Not That Easy (13 page)

I had butterflies in my tummy. Only they felt more like a swarm of moths eating holes in my stomach lining. I was standing outside 99 Kensington High Street and felt totally out of my comfort zone. I didn't know whether I was meeting Nick upstairs or outside the door. I didn't even really know if I was in the right place—all I could see was a nondescript door opposite the
Daily Mail
newspaper offices where I once came on an errand for Maxine.

I pulled out my phone to see if Nick had messaged. He had.

•   •   •

I'm upstairs.

Oh God. I would have to enter alone. I looked up to see a gaggle of girls walking past me. They were wearing tight dresses and heels. I was wearing another classic day-to-night outfit of ballet pumps,
black jeans and a chiffon shirt. I looked like I should be serving them the drinks.

They walked straight through the door and air-kissed the woman standing on the other side. She ticked something off a clipboard and the girls disappeared into the building. I nervously followed in their path and opened the door.

“Yes?” said the woman coldly. No air-kissing for me then.

“Hi, um, I'm meeting someone in the rooftop gardens,” I said.

“Which bar?”

“Sorry?”

“Do you mean the Babylon bar?” she asked in a bored voice.

“Um, I guess?” How many bars were there in this building? All I could see was a sterile white hallway and a lift.

“Okay, seventh floor.”

I walked past her to the lift and uncertainly got in, pressing seven. It sped up to the top and I found myself facing another attractive woman looking me up and down.

“Yes?” she said.

“I'm meeting someone at the bar.”

“Okay, just through there,” she said, pointing at the bar two meters in front of her.

“Thanks,” I said, wondering why exactly her job was necessary. I walked through, trying to hold my head up high even though I felt like throwing up with nerves. This was not the sort of place I came to on dates—hell, it wasn't the sort of place I even knew existed.

“Ellie, you made it,” said Nick. He was sitting at the bar with two drinks. “I got you a Long Island Iced Tea. Hope that's okay.”

“Great, thanks,” I said, taking it from him cautiously, remembering my mum's advice about accepting drinks in bars. He wouldn't have put anything in it, would he? Surely I was already a definite shag tonight?

“Have you ever been here before?” he asked.

“Nope, never. It looks cool though.”

“Ah, wait till you see the outside part.” He grinned. “Come on, let's go now.”

“Um, okay,” I said, clutching my drink as I followed him through the crowded bar. I had no idea so many people went for casual drinks on a Wednesday.

We walked through the door into the gardens. There was grass all over the terrace and flowers and bushes coming out of every corner. “Oh my God,” I cried. “How have I never been here before? This is amazing.”

“You just needed a Kiwi to come and show you the coolest parts of London.”

“Apparently so,” I said. “Does this mean I have to show you somewhere equally cool on the next date?” Oh God. I had just said date. What if this wasn't actually a date, and I had just been really presumptuous assuming there'd be another date, and—

“You're on.” He grinned. I really had to stop being so weird about acknowledging we were on a date. “You're cold,” he said. “Here take this.”

I looked at him in surprise. He was offering me his suit jacket. “Seriously?” I asked. “That's like the most chivalrous thing anyone's ever done for me.”

“Uh, it's no biggie.”

“Yeah, sorry. Thanks,” I said, taking it from his outstretched arm and wrapping it around me. I had to keep reminding myself this was not a typical date. This was a rebound, mutual usage situation. “So what have you been up to?”

“Oh, not much,” he replied. “Just been working pretty long hours and trying to catch up with some sleep.”

“What did you do for the rest of the weekend that was so exhausting?”

“I was mainly recovering from our Thursday night.” He grinned. I blushed automatically. He was probably remembering my Brigitte Bardot routine. Why did alcohol always mistakenly make me feel sexy?

“Yeah that was . . . um, fun,” I said.

“Very. I hear your friends had just as much fun with my mates.”

“They did.” I tried to think of something else to say, but I was still so nervous I could hardly talk. Nick had already seen me naked, pretending to be sexually experienced, and he thought my pubes were spiky. Hell, he had probably even seen the hair going up my bum crack when we were doing doggy. I was way too sober to look him in the eyes.

