and booths. What wasn’t red was black, with the exception of the white bar stools lined up in front of bar running the length of the back wall. In the afternoon light the picture she took looked like a bordello caught yawning in the middle of the day.
Milla lifted her hair from her nape and caught the bartender’s eye. “A Manhattan, please,” she said.
Her phone buzzed again. I’m outside.
Maybe he’d meant he was on his way when he said outside the first time. Mildly annoyed, Milla waited while the bartender mixed her drink and set it in front of her. She snapped a quick picture, then mass-blasted it to her social media sites with the caption Like me, a Manhattan(ite) in London.
It was a bit of a stretch. The child of a former marine who’d eventually gone into the security industry, she’d been born in London and raised all over the world before attending Hunter College in New York. When people asked her where she was from, it was easier to claim New York than explain her convoluted history.
“I’m going to take it outside,” she said.
“You have to pay for it first,” he said.
“How much?”
“Ten,” he said.
Ten pounds for a single drink? The night was going to get really expensive if they stayed for a meal, but that was getting ahead of the game. She still hadn’t seen her date yet, and maybe she could talk him into going somewhere less...crimson. Milla fished out her credit card and handed it over, then collected her drink, receipt, phone and wallet, and went back outside.
There were still no men sitting alone in the patio, so she walked to the edge of the canvas railing enclosing the seating area and looked up and down the street. Then she texted, I’m outside. We agreed on Fitzrovia location?
Movement caught her eye. The man who’d been sitting in a convertible yellow Lamborghini the entire time she’d been in the bar boosted himself up in the driver’s seat, spread his arms wide and yelled, “Hello, darling! Shall we go for a ride?”
Heads turned up and down the street, staring first at the man in the car, then at Milla. Her jaw dropped. He’d watched her go in, then watched her come back out again, checking her out both front and back, making sure she was worth parking the car before making himself known to her. “You did not just do that to me,” she muttered. “You did not just do that to me.”
“Actually, he did,” said a woman sitting on the patio.
Milla squared her shoulders and flashed a really big smile. “I really just wanted to get a drink,” she called back, hoisting her ten-quid cocktail to demonstrate.
The crestfallen look on the man’s face was almost worth the price of the drink. Almost. “Oh. I’ll park the car.”
He revved the engine and screeched around the corner in search of parking that would set him back fifteen pounds for half an hour. Milla looked at her watch. She could stay, or, if she pedaled like a madwoman, she could still make it to Spitalfields and the Fire Spell in time for the pub quiz.
No contest. She threw back the Manhattan, slammed the empty glass on a table and bolted for her bike.
* * *
“Budge over,” she said.
Kaitlin Connolly, one of her roommates, pushed through the growing crowd at the Fire Spell, their local pub in Spitalfields, and set a round of pints on the table. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be on a date.”
Milla eased into the repurposed pew against the wall, kicked off her heels under the table and looked around. Mismatched vinyl tablecloths sporting polka dots, birds or red gingham, and small wood carpenter boxes holding ketchup, salt, pepper and malt vinegar. This was much more her style. “It was over before it began,” she said of the date.
“What happened? No, wait until I’m back. It’s my turn to buy the round. Pint of Dark Star?”
“A half, please. I’ll get the next one,” Milla said.
She wasn’t the only usual suspect late for the weekly pub quiz. Kaitlin and Elsa, her roommates in the first-floor flat they rented in renovated house in Spitalfields, in London’s East End, were there and holding chairs. Kaitlin returned with Milla’s half and set it on the table at the same moment bodies slid into the empty seats to either side of her.
“Hi, Charlie,” Kaitlin said. “You’re late. You’re supposed to get him here on time,” she added, wagging an admonishing finger at Billy.
“I did my best,” Billy protested.
“Got caught up at the studio. Sorry, love,” Charlie said, and gave her a quick kiss of greeting.
Kaitlin turned for the bar yet again, and Milla turned to exchange a quick cheek kiss first with Billy, then with Charlie Tanner, the artist who owned their house and lived on the top floor. He wore a loose, round-collared white shirt with the sleeves pushed to his elbows, faded blue jeans and boots as scarred as his hands and arms. The shirt hid the wiry strength of his shoulders and torso, honed by years of hoisting molten glass and turning it into the colorful spiraling shapes he sold to galleries in Asia and America.
“You’re supposed to be careful,” Milla said, ghosting the tip of her finger over a new, angry red burn nestled among the tattoos coiling along his forearms. She’d never really studied them before. One in particular caught her attention, an explosion of color from letters she couldn’t quite make out.
Heat flashed between them, sending an electric charge along Milla’s nerves. Charlie’s gaze lingered on her face, and for a moment they were the only two people at the table. She registered details about him in a way she never had before. His blue eyes were deeply set under a high forehead. His soft blond hair curled damply around his temples and ears from a recent shower. Both his hair and beard were longer than normal, which meant a long stretch of eating and sleeping at his glass studio a few streets away.
His blue eyes flicked down to her fingertips, resting lightly on his forearm. “And you’re supposed to be on a date. What are you doing here?”
“Another failure,” she said, but she didn’t lift her hand. This was what was missing from her blind dates—chemistry, the zing that set her nerves humming and made the whole world more vibrant. “Definitely qualifies as epic. Might even be classic,” she said, fighting to sound normal, because she had no idea if Charlie felt the same new connection. Probably he still saw her as one of the girls downstairs. Just a friend.
“Did I miss the story?” he asked.
Was that relief flashing in his eyes?
“She was waiting for me,” Kaitlin said and handed Charlie his pint. Milla’s hand dropped naturally from his arm, and she reached for her phone out of habit. “That’s it?” Kaitlin added. “No one else coming through the front door like we’re in a French farce, not a pub?”
“We don’t know anyone else,” Elsa said. “Everyone we know and love is right here.”
“Cheers to that,” Milla said, and lifted her pint to clink glasses.
“So, spill,” Kaitlin said. “This might be the shortest date on record.”
“What’s going on?” Billy asked.
“Milla, despite being one of the most famous travel vloggers—”
“At this table—” Milla said.
“—and a master of all things internet, is loathed by online dating services, which unerringly suggest the worst possible dates,” Kaitlin finished.
“If there’s a commitment-phobic fuckwit within fifty miles, some computer somewhere will match Milla with him,” Elsa added.
“Following the theory that my followers can’t possibly do worse than computer algorithms, I’ve been running a poll on my website. This week’s date was my fans’