep breath and say ‘Must dash, boys…’ to Mitch. I try not to look at Jake, but can’t resist sneaking a glance as I walk away. He’s smirking at me. See? Smartarse.
The party is really warming up now, with people spilling out of the living room into the back garden. Someone has won battle of the iPods (Marvin Gaye). I see Fraser talking to his flatmates in the middle of the living room and decide to say hi.
‘Here she is!’ exclaims Ant as I walk up. I snogged Ant once, when I first met him, under the influence of tequila and…uh, tequila. Regretted it instantly. He would be handsome if he wasn’t so sleazy. And mildly monobrowed. He now seems rather happy with himself. ‘The girl everyone’s talking about! She’s taken a vow of spinsterhood!’
‘You’re all talking about me?’ I say. Great. Looks like I’m a laughing stock, then. ‘How dull your lives must be.’
‘A serial dater like you, renouncing all men? I’m surprised it wasn’t in the News of the World.’ Ant laughs like a hyena, and the other flatmates, apart from Fraser, join in.
‘When did your Dating Sabbatical start, Ant? About eight years ago?’ says Fraser. I smile at him gratefully. Now that is a riposte.
‘We were just talking about the recession,’ says one of the flatmates earnestly, a rather sweet geek called Felix who I think has a thing for me. However, he laughed along with the rest of them so I’m not going to be nice to him.
‘How fascinating,’ I reply. He looks crushed and I feel bad. I shouldn’t pick on geeks. ‘I’m a bit clueless about it, I’m afraid, Felix,’ I add.
‘It’s bloody boring stuff,’ agrees Fraser.
‘You won’t be clueless soon, when you have to pay for your own meals every night,’ says Ant. ‘No more steak dinners à deux for you.’ I hate to say it, but he has a point. Dates have been a good source of meals for the past few years. Of course I always make an effort to pay, but they never let you. Certainly not on the first date. I wonder if Jake likes steak. I could cook it for us both at home. In my kitchen. Perhaps, if we all become really poor, we’ll have to share baked beans on toast. No, scratch that. Baked beans are not a date-friendly food. I could…oh, I could make an omelette. I wonder if he likes eggs.
I’m interrupted from my—utterly ridiculous and very non-Sabbatical-compliant—reverie by Mitch, who approaches the group with his arm thrown around the neck of the white jeans girl.
‘Don’t talk to Sass, darling. She’s a MAN HATER,’ he stage-whispers. The girl giggles, hiccups, and seems to throw up slightly in her mouth.
As everyone falls about laughing, I smile/grimace at Mitch and wait to see if I’ll think of something witty to say. I don’t. I wonder if Mitch told Jake about the Sabbatical already. Oh God, I shouldn’t care. Suddenly I feel very tired. I decide to avoid all men for the rest of the night, and walk over to talk to Tory, a girl Eddie worked with years ago. She’s nice enough, but she talks about sex almost constantly. It’s kind of weird. I think he invites her to parties because she’s guaranteed to score with someone. She’s party insurance. (Is that mean of me? Oh well.)
‘So, no dating for you, Sassy, yeh?’ she grins, after a bit of basic chitchat. ‘I heard all about it. I’m going to do it too!’