“But we're the only pair going on an actual date,” he said. “Even though I was the one who was rudest to you at the bar.”

“You weren't rude.”

“Yes, I was,” he said. “You told me at the time.”

Oh dear. “I did?”

“Yup. I was being a bit of a creep staring at my ex and completely ignoring you.”

Bollocks. He remembered every tiny detail of the night. This was not a good sign. I pushed the straw in my drink to the side and poured the cocktail down my throat. “How is the ex situation going? Still stalking her?”

He laughed. “Blunt, aren't you? Nah, I've quit that. Think it's just as the old saying goes: You don't get over someone until you get under someone else.”

“Classy, Nick. Thanks for emphasizing the rebound factor.”

“Shit, sorry,” he said, looking mortified. “I didn't think about what I was saying.”

“Hey, no worries,” I said, putting my hand on his arm. I hadn't thought he would actually feel guilty. “I was only kidding. I don't really mind.”

“Okay, glad to hear it,” he said, looking more relieved.

“Actually,” I said, “there's something I should, um, probably tell you before you see it and tweet me hate mail.”

“What?”

“Sorry. It's just, um . . .” Why was I garbling so incessantly?
Focus, Ellie, focus. Just tell him the truth so he can't say you lied to him. You don't really care what he thinks—he's just a casual shag. It's better he knows now than finds it online like Ben did.
“You know I work for the
London Mag
?”

“Yeah, you intern there, right?”

“Exactly. And I've started writing a column for them. Called ‘NSFW.' It's about my, uh . . . it's about women's issues,” I said.

“Shit, no kidding,” he cried. “That's so cool.”

“Yeah, I guess it is. But the thing is, it's really personal sometimes. It's very much about girly things—periods, etc.—and I guess, I guess I'm just trying to say it would be amazing if you promised to never Google me and read it. Please?”

“Hey, I really have no desire to read about your period or whatever—don't worry, I won't look it up,” he said.

I sighed in relief. “Okay, thank you. It's just, this guy I dated recently looked me up and read it, and he was kind of a dick about it. I write about really gruesome stuff—pubes, blood . . . he couldn't deal with it.”

He laughed. “Trust me—I'm a typical bloke. I can't deal with stuff like that. I swear I'll never look up your column.”

I grinned at him. My half-lie had worked. “Thank you.”

“No worries. I think it's pretty cool that you're a journalist with your own column. I respect that. Anyway, who's this wanker you dated? Do you need me to beat him up?”

I laughed. “Nah, he's just a mistake I met on OKCupid. We only ever had one date.”

“You date online?” he asked curiously.

I sighed, preparing to justify why a twenty-two-year-old—twenty-three-year-old to him—was on a dating website. “Yes, but all my friends are on it, everyone on it is normal and I don't take it seriously,” I said.

“No, it's just . . . I'm on the same website.”

“No way,” I cried out.

“Yeah, I had some reservations at first, but my friends recommended it to me and then I just thought, why not? I'm new in the country, I may as well.”

“And have you gone on any dates from it? Ohmigod is this like your bar you take them all to?!”

“Oh yeah, I greet them all with a Long Island Iced Tea too. And then we walk out here, and talk about their online columns and dating sites.”

I laughed uncertainly.

“I'm kidding,” he said, raising an eyebrow at me. “I have been on a few online dates though. There was no real spark or connection with a couple of them, but I did see one of them a few times. Until she got a bit needy.”

Note to self: do not be needy.

“In what way?” I asked.

“Oh she just wanted to meet up the whole time, and call me her boyfriend, and then I started saying I was too sick to meet up, but she wouldn't take no for an answer. She said she would come over to mine with brownies to cheer me up.”

“Oh my God. She offered to bake you brownies?! On what number date?”

“Erm, I guess it would have been the fourth time I'd seen her.”

“That is not okay,” I said, relieved that his version of needy was not something I would accidentally do; I didn't even know how to
bake. “Baking brownies are like three months anniversary level. Maybe even six months.”

