Love by the Book (24 page)

I had followed Belle's predate instructions to the T again, which meant I was dressed in yet another pencil skirt and medium-height heels. My bank balance couldn't face the purchase of another set of high-end underwear, so I was back in the lacy set I'd bought for Adrian's leaving party. Just slipping them on again had made me feel filthy—in a good way—so I was feeling very bullish as I set out.

On the way over, I inspected his photo again a few times and read through his little profile spiel. I was nervous that he had described himself as “adventurous” as, in Belle's words, this meant he would ask me to shit on his chest during sex. And while I had admittedly dedicated myself to expanding my sexual horizons this month, defecating on a man was a step too far.

I met him in a pub in Clapton, filled to the brim with sweaty bike messengers and fixies. Bike Guy was already there waiting for me with a pint in hand. I spotted his shock of blond hair when I walked through the door and made my way through a throng of men in tattered cargo shorts and Italian racing shirts to get to him, feeling conspicuously overdressed. In London's social hierarchy, the only people cooler than bike messengers were Peckham bartenders. I felt lame.

He was even cuter in person, his hair even blonder—almost white—and I could see his slim, muscled back through his T-shirt. I was into it. “Hey, there you are!” he said when I tapped him on the shoulder. He gestured toward the bar: “Pick your poison.”

“Where are you from?” I asked as we waited for my pint to be poured. His accent was Australian, but somehow elongated and with more “ee's.

“I'm a Kiwi!” he said with a broad grin. “And how about you? I can tell you're not a Pom—you a Yank or a Canuck?”

“Yank!” I said proudly.

“Nice one! The States are choice!” He was grinning and nodding like one of those bobblehead dolls you see stuck on the dashboard of pickup trucks, but after months of dry British humor, it was a relief to talk to someone so . . . happy.

Nationalities established, the conversation moved on to bikes. Turns out Bike Guy runs a bicycle repair shop in Clapton. He'd had a successful career in marketing, but had a major epiphany a few years back and gave it all up to fix bikes for a living.

“So you just quit?” I asked, agog. I was always impressed by people who had started new lives for themselves like this. Sure, I'd moved halfway across the world, but that was the easy bit: breaking into a new career after twenty-two felt heroic. But more than that, I was fascinated by non-office people: those who were free to roam on weekdays, unshackled by the nine-to-five world.

Every time I took a sick day, I'd walk to the corner store for soup and be pushed off the sidewalk by freewheeling freelancers merrily going about their afternoons of leisure. They were everywhere: in coffee shops, buying artisanal espressos and tapping away at their Macbook Airs, or browsing leisurely through the racks of the exorbitant vintage store. I had to constantly resist the urge to quiz them on what exactly it was they did for a living and how I could get in on the action.

“Yeah, man!” Bike Guy's way of speaking was Kiwi-meets-California; I couldn't tell if it was an affectation, but it was weirdly sexy. “I was just like, fuck this! And I handed in my notice.”

“Did everyone think you were nuts?”

“Yeah, my mates thought I was being a total weirdo. And my wife wasn't so keen, that's for sure!” He took a swig from his pint while I focused on not spitting mine out.

“Wife?” I tried to keep the incredulity out of my voice. I knew the whole Tinder thing was sketchy. Now I was inadvertently on a date with someone else's husband. Great.

“Ex-wife now,” he said, still grinning merrily.

“I hope you don't mind me saying this, but no way do you look old enough to have been married, never mind divorced.” It was true: in his old Clash T-shirt and low-slung skinny jeans, he didn't look more than twenty-five. I had actually been worrying about robbing the cradle.

“Ah, thanks, mate! People always tell me I've got a baby face. But yeah, we split up a couple of years ago. She wanted a house and a baby, blah blah blah: you know, typical stuff for a woman in her midthirties.”

I studied his face more closely. There were a few lines, but nothing more than you'd get from being outside a lot. I still didn't peg him for more than twenty-eight.

“But I just wasn't into it, you know? All of my energy was going into the bike business, and the idea of a house and a baby was like—
WHOA
. You know? Just . . . heavy, man.”

