Married at First Swipe Read online

  By the time she arrived at the George and Dragon, she was already regretting the blusher; she’d forgotten how tomato-red her face went after even the shortest gym session. She sniffed her armpits delicately, trying to remember if she’d applied deodorant after her shower, but then realised there was nothing much she could do about it now. Anyway, Matt was a doctor and had surely smelled worse than slightly fragrant pits.

  Hannah pushed the door open and was hit by the peculiar odour only found in old pubs – a not unpleasant mixture of ale, cleaning fluids and damp bar stools forever infused with cigarette smoke. She stood in the doorway checking out the groups of ageing men surrounded by empty glasses, the cute old couples slowly forking fish and chips into their mouths, and, right in the corner, an unruly-haired man around her age sipping a pint of Guinness and staring intently at a yellowing menu.

  Hannah strode over to him. ‘You’re Matt, I’m guessing. I’m Hannah. Obviously.’ She grinned, before plonking herself down next to him on the fake-leather banquette.

  ‘Excellent guess, ten points to you! Now your reward can be the choice between scampi and chips, chicken and chips or maybe pie and chips – what do you fancy?’

  ‘I think I’ll go for chips and chips,’ she laughed. ‘I’ll go and order if you want?’

  ‘No, I insist. Do you definitely not want anything with your chips? Fine, but I’m telling you now there’ll be no stealing my scampi. Right, chips and chips and a glass of wine for the lady?’

  ‘No, a pint of lager for me please.’

  They performed a complicated dance as Matt tried to pass her and Hannah ended up crouching on top of the seat.

  ‘Liking your moves,’ he said, raising his eyebrows and sauntering to the bar.

  Three pints later, Hannah felt like she hadn’t stopped laughing for hours. Matt had been regaling her with hilarious stories about patients with various kitchen implements stuck in various parts of their bodies, as well as some warts and all tales about what happens when overworked medics let loose and go clubbing.

  ‘God, my face hurts!’ she cried, taking a large gulp of what seemed to be a magically refilling pint glass. ‘I absolutely do not want to know what happened to that thermometer in the end.’

  ‘It’s even worse than you’re imagining, I’m afraid. What about you – you must have some wild stories about bungee-jumping in Mexico or full-moon parties in Koh Samui?’

  ‘Full-moon parties? I’m not some gap-year student bragging to their mates about how many neon cocktails they drank from a fish bowl on the beach before they vommed all over the cute guy from Wolverhampton they met out there! I’ll have you know that when I do wild, I do wild.’

  ‘I stand corrected and I apologise profusely for tarring you with a gap-year student brush.’ Matt held up his hands as he laughed. ‘So when you say wild, exactly how wild do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve done white-water rafting in Costa Rica, climbed into a volcano crater in Iceland and had a rifle pointed at me in South Africa. And obviously, I’ve got roaring drunk on a beach in practically every country I’ve ever been to, and probably vommed all over countless gorgeous guys, although I can’t remember any of them being from Wolverhampton.’

  ‘Quite wild then,’ Matt agreed and nodded his approval. ‘So, what’s been the best thing you’ve ever done?’

  ‘The best thing… Okay, do you want the version I tell everyone who asks me this question, or the actual truth?’

  ‘What about both?’

  ‘The best thing I’ve ever done is swim along the Barrier Reef. It’s the most awe-inspiring thing in the entire world.’

  ‘Good choice, can’t really argue with that. And what about if you are being properly honest?’

  Hannah tipped the rest of her drink into her mouth and swallowed hard. ‘The best thing I’ve ever done is walk along the beach on the edge of the Gower Peninsula in the middle of a massive storm complete with thunder and lightning with the man I thought I was going to marry.’

  There was silence as Hannah looked into the bottom of her empty glass, then Matt cleared his throat. ‘So you’re saying the best thing you’ve ever done is in Wales? As in Wales Wales?’

  The weird tension that had enveloped them was immediately broken and Hannah burst out laughing again. And then suddenly neither of them could stop. They were just beginning to pull themselves together when Hannah started hiccupping madly, which only set them off again.

  ‘We’re getting some strange looks from the locals,’ Hannah managed to say between laughing fits.

  ‘Then maybe it’s time to get out of here,’ Matt said, chucking her jacket at her. ‘Oi, don’t forget this,’ he added, picking up her gym bag and accidentally scattering sweaty trainers and her bright pink sports bra across the floor. By the time they’d gathered everything up and made it outside, they were both close to hysterics.

  ‘Oh my god, did you see that poor old man’s face?’ Hannah wheezed. ‘I thought he was going to have a heart attack right there and then. You’d have had to resuscitate him on the sticky pub carpet.’

  ‘I’m not sure we’ll be welcome in there again,’ Matt replied. ‘Almost killing half the punters with shock does not go down well with the landlord! Christ, I haven’t laughed that hard in forever. Are you all right, I’ve got an inhaler if you want one?’

  ‘Don’t set me off again! But hark at you and your hero doctor act. Where are we going now anyway?’

  ‘Back to mine? I’ve got a few beers crying out to be drunk.’