“Glad to see you're on the same page as me.” He grinned. “Do you, uh, want to get out of here?”

I looked at the gardens in disappointment. We had barely even been here an hour and I'd only had one drink. It was the shortest date I'd had and that was with one of them bleeding on me. Then it hit me—this wasn't a “let's get to know each other with the possibility of ending up in a relationship” date. It was a “let's fuck tonight” pre-drink.

“Sure,” I said. “Back to yours?”

“Oh, I was thinking we could go to a different bar or something. I know it's a weeknight so I don't expect you to come back with me. I mean, could you even go to work in the same clothes?”

Why was he thinking about my clothes?! I'd figured that wouldn't occur to him and I could change into my new dress without him realizing. God, this was embarrassing—did he even want me to go home with him? “Um, they wouldn't even notice,” I said.

“Really? I couldn't do that at my work.”

“Actually,” I said suddenly, “I have a spare outfit at work. In my gym bag. So I could change into that in the morning. It'll be fine.”

“Ah well, in that case.” He smiled. “Who needs more drinks? Let's go and find a cab.”

•   •   •

The cab pulled up outside Nick's apartment and I realized how completely and utterly sober I was.

“Come on,” he said, opening the door for me.

I smiled faintly and forced my legs to move. This would be fine. He had already seen my naked body and he wanted more. He'd asked me out on an actual date, and he'd bothered to choose somewhere cool. He liked me . . . right?

I followed him blindly through the doorway. A man in uniform took off his cap and tilted his head to me. “Good evening,” he said.

I stared in shock. He had a concierge. How rich was he—and, more importantly, how did I miss this the other night? I flushed as it hit me the concierge might remember me and kept my head down as I followed Nick.

Everything was so much posher than I remembered; I felt so out of place. I felt a pang of nostalgia for Ben's shitty Hackney pad. He may have had a Boyzilian, but at least he lived somewhere normal.

“Here we are,” said Nick. “Do you want a drink?” I nodded quickly. I needed several. “Cool, wine? Whiskey?”

“Oh do you have ginger beer?” I asked. “I love it with whiskey.”

“A girl who likes whiskey. Not something you see every day,” he said, looking visibly impressed. “I don't have any mixers though, you're cool with it straight?”

Um no, I wasn't cool with straight whiskey. But he had looked so impressed when I said I liked it . . . “Okay.”

“Sweet, here you go,” he said. I closed my eyes and poured it down my throat. It burned as it flew down me but maybe it would give me a bit of Dutch courage. “I did not expect you to neck that.”

Were you not meant to drink them like shots? This was getting complicated; maybe we should just skip straight to the sex bit.

“Guess I'm not the average girl,” I said, hoping it sounded flirtatious. I walked over to him and kissed him. He put down his drink, wrapped his arms around me and started snogging me. It looked like we were about to have sex right there on the kitchen floor.

“Let's go to the bedroom,” he murmured. I followed him into his room. He pulled his clothes off as well as mine. I risked a quick look at his pubes. Still trimmed. “What's your favorite position?”

Fuck, what was my favorite position? I'd only ever done two. “Um, I guess . . . doggy,” I said, cringing at saying it aloud. “Yours?”

“Dirty.” He grinned. “I like that too . . . but I prefer a girl being on top.”

Shit. Was that an invitation? I'd never been on top before. “Um, okay,” I said.

He seemed to take this as an invitation and lay down on the bed, looking up at me expectantly. I tried to calm myself down.
It will be fine. They do it all the time in movies and porn, and those girls haven't even been to uni. You have a degree, Ellie—you can master this.

He slipped on a condom, thank god, and I climbed onto him and put one leg on either side of his body. I sat down on his pubes and winced. They itched my bum. I guess this was what he meant when he said pubes could be spikey . . .

He pulled me towards him and started snogging me. I felt his penis poke around my vagina. How was it going to go inside? Should I guide it in or was he going to? On cue, he pushed it into me and I felt it slip in like a tampon.