“Totally,” I said, merrily sipping my pint. At least I didn't have to worry about this guy wanting to settle down any time soon.

“We're still friends, though. She's a cracker. She's got herself a new fella now—he's an accountant or something—and they're trying for a kid. So it's all good.”

I was like a dog with a possibly ancient bone: I couldn't let it go. “Just out of curiosity—and you totally don't have to tell me, but—how old are you?”

“Forty-one!” he nearly shouted. “Mad, eh? I still can't believe that I'm, like, a proper fucking adult.”

Forty-one? That made him, by some distance, the oldest guy I'd ever been on a date with.
And
he'd been married. What was I getting myself into? On the other hand, he was extremely cute and seemed genuinely nice, if a little nutty. I thought of Belle and my expanding horizons.

“Another one?” I asked, pointing at his pint.

That night, a little tipsy, I filled in my notebook.

Name: Bike Guy

Age: Physical,
41
; Mental,
23

Occupation: Bike mechanic and overall dude

Nationality: New Zealander

Description: Blond, slim and forever young

Method:
Belle de Jour's Guide to Men

“So do you think we could double date?” Lucy's enormous blue eyes looked up at me hopefully.

“I don't think so,” I said. “I'm not really the double-dating kind.”

“But he's basically Tristan's age! I'm sure they'd have loads in common.” An image of Bike Guy waxing lyrical about the merits of Carrillos versus Bianchis while Tristan clutched the stem of his frosted martini glass flitted across my mind.

“First of all, nice try, but he is not Tristan's age. Second of all, I don't think they'd have all that much in common.”

She abandoned the laundry she was folding and flopped down on the couch next to me. “So is it serious? Do you really fancy him?”

I shot her a sideways glance and shoved a handful of peanut M&Ms into my mouth. “Those are two very different questions,” I said, careful to avoid candy shell flying everywhere.

She rolled her eyes and gave me a shove.

“I definitely think he's sexy. There's something sweet about him—it's like he's totally unjaded. I definitely wouldn't say it's serious, though. I've only gone on two dates with the guy!”

We'd gone on a cycling date around Hackney (I know, I thought never again, but he looked so cute on a bike). I'd somehow managed to get myself to the pub in one piece (thanks largely to Bike Guy carefully shepherding me through the streets and bellowing at any car/cyclist/cabbie who got near us) and we'd settled in for the evening and got pleasantly drunk on cider. Bike Guy regaled me with tales of when he traveled to Sweden on his own and accidentally found himself in an all-nude sauna with three blonds and a midget.

He was charming, all right. And very cute. I spent a good deal of the night imagining myself peeling his clothes off and, after the third pint of cider, was pretty determined to do so, but when I not-so-subtly suggested we go back to my place, he demurred, saying he had an early customer the next day.

The following morning he'd sent a text asking if I could come to his place for dinner on the weekend, so I had high hopes that I'd soon be ticking another thing off my sexual adventure list: the older man.

Lucy raised a lofty eyebrow. “Ah, but he's having you around for dinner on Saturday! That means love.”

“No,” I said, tossing an M&M at her head, “but hopefully that means sex.” The month was running out.

After an epic journey to Stoke Newington (surely the least accessible place on earth, and yet somehow the most wanted postcode around), I arrived at the address Bike Guy had texted me.

I was impressed: it was one of those three-story Victorian jobs, complete with a little white cat sitting on the windowsill. Either the bike mechanic industry was booming or he'd made a killing in marketing before giving it all up. For a minute, I wondered about the ex-wife saying good-bye to a townhouse in N
16
: her baby-fever must have been near fatal.

I rang the bell and waited, making little kissing noises at the cat (who ignored me, of course—stuck-up Stokey cat). Suddenly, the door was thrown open by a slightly frazzled but kind-faced middle-aged woman.