  She grinned. ‘Beer, you say? I’m in!’

  * * *

  Two hours later, Hannah found herself walking past the pub in the opposite direction, back towards her own flat. Though it was only eight o’clock in the evening, her hangover was starting to kick in, as were the feelings of self-loathing and regret. Why had she allowed herself to sleep with him, she wondered miserably. She could blame it on the beer – she’d certainly had enough and it had been a long time since the bowl of chips in the pub. But she knew being pissed wasn’t the only reason. It had been the adrenaline rush; the thought that she really shouldn’t be in a stranger’s bedroom removing her underwear; the desire to shake up her life and relive that fun and carefree feeling she had when travelling; the need to bury that memory of walking along the beach and towards a shared future in Wales.

  And that was all fine. She was young, free and very single. The only problem was that Matt apparently wasn’t.

  She’d left him snoozing in bed while she went to the bathroom and for a mooch around his terraced house, which while small boasted what was obviously a high-end kitchen-diner and was kitted out with a wealth of Bluetooth speakers, sound systems and definitely-not-Ikea furnishings. Clearly medicine paid far more than being an office manager for a small dating app. There wasn’t a huge amount of personality in Matt’s home, she’d mused as she’d wandered through to the living room. But there she’d found a wall adorned with more frames than an art gallery. There were photos of Matt and his mates, one of him in graduation robes with his parents and lots of pictures of him with a gorgeous blonde lady. At first Hannah had allowed herself to be convinced this could be Matt’s sister – he clearly carried the handsome genes himself, after all. But her eyes had landed on a small photo with a large white mount and modern frame that showed the pair of them locking lips in a very un-sibling-like way. That, coupled with the array of candles and plants trailing their way over the bookcase that contained authors such as Marian Keyes, Liane Moriarty and Sophie Kinsella, had made her think Matt’s grasp on the truth was not as healthy as some of his patients in the hospital.

  ‘Is your girlfriend away at the moment?’ she’d asked casually as she’d returned to the bedroom and seen Matt’s eyes were half open.

  ‘What? What do you mean?’ he’d said. He was going for puzzled, but Hannah could see the fear in his now fully awake eyes.

  ‘Well, she’s obviously not here so I just wondered where she was,’ Hannah had replied.
/>   ‘I… We… I’m about to break up with her,’ he’d blustered. ‘But she’s away with her job so much and I’m working loads of shifts, and…’ he’d tailed off.

  * * *

  Now Hannah let herself into her flat, poured herself a pint glass of water and ran a deep bath, adding obscene amounts of expensive bath oil for good measure. She tried not to think about how she’d bolted from Matt’s bedroom with as much dignity as she could muster while hopping into her clothes, and had legged it out onto the pavement before he’d a chance to realise what was happening.

  ‘What is wrong with people?’ she asked out loud into the empty bathroom. When the universe didn’t deign to reply, Hannah sighed. Deep down she knew she was not only annoyed at Matt, but also herself. Of course, she couldn’t be expected to know that, despite being on a dating app, he had a girlfriend he wasn’t sure if he wanted to break up with. But she was supposed to be looking for someone to spend the rest of her life with, not a one-night stand on an evening he wasn’t seeing his girlfriend.

  She heaved herself out of the water, her limbs aching – although whether that was from the gym or the energetic sex she’d just had she wasn’t sure – and chose her softest cotton pyjamas from her drawer. She snuggled into bed, gently placing over her legs the brightly coloured blanket G-ma had knitted for her to take to uni. More than fifteen years on, it was a little dulled and grubby and had more than one fraying piece of wool where the stitches had come undone, but it was still one of Hannah’s most prized possessions, and tonight she needed all the comfort blankets she could get.

  Hannah’s grandparents had been a huge part of her life when she was younger. Every Sunday afternoon, she’d adored hearing them reminisce about their marriage and how they moved from Cornwall up north when Gramps got a job at an aircraft manufacturing firm, and then brought up her mum Joan. But the story she’d loved to hear more than any other was of how a young Vera had met a dashing Robbie at a village fete in Cornwall when he was home on leave from the army one Saturday night.

  Hannah had been devastated when Gramps had passed away during her last year of uni, but it was seeing how upset G-ma had been that had truly broken her. She became terrified that G-ma would die of a broken heart – which she’d discovered on the internet was an actual thing. Her mum had told her not to believe everything she read, but Hannah had never really listened to her mum’s advice back then, and even now she didn’t talk to her about relationships, especially as Joan had spent the last nine years alone and bitter, watching Hannah’s dad settle down with Charmaine and their ‘surprise’ daughter, seven-year-old Seraphina.

  When she was growing up, Hannah had been able to talk to G-ma about anything, but there were definitely things she would never tell her grandmother now – like sleeping with not-so-single Matt. Not because she thought G-ma would be shocked or that it would get back to her mum, but because she didn’t want her to worry. Since Gramps had died, her grandma had spent all her time telling Hannah how much she wanted to see her settle down and be happy. It was one of the reasons why G-ma loved Jess so much – she thought she was a good influence on Hannah, being married to her childhood sweetheart in their own home with two gorgeous children. And despite her naturally adventurous, impetuous nature, Hannah wanted to make her grandmother proud and find that forever relationship that she and Gramps had had.

