Forward Slash

Chapter 33: Becky (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 34: Amy (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 35: Becky (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 36: Amy (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 37: Becky (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 38: Declan (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 39: Amy (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 40: Declan (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 41: Amy (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 42: Becky (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 43: Declan (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 44: Amy (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 45: Declan (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 46: Amy (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 47: Declan (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 48: Becky (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 49: Amy (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 50: Becky (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 51: Declan (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 52: Amy (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Authors (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by Louise Voss and Mark Edwards (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Prologue (#ulink_9fe4d12f-a6e2-5e6c-b158-c74b685c3b45)

Him (#ulink_9fe4d12f-a6e2-5e6c-b158-c74b685c3b45)

She looked nothing like her profile picture. I mean, it was definitely the same woman but in the flesh she was seven or eight years older, her hair duller, skin pale and wrinkly, with saggy bags under her eyes, bags in which she appeared to be carrying half the world’s woes. When I saw her and realized this was Karen, my date, I almost fled. She so clearly wasn’t The One that there was no point even talking to her. But she had already seen me. Because, although I may be dishonest about everything else, including my name, on my dating profiles, I look as good in the flesh as I do on the screen.

‘I thought you were blonde,’ I said, after enduring a preliminary round of chitchat.

She pinkened. ‘Yes, I know, that photo is a couple of years old.’

And the rest.

‘I prefer to go natural now.’

She had ordered pasta with cheese sauce. As she talked, I could see strings of yellow saliva threaded in her mouth, making my own food inedible. She kept asking me stupid questions about my made-up job. She thought I was a professor of sociology, a subject in which she had a GCSE. She looked at me through her lashes as she went on, putting on that ridiculous sub-Diana coyness that many women believe drives men crazy but just makes me mad.

‘You’re a nurse,’ I said.

She nodded and shovelled more pasta into her cakehole. No wonder she was overweight. She had put on at least a stone since the sunny holiday photo she’d posted on the dating website. This was the big problem with Internet dating. You couldn’t trust anyone.

‘Any interesting accidents at the hospital recently?’ I asked.

‘Accidents?’

‘Yes. Like, I don’t know, I was reading about a woman who fell out of a window and was impaled on railings.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Nothing like that, no. Just people bitten by dogs and chopping their fingers off when they’re cooking.’

I yawned.

‘Am I boring you?’ she said, putting down her fork.

‘Yes.’

‘Oh.’

I leaned closer so the diners around us wouldn’t hear and beckoned for her to come closer, giving me a better view of her jowls.

‘Not only are you boring me, but you disgust me. You eat like a pig and you’re not so much “mutton dressed as lamb” as “tripe dressed as mutton”.’

Her expression made the date worthwhile. For a second I thought she was going to slap me, which would have made the evening lead to more interesting places, but instead she burst into tears.

‘You’re the pig,’ she said, voice wobbling. She’ll probably make a complaint about me to the site, but who cares? It’s a rubbish site and I’m removing my profile later anyway, if this is typical of the calibre of women on it. Plenty more to choose from.

I pushed the tip of my nose to form a snout.

Karen stood up and, after groping around in her brain for a few seconds to find an adequate word, spat, ‘Bastard!’ at me. Pathetic.