Pull

Pull: Book One

By Natalie K. Martin

About Claire: Cabin Crew, always mile high. Fan of
strawberries and old movies. Don’t bother swiping right if you’re
posing with a heavily sedated lion/tiger/big cat of any kind.

Interests: Made In Chelsea, Lana Del Rey, Upworthy,
Pacha

‘No...no...no - wait. Dammit.’ Claire scowled as she
accidentally swiped left and watched the flash of a cute smile
disappear from her screen. ‘Stupid app.’

Honestly, why wasn’t there a back button? She had
half a mind to deactivate her profile. At first, it had been
addictive swiping through all those faces, choosing the ones who
sparked her interest and had good enough chat to keep her
entertained but now she was getting bored. She put the phone down
on the kitchen counter and poured a glass of orange juice.

‘I hope there’s vodka in that,’ Keri said, fastening
an earring as she walked into the kitchen.

Claire shook her head. ‘I can’t turn up at my
sister’s tomorrow with a messed up cake.’

‘It’s Christmas Eve,’ Keri replied, raking her
fingers through her red hair. ‘You’re seriously telling me you’re
going to stay in and be all Nigella Lawson?’

‘Yep.’ Claire shrugged. ‘Even if I didn’t have to
bake, I’m shattered after that flight.’

She’d just endured eleven hours from Cape Town back
to London, running around after a group of kids on a school trip,
dealing with a warring couple and the heaviest turbulence she’d
experienced to date. Added to the almost constant partying in the
lead up to the festive season, her body needed a rest. Even so, she
still tallied up the pros and cons.

Pros
: Joining Keri and the rest of her
colleagues at Sugar Bar. It had been featured on
Made In
Chelsea
and rumour had it, some of the cast would be there
tonight. She could do a bit of celeb spotting while drinking
Prosecco and flirting outrageously with Fit Mark, the new, hot
pilot based at Gatwick.

Cons
: Dodging intimidatingly rich people all
night, moving onto Sambuca after the Prosecco - never a good idea -
and ending up looking like a complete moron trying to pull Fit
Mark. All of which would result in her rocking up late and hungover
at her sister’s tomorrow with a half-arsed cake.

‘Are you sure?’ Keri asked, raising an eyebrow.
‘It’s going to be one hell of a night.’

Claire nodded. ‘I bet it will, but I’ll stick to my
juice and cookbooks. Have an awesome time.’

Keri grinned and left, the clacking of her heels
against the floor echoing through the flat as she went. Claire had
to admit that the pros of going out far outweighed the cons but
tomorrow, she’d be spending the day with all of her family for the
first time in years and she had to be on top form. Just thinking
about how her fractured family had come together again made her
smile. Her twin sister, Sarah, was cooking a full on Christmas
dinner and their mum and step-dad were driving down from Sheffield
tonight. It would have been unthinkable only a year ago.

Claire took a gulp of her juice and looked down at
the cookbook in front of her. Despite being the World’s Worst
Baker, she’d been put on dessert duty. There was a risk she’d end
up making something more like rock cake than sponge but she
would’ve baked a hundred of them if Sarah had asked.

She flicked through the pages and stopped at a
picture of dainty looking cupcakes, complete with thick, twirled
icing. Everyone was all about cupcakes these days - they were bang
on trend. Even traditional wedding cake seemed to have been
replaced by tiers of cute little cupcakes and every weekend, the
café down the road from her flat had a queue outside that would put
New York’s Magnolia Bakery to shame. How hard could they be?

Thirty minutes later, she queued for the checkout in
the supermarket down the road, her basket laden with baking
goodies. A Seventies Christmas song pumped through the speakers and
the store was decked out with tinsel and baubles. Claire shuffled
her feet as the queue moved forward an inch. The place was packed
with last-minute shoppers, all intent on stocking up enough to
over-indulge for the next few days and, as hectic as the shop was,
most of the faces seemed to be smiling.

She watched the couple in front of her, noting the
way the man kept his hand on the small of his partner’s back the
whole time. Claire glanced away when the woman reached up on her
tiptoes to kiss him. She loved Christmas but it was the one time of
year she always started to reflect on her single lifestyle,
wondering whether she was living her life wrong. Even her sister
had settled down, engaged with a baby, and Claire definitely hadn’t
seen that one coming.

She shook her head. She was being melodramatic.
Claire was the living the life she’d always wanted. She got to
travel the world and had a great time doing it. It was just the
romanticism of Christmas messing with her head and even though it
was only supposed to be for fun, Tinder had sucked her into the
promise of finding the perfect guy – a wholly ridiculous notion at
best. Besides, she didn’t have
time
for a relationship. In a
few days she’d be back in Singapore for the New Year and this empty
feeling would slink away. It was much better to keep things
casual.

She smiled at the thought of returning to one of her
favourite cities on earth and her phone vibrated in her pocket.
Claire raised an eyebrow at the message on the screen.

Congratulations! You have a new match!

About Danny: 6ft2 Irishman, often found behind a
bar

Interests: The Strokes, Arsenal, Bored Panda

Danny looked at the photo of Claire on his iPad and
paused for a moment. His stomach involuntarily flipped. She was
older than he’d usually go for but she had a cute heart-shaped
face, caramel skin and unusual amber eyes. He read her bio before
clicking the heart shaped icon and curled his lips into a smile as
the app told him they’d matched. He turned around in his swivel
chair at the knock on his office door and his friend, Joe, bounded
in.

‘Hey, man. Sorry I’m late.’

Danny shook his head and put the iPad down on the
desk as Joe perched on its edge. ‘No worries, it’s a good thing.
This is the first five minutes I’ve had to myself all day.’