  Her phone lit up beside her with a message from Matt. She ignored it and instead spent the next half an hour scrolling through one social media platform after another. Every post she looked at seemed to involve loved-up couples who had got engaged on Christmas Day a few weeks earlier and were still dining out on their happy news. Hannah could only think of one other day more awful to propose, and that, obviously, was Valentine’s Day, which would no doubt fling up another hundred vomit-inducing ‘romantic’ pictures into her timeline. Have some imagination please, people!

  She’d promised Dee she’d try to make it over to Oz soon, but the prospect of getting the money together for the flights and accommodation when she was barely able to save a tenner a month after paying the rent on her tiny, slightly dingy flat and keeping herself in red wine, was depressing and not a subject she wanted to dwell on. It wasn’t as if Jess paid her badly, but everything seemed to cost so much in the UK compared to the laid-back life she had bumming around South America and Australia. Plus, she knew that if she did go out to Brisbane, she’d never want to come home again, which not only wasn’t fair on Jess at the moment, but meant she’d miss out on all things Leo. And if there was one shining beacon in her life it was her seven-month-old nephew.

  Hannah had been shocked to say the least when her brother Scott had sent her a message just over a year ago to say his girlfriend of four months was pregnant and, oh, did she want to come to their wedding in nine weeks’ time? She’d presumed her ex-stoner, still-a-child older brother would never settle down and was happy living in his bachelor bedsit that was really their mum’s garage, which Joan had converted especially for him when their dad had left. But, if even Scott had managed to find long-term love, why couldn’t she?

  Chapter 3 Jess

  Jess had hatched big plans for her weekend. However, instead of having a long bath, reading her book and not allowing herself to consider the worst possible scenarios for Monday’s meeting at the bank, she’d spent much of the time making the breakfast/lunch/dinner, tidying up the breakfast/lunch/dinner things, skimming off the top layer of the never-ending laundry pile and cleaning the bathroom. All the while biting her tongue at Tom, who was happy enough telling her to go and relax, but never actually offered to do the chores that kept her from doing so. Who did he think was going to clean and tidy? The chores fairy? He forced her to sit down mid-way through Sunday morning to eat the bacon sandwich he’d made, but the crumbs he’d left on the kitchen side only wound her up further. When he tried to help her wash up their dishes, she finally snapped.

  ‘Just leave it, will you! I might as well do it myself, like everything else in this house. Don’t you have to get back to watching TV?’

  ‘Jess, sweetheart, I know you’re stressed about Save The Date—’

  ‘Don’t call me “sweetheart”, you know how much I hate it. And, yes, I’m stressed that the business I’ve worked so hard on for the past few years is at the mercy of the bank and could be about to collapse, leaving both this family and my best friend with the possibility of having nowhere to live.’

  ‘It’s not going to collapse, I’m sure, the bank will just—’

  ‘Oh, you’re sure are you? You do know we’re mortgaged up to our eyeballs, and it’s not as if you’re bringing in the megabucks? Or maybe you’ve won a huge commission to paint a portrait of the Queen and I just don’t know about it?’ She stared at him. ‘Or maybe you’ve been sitting back and waiting for those commissions to come to you and have then been surprised when they haven’t.’

  ‘I have been pitching for work, but there’s not a lot out there at the moment. Though I’m hoping to sell a couple of the red and yellow abstract canvases through Pete’s gallery – he’s pretty confident they’ll work well in Liverpool. Look, Jess, I’m just worried about you.’

  ‘Maybe you should be more worried about how we’re going to pay the mortgage and all the bills.’

  ‘I am, and I’m working as hard as I can. I’m owed a bit of money from that wedding I did the photography for, so once that comes in along with the pieces Pete is taking, things will feel a lot better.’

  ‘Well, you’d better go and chase that money then, hadn’t you?’

  Tom gently folded the tea towel over the cooker handle and gathered his phone and coffee cup from the table. ‘Jess, sw—darling, we are both on the same side on this. I want Save The Date to succeed as much as you do, but most of all I want you to be happy.’

  Jess knew that was her moment to apologise, but her instinct was to keep her mouth shut in case she said something even worse. She turned back to the sink.

  Tom sighed softly. ‘I
’ll go and pick the kids up from their play date and give you some time to yourself. Please stop washing up and go and relax.’

  Jess made a noise approximating the word ‘thanks’ and carried on scrubbing the chopping board that was already clean. She knew Tom was just doing his best, but sometimes it felt like his best wasn’t enough. She dried her hands and swept her arm across her eyes to stop the tears that seemed to have gathered there from falling. She was tempted to make the most of the free living room and watch something she actually wanted to on TV, but she knew she’d only feel like she should be working. Instead, she pulled Sam’s A4 notebook from the bottom of the towering pile of paper on the chest of drawers and opened it at a clean page. She wrote the words ‘Save The Date’ in the middle, drew a circle around it then searched the almost-blank page in front of her for inspiration.