“You must be Lauren! Come in, come in! I've heard lots about you,” she said, bundling me into the hallway. I was rendered mute with confusion. Was this his ex-wife? Maybe they weren't actually divorced . . . Maybe they were swingers, and this was how they lured in their conquests. “Well,” I thought to myself, “if they think they're getting another threesome out of me this month, they've got another thing coming.”

In the background, I heard the sound of cartoons and a small child softly singing to herself, and started to panic. Holy fuck: did he actually have a kid with her? What sort of fucked-up world had I entered?

“That's just Poppy,” the middle-aged lady said. “Don't mind her! I'm Jane, by the way, though I expect you know that already. I'll just run up and get him.” I hoped desperately that she meant Bike Guy and not another rogue child.

I tried to calm myself down. Surely there was a rational explanation for all this. I had just managed to get my breathing back to normal when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned, readying myself to ask Bike Guy a lot of pertinent questions, and was faced instead with another frazzled but kind-faced middle-aged person, this time a man.

“Lauren!” he said, pulling me in for an awkward embrace. “We've been so looking forward to meeting you! I'm Oliver. I'm sure you know all about me—probably more than I care to think! We've had some adventures in our time, that's for sure. Well, he'll be down in just a tick. Do you fancy a cup of tea? I've just opened a lovely bottle of Rioja if you'd like something a bit stronger . . . ?” Oliver looked at me hopefully.

“No thanks,” I managed to stutter. What in the name of all that is holy was going on here? A
FOURSOME
? I was all for expanding my horizons, but this was pushing it.

I heard footsteps bounding down the stairs and said a silent prayer that it wasn't a fifth player in this bizarre tableau.

“Hey, babe!” I almost passed out with relief when I saw Bike Guy's beaming face charging around the corner toward me. “I see you've met the whole gang! Shall we go upstairs?”

It was a little forward, but I was so desperate to extricate myself from the situation that I nodded mutely. I just hoped Oliver and Jane weren't going to follow.

“Pop down later for a glass of wine if you fancy!” Oliver called as we headed up the stairs.

I heard Jane whisper, “Leave them be!” and the sound of the two of them giggling. Weird. At least we were going to be alone.

Bike Guy pulled on a little rope dangling from the ceiling at the top of the stairs and a metal ladder came tumbling out.

“Watch your head!” he said as he started climbing. “It gets a bit narrow at the top.”

I climbed up after him, part of me wondering why I was entering a crawl space and another, larger part of me too confused by recent events to probe any further. Following him seemed the easiest option.

When he reached the top of the ladder, he hopped onto the landing and spun around to give me a helping hand. “Up you get!”

I was pulled up into the crawl space and deposited on the floor.

“Are we in the attic?” I asked, peering through the darkness.

“Technically it's a loft, but yeah, this is my place.” He flicked on the light. “Pretty choice, right?”

It was something, all right. You could only stand fully upright in the center of the room—it sloped away into nothingness on either side. There was a tiny kitchen in one corner—well, a sink, fridge and microwave—with a bed tucked under the opposite eave. A bare bulb dangled above an orange velour couch and bike parts were stacked against every available surface. A
Reservoir Dogs
poster was tacked up above the bed, one of the corners curled and flapping.

“It's . . . sweet,” I said, ducking to avoid hitting my head as I made my way to the kitchen. I pulled out the nice bottle of red I'd picked up on the way over. “I brought this, for dinner.”

He grabbed it out of my hand and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “You're the best. I knew I'd forgotten something.” I started to panic—was that the only bottle he had up here? We might need to venture downstairs after all; I didn't think I could take all this in while sober.

“So, they seem nice,” I said, fiddling with my hair as I huddled by the fridge. I felt unbelievably awkward.

Bike Guy poured us wine into two tin mugs and handed one to me. “Ollie and Janey? Yeah, they're ace.”

“Is your place being renovated or something?” I asked. He raised a quizzical eyebrow. “I mean, are you going to be here for long?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. I've been here for a couple of years now—since Beth and I split—and I'm not planning on leaving any time soon. I mean—” he gestured around the room—“why would I, right? Got everything I need right here, and my best mates are right downstairs. Plus little Poppy—she's just the
best
.”