Chal and Cheese

Hello there, I have promised myself to give this writing thing a go with all my heart so many thanks for taking the time to read this. I have no idea where this story is going but I do promise myself at least to finish it! Please send through comments and criticisms as you see fit. Thanks v much - Elle x

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Chapter 1

"It's just a date, nothing more. You spend a couple of hours in his company, then you come home and imagine, if you like him then maybe that might be the beginning of something, and if not then you've had a great night and a couple of drinks. No one loses."

This impassioned speech had been presented to me by my sister, my interfering and overbearing sister. Once a month without fail, she would bring her phone with a photograph of an eligible bachelor on it and present it to me like a Knight returning from the Crusades bearing the Holy Grail. It never mattered that I really wasn't interested in anyone that she could find for me; her belief was that it would be better to be with someone, anyone – rather than no one at all. So Roni continued her speech,

"So this is Gregory, Greg. He works with Mike at the firm, fairly established although I'm not sure how much he makes."
"I don't care how much –" but my interjection was hastily dismissed with the flap of a hand
,

"He's lovely and really into kids and stuff" she continued.

Yes, that is honestly how my sister thinks. Not even past the first date and planning kids. Time to bring out the big guns,

"Kids and stuff, I don't really think a paedophile would be all that attracted to me lovely"

Veronica halted her conversation and turned towards me. I was in trouble now, "God, you can be so childish sometimes, honestly, it's not even worth talking to you about this."

"Great, well then let's not!" Realising she had been outmanoeuvred; my sister folded her arms and huffed a great sigh.

I have to explain, I wasn't averse to the idea of dating, or even being set up on a date by someone. It's just that my sister and I are so different it beggars belief, and the type of man for me would not be anywhere near the type of man she would find for me. You see, I liked my men to follow a certain formula. I liked them lean and short, preferably black like me but that's not a deal breaker but most of all I liked them fun. I loved a man that could make me laugh, who wasn't embarrassed to make a fool of himself and who didn't take life too seriously. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't looking for a clown, but I did want someone who had a healthy balance in his life. I hadn't met anyone filling those criteria and had been single for over a year which to my happily married sister was tantamount to blasphemy and so she had taken it upon herself to hasten the search for me.

Not wanting to give up so easily, which was another throwback to our childhood lives Roni had to win or at least finish every "discussion" that we had.

"So anyway, I'll get Greg to give you a call will I?" I turned from the pot I was stirring to see my sister getting up from my table and putting on her coat and swinging her handbag onto her shoulder, this was not a good sign, she was running out on the argument thereby winning by default.

I raised my wooden spoon out of the pan and flicked carbonara sauce over her, "Oi, just you wait a second." But she was too practiced at this having perfected her art on the multitude of boyfriends that had frequented her life before she lost her heart to her husband,

"No, no I can't stay and anyway I can see you're busy cooking"

And with that, my sister left my kitchen in a cloud of Chanel No.5 having fulfilled the purpose of her visit; beating her sister in an argument and filling her smug quota for the day. Veronica Collins was nothing if not driven.

Turning back to my sauce which was now burning I pushed the idea of a new date out of my mind and tried to concentrate on finding the solution to my work problem which my sister had interrupted with her lame attempts at Blind Date.

******************

Mike Collins was sheepishly scratching his head as his co-worker stared at him,

"I'm sorry, what did you say?"

Mike grimaced, "I'm really sorry, my wife, she just got this idea..."

"But from where?"

"I have no idea, to be honest, more often than not, I have no idea of just what my wife is doing or is capable of and that's where we are now. She has told her sister that she is passing her number on to you so that you can go on a date or something. You don't have to go on the date; I just want it noted that I have passed on the number to you so that she won't withhold sex or anything like that."

Greg nodded still in a state of shock. This type of thing didn't happen to him often. He was just a lawyer, a tax lawyer at that. It wasn't a sexy job and to be honest he didn't really feel he was all that sexy himself. So to have Mike's beautiful wife who he had met on more than one occasion suggest that he would be a good match for her sister was beyond belief if he was honest. He was very safe, the typical "friend" that girls were always happy to share the bed with, hang out with but never really to go out with. He was in his early thirties, with no girlfriend or prospect of wife, what did he have to lose?

Sinking back into his seat and swivelling his chair to face the skyline, Greg took the time to think for a moment. It was a beautiful day, the sky was blue with fluffy white clouds lazily drifting , travelling with no destination in mind, and being this high up meant that the noise from the traffic was muted so it really was just a dull roar. Or maybe that was just in his head. Who knew? He turned back to his desk and looked at the piece of paper that Mike had left with the name and number on it. He supposed he had nothing much to lose; he hadn't been on a date in a couple of months, relying on porn and fantasy to get himself off and now here was the option of a date with a living and breathing lady! It couldn't hurt could it? A couple of hours, a nice dinner, maybe drinks and who knew?

********************

I was being taken around a tour of the guest house inn where my latest client had decided she wanted to get married. She was hoping to have an outdoor ceremony in the English countryside in October. I had tried in every way humanly possible to try and dissuade her from this but she wasn't to be budged. I was getting quite irritated but as Veronica always told me, "Victoria, the client is always right." So I tuned into the hospitality representative guiding us around the venue and my client oohing and aahing over every fucking thing.

I have to explain, I love my job. Planning weddings is the best thing and it's great fun for obvious reasons, but one thing I didn't take into consideration was the handling of people. I'm not very good with people all that much but love the intricacies of organising weddings. I always wish that I had that thing that people have when they're really good at interacting with people and pretending to love it when they don't give a shit.

Unfortunately I don't have that quality which means I spend a great deal of my days gnashing my teeth and tapping my toes. On this day, I had been listening to Carrie for six hours. Carrie's and my appointment had only been scheduled for an hour and a half and then I had been supposed to make this tour by myself to discuss logistics and such with the venue. But I had a problem in that Carrie had taken a bit of a shine to me since I had agreed to organise her wedding and as a result she was with me all the time. All the time.

As we looked at the room where her wedding would be performed if she hadn't insisted on getting married outside, I once more plead with Carrie to go and speak to her fiancé about holding the ceremony inside and while Carrie for the first time in the time that I had known her, agreed to think about it, the dulcet tones of Miley Cyrus belted out from the depths of my handbag - God I was going to kill my nephew when I got hold of him.

I turned to Carrie, "Can you excuse me for a sec?"

"Hello."

******************

Greg was startled by the quick response on the phone. If he was honest he would have preferred it if the phone had gone to voicemail. He wasn't even sure if he really wanted to make this call but here he was. He cleared his throat,

"Um, yeah hi. Is that Victoria? "

"Yes, speaking? How can I help?"

She sounded abrupt. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

"My name's Greg, I'm a friend of Mike's. I think your sister has suggested that maybe we go for a drink or something?"

Greg heard her exhale and then silence.

"Hello?"

"Yep, I'm here. I was just doing the pros and cons. Sorry, that's very rude isn't it? I was just thinking if I go out with you and we have a good time then my sister is going to be smug for months and I was just trying to work out if it was worth the sacrifice."

This made Greg laugh out loud which brought goose bumps to Victoria's skin.

"Well how about we go out and we don't tell your sister and then we can re evaluate the situation at the end of it? How's that?"

"That sounds good."

"Great."

They made their arrangements to meet with Victoria promising to be wearing a carnation and carrying a newspaper so that he'd be able to recognise her, and with him suggesting he'd make a reservation in his name so that they could meet at the table.

Once they had finished their conversation, both hung up and thought,

"Oh God, what have I let myself in for?"

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