‘Yeah, it’s rammed downstairs.’

Danny looked at the CCTV camera display. The bar was
already packed with people in various states of inebriation. His
team of bar staff were more than capable of dealing with the crush
but he’d go down and help them out soon. The Christmas Eve shift
always proved to be a great laugh and it came second only to New
Year’s Eve.

Joe leaned down and looked at the iPad screen and
snickered. ‘Tinder? Really?’

‘Why not?’ Danny shrugged

‘Aren’t they all a bit...you know. Skanky?’

‘Does she look skanky to you?’ Danny nodded to the
iPad still showing Claire’s profile picture.

‘Okay, I take it back.’ Joe grinned. ‘I don’t get
why you’d need to use an app instead of just meeting someone in
person but, hey, whatever works for you. I suppose we can’t all be
as lucky as me.’

‘And how is Tasha? I’m surprised she’s not with
you.’

‘She will be in about an hour.’

Danny nodded. Tonight was the first time they’d been
able to meet up on their own since Joe and Tasha got together and
he supposed an hour to do it without her crashing the party was
something of a record. She’d made no secret of her distrust in
Danny from the moment they’d met, telling him she’d met his type
before: Irish Lotharios who led their coupled up friends astray,
not helped by the fact that he owned a successful bar packed with
beautiful, successful regulars. It was a skewed view but she’d made
her mind up and it was unlikely to change, no matter what he
said.

Joe picked up the stapler from the desk and tossed
it up into the air before catching it with ease. ‘So how many women
have you met from that thing?’

‘
None. I’ve spoken to a couple but
they were a bit…I dunno.’ Danny’s hand shot up as Joe chucked the
stapler to him. ‘Vacant, I guess. It’d be fine if I were looking
for a quick bunk up.’

‘I’ve got to tell you, I think the chances of
finding anything more than that on Tinder is a longshot from what
I’ve heard. What’s your profile say?’

Danny brought his profile up on the screen and
handed Joe the iPad.

‘Why no mention of the celibacy thing?’ Joe
frowned.

‘I didn’t think it’d do me any favours admitting to
that.’

‘Are you crazy? They’d lap it up:
I’ve been
celibate for three years and now I want to settle down
.’ He
mimicked Danny’s accent. ‘You’re missing a trick.’

‘Maybe, but I don’t think they’d appreciate the
I
was celibate because I almost became a sex addict
part.’

‘That’s true. You could at least mention this
place,’ Joe replied, handing him the iPad. ‘You’re selling yourself
short by saying you’re a barman.’

‘It doesn’t say I’m a barman, it says I can be found
behind a bar. I don’t want someone to be interested in me just
because I own this place.’

The cliché of customers coming onto bar staff was
something he and his team witnessed almost every night of the week.
When some of the women worked out that he was the owner, they went
all out. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d been handed
knickers or had to turn away some of the bolder ones who managed to
slip past the bar and make their way up to his office.

‘So are you gonna message that girl or what?’

Danny went back to Claire’s profile again and
flicked through her other photos. There was one of her standing in
front of the Sydney Opera House and another in an airport, dressed
in her flight attendant’s uniform. In each one, her smile was big,
warm and welcoming, as if she was inviting him personally to send
her a message and make the first move.

‘Yeah, maybe.’

‘Why not. It’s not like you’ve got anything to
lose.’

Danny got up from his desk and opened the small
cabinet in the corner of the office, taking out a bottle of
eighteen year old Japanese whiskey. ‘Drink?’

‘Let me just get this first,’ Joe replied, looking
at his phone. ‘It’s Tasha.’

Danny nodded as Joe stepped outside. A blast of
music and the sound of clinking glasses and laughter shot into the
office from the bar downstairs. Danny sat back at his desk and
poured a shot of whiskey.

He looked back at Claire’s profile. For the first
time since he’d joined Tinder, he’d seen a profile that had given
him an instant, physical and almost chemical reaction and he wasn’t
afraid to admit it sparked a jolt of anxiety. A sex addiction and
Tinder. It sounded like a recipe for disaster but it had been so
long now, surely he had it under control? It felt like he had.
Wasn’t that why he’d gone celibate in the first place?

His dark hair, blue eyes and soft, Irish accent had
always made him successful with women but combined with working in
the hospitality industry, it made pulling almost too easy. Tasha
would have been right to be wary of him had they met a few years
ago. These days, things were very different. He’d refocused his
energy on setting up his own bar after working in pubs for years
and it was doing well. Extremely well. He had a year old, top of
the range Audi A3, he’d bought a one bedroom flat in a new gated
development in West London and he even had a cat. He’d come a long
way but he couldn’t live the celibate life forever and he didn’t
want to.

He knocked back the whiskey, letting the after-burn
warm his insides as it glided down his throat and picked up the
iPad just as a message notification popped up at the top of the
screen.

- Well, well. Now you look like a whole lot of
trouble

Danny grinned as he read Claire’s message. It wasn’t
the first time he’d been told as much, but her greeting was a
marked improvement on the dull, robotic hey most girls seemed
intent on sending.

- Ha! Thanks ;-) You don’t look so innocent
yourself. Always mile high...now that sounds fun

He re-read the message. It sounded light-hearted and
playful, easily matching hers. He pressed send and a minute later,
Claire responded.

- You have no idea ;-)

His fingers sped across the keys, remembering what
she’d written in her bio about her dislike of the trend of guys
posting pictures with big cats on the app.

- It’s a good job I decided against my pic posing
with a leopard

- That would have been an epic fail, and a
shame...

- You know you’d have still swiped right if I did
;-) How’s your xmas eve going?