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

‘Nothing. It’s nothing. Just an annoying work email from Ted.’ I hit delete. This message makes emails from Ted look like Petrarchan sonnets.

‘Oh, all right then.’ Kate turns her attention back to EastEnders but after a few minutes her stomach makes a loud growling noise, so loud in fact that it makes the booming voices of an Albert Square argument sound like faint whispers.

Max raises an eyebrow. ‘You hungry by any chance, love?’

‘Starving,’ Kate mutters, her eyes fixed to the screen. ‘Let’s get a takeaway.’

‘Cool.’ Max reaches for his phone, no doubt to open his favourite fast food app. It never ceases to amaze me how Max can eat so much takeaway and still look so athletic. I should pitch him as a specimen to the diet and nutrition researchers at work. Now that would make an interesting paper.

‘Wanna order something, Sophia?’ he asks.

‘Yeah, why not?’ I swing my legs over the side of the armchair and settle in to watch the rest of EastEnders.

Chapter Four (#ulink_de4e56f7-467e-5f14-a24e-4e3e328421b9)

‘Morning,’ Sandra chirps as I arrive at work the next day.

‘Morning,’ I echo as I cross the office. Sandra smiles expectantly, her eyes following me.

‘Working on anything interesting?’ I ask her.

‘Oh, yes.’ She holds up a paper on fungal vaccines.

‘Cool,’ I murmur as I sit down at my desk and pick up my paper.

Right, catheter-induced urinary tract infections. I suppose it’s not as bad as the time I had to edit a paper on fibre content variations between different stool types. But still, I might just make a cup of tea before I get started. I’m about to ask Sandra if she’d like one, but when I look round, she’s already staring at me with an odd expression on her face. She taps her pen against her desk, faster and faster. Tiny beads of sweat have formed on her upper lip.

‘Are you all right, Sandra?’ I venture.

‘Of course!’ she replies without skipping a beat.

‘Okay…’

Sandra shuffles in her chair and blushes a little.

‘Do you want a cuppa?’ I ask.

‘I’m all right, thanks. Just had one,’ she says, her cheeks growing redder and redder.

‘Okay then…’ I shoot her a wary look before heading to the kitchen.

As I fill the kettle, I can’t help wondering what’s up with her. Sandra can be so strange. Maybe she’s just found out she’s been shortlisted for the Medical Copywriter of the Year Awards and doesn’t want to break it to me because she thinks I might get jealous. I remember how awkward she got last year when she won and I didn’t make the shortlist. But even if that were the case, it doesn’t quite explain why she’d be blushing and staring at me in such a weird, intense way. Suddenly, I feel a dawning sense of dread. Oh God, what if Sandra’s got in touch with her inner lesbian and developed a crush on me or something?

‘Sophia!’ Sandra bursts through the kitchen door, her cheeks aflame.

‘Yes?’ I reply quietly, edging away a little until my back is flat against the fridge.

Sandra sidles up to me. ‘Sorry, I just have to tell you something. I’m going to have to admit it now or else I won’t be able to concentrate on anything all day, and the fungal vaccine paper is due this afternoon and I really don’t want to mess it up. It’s really important that I tell you. I just have to get it off my chest!’

‘What is it?’ I ask in a voice so quiet it’s almost a whisper. Please don’t tell me you’re in love with me, please don’t, I silently pray.

‘I hope you’re not going to be annoyed with me,’ she frets.

‘What is it?!’

‘Well, last night, after you left work, I stayed late to go over my report on bunions one last time and…’ She trails off and looks downs at the floor. I have literally no idea where she’s going with this.

‘And?’

‘Well, I got stuck on a semi-colon. I just wasn’t sure whether it was right or not so I thought I’d consult that punctuation manual. You know, the one Ted emailed us a few months ago? Semi-colