Perfect Match: a laugh-out-loud romantic comedy you won’t want to miss!

‘Oh!’ Kate slaps the bar, recalling something. ‘Remember last week you refused to message that really nice guy on Match.com because he wrote that he was looking for his “partner in crime” and you said you couldn’t stand that.’ She grins wickedly.

‘I can’t! I’d honestly rather die alone than match with yet another guy looking for their “partner in crime”.’

They all tut and shake their heads, but they just don’t get it. They’re coupled up – oblivious to the daily struggles of the dating scene. Thankfully, ‘I Bet You Look Good On the Dance Floor’ by Arctic Monkeys comes on, a classic song from our university days, and everyone forgets about my shambles of a love life and runs off to dance. Arctic Monkeys blends into ‘Hey Ya’ by Outkast and everyone’s dancing and happy. Rich twerks against Jack, who keeps pretending to spank him. Cassie’s twirling around in her dreamy ethereal way as if she’s not at a busy London bar at all but seeing in the morning sun at a summer solstice party, while Mike cuts shapes around her like a malfunctioning robot. Lucy’s smiling to herself as Ahmed plants a kiss on her neck. John’s dancing close to Rose and Laura’s got her arms around Simon’s neck. Thank God for Kate, who’s singing along and grooving with me like the old days.

The DJ puts on a slower song, one that Kate and I don’t know the words to, and as we dance, my mind begins to wander to the hard time my friends always give me about my pickiness with guys. I get that they think I’m picky, but I feel like when I meet the right guy for me, I’ll just know and so far, I’ve never really had that feeling. In fact, I’ve not even come close. With my uni boyfriend, Sam, I gradually got to know him through friends and realised he was cool, and then with Paulo, it was more a matter of having instant chemistry, rather than love. My dad says the moment he first saw my mum, he instantly knew she was the woman he was going to marry and I keep waiting to have that type of revelation too. But none of the guys I’ve dated have inspired anything like that kind of passion in me; most of the time I don’t even want a second date, let alone marriage.

‘I’d better head home,’ Kate says, shouting over the music, after the seventh or eighth song. ‘Need my beauty sleep.’

She gets her phone out of her handbag and orders a taxi. Kate always has to be home reasonably early on Friday nights to make sure she gets a good night’s sleep before her matinee performances.

‘Cool, I’ll come with you,’ I shout back. We say our goodbyes to everyone and then head outside, where we get into the car.

‘What do you think of Mike?’ I ask Kate as I fasten my seatbelt.

‘He looks like a thirty-year-old Harry Potter, but he seems nice. I reckon he’s good for Cassie,’ she remarks.

‘Yeah…’ I murmur as we drive away from the bar. ‘I know it sounds sad, but I never thought I’d be the last singleton standing.’

‘You thought you’d find someone before Cassie, you mean?’ Kate asks.

‘Well, yeah! I’m not into Wicca or chanting, I’m normal and yet…’ I trail off.

‘And yet you’re holding out for a Robert Pattinson-lookalike multimillionaire who doesn’t exist!’ Kate quips.

Our taxi driver shoots a curious glance at the rear-view mirror.

‘You never know,’ I say knowingly, but Kate just scoffs.

‘Seriously, Sophia!’

I gaze out the window. I want to tell her about Daniel, but I know she’ll burst my bubble. Yes, I’m aware that Daniel could turn out to be a catfish, or if he’s the real deal, then he’s more than likely to be an arrogant nightmare, but I can’t help hoping that perhaps he’s not only going to be gorgeous and successful, but charming and kind too. Our date tomorrow feels like a special little secret I’m keeping close to my breast. A nugget of faith that maybe I have managed to find a dream man.

‘You know, the moment you get real and stop expecting to be whisked off your feet by some ridiculous man-god, I bet you’ll find a boyfriend and you’ll be happier than you ever imagined,’ Kate says.

‘Hmmm…’ Maybe she’s right, but I at least want to meet Daniel first, just to see.

‘There are plenty of things I don’t like about Max,’ she insists. ‘The way he makes these snotty snuffling noises in his sleep, the fact that he reads tabloid newspapers, his habit of eating peanut butter by the spoonful, his love of U2!’ She shakes her head morosely. ‘Not to mention his obsession with comic books and the way he calls his friends by their surnames and—’

‘Do you actually like Max at all?’ I interrupt.

‘I adore him,’ Kate insists dreamily. She takes a deep breath.

‘“Let me not to the marriage of true minds, Admit impediments”,’ she intones, switching into her loud crisp stage voice. I shrink into the seat; I should have known talking about love after a few drinks would lead to a full-on Shakespeare rendition.

‘“Love is not love, Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark, That looks on tempests and is never shaken”.’ Kate shakes her fist defiantly as the car weaves through the traffic.

Our driver eyes her curiously as she recites the sonnet, clearly not used to having RADA-trained actors belting out Shakespeare in his car. She grows more and more impassioned by the time she reaches the final lines.

‘“Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom”,’ Kate says, with an impassioned, sweeping gesture.

‘“If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.”’ She clutches her heart.

The driver draws to a halt at the traffic lights and breaks into applause.

‘Hear, hear!’ he cheers.

I clap weakly.

‘Encore!’ he adds.

‘No! Please, no!’ I groan.

Kate grins and does a little bow in the back seat.

Chapter Eight (#ulink_c73e3b58-9c85-573e-95ae-56a54447231f)

‘Sorry, I’m late, Soph,’ Tom says, slightly out of breath as he comes crashing towards my table in The Muffin House.

He gives me a quick hug.

‘Hamish puked on the carpet just before I left. Gave him too many treats. Then I got stuck in traffic and then I couldn’t find change for the parking. Had to swap a load of coppers for a twenty pence coin from a stranger. Nightmare!’ He sighs as he pulls out the chair opposite me.

‘Oh, poor you… Well, if it’s any consolation, I got you a banana and toffee muffin,’ I tell him, pushing the plate towards him.

‘Thanks, hun, that is a consolation actually,’ Tom replies, picking up the muffin and biting off the sticky glob of toffee on the top.

I can’t help noticing that his trusty fleece is smeared with what looks like it might be a trace of dog sick. I decide not to say anything.

‘So good!’ Tom mutters through a mouthful of muffin, his eyes rolling back in his head.

‘You look like you needed that!’

‘Definitely!’ Tom takes another huge bite.

I get up to fetch us drinks, and by the time I’ve got back, Tom seems to have perked up a bit.

‘Thanks, babe.’ He takes a cup of tea off the tray before I’ve lowered it onto the table.

‘So, give me the low-down. Love life, men, dating – I wanna hear it all!’ he insists.

Tom’s another person, like Sandra, who lives vicariously through my exploits. Even though he’s totally hooked on all the twists and turns of my disastrous dating life, he never shares a nugget of information about his own love life. Every time I pry, he gets all funny and starts saying how he’s too busy for romance, going on about all the marking he’s got to do or how he has to plan a new syllabus or come up with a PowerPoint presentation on Of Mice or Men or whatever. I usually get so bored that we just drop the subject, although I would like to know what the deal is. Is he just fine on his own or is there a reason he won’t tell me anything?

‘So… What’s the goss?’ Tom asks as he tears open a sachet of sweetener and pours it into his tea.

‘Well, there is a bit of goss actually!’ I admit, taking a sip of my coffee.

I can’t bring myself to tell Kate about my date with Daniel, but Tom’s isn’t a cynic like her. He’ll probably get just as excited about it as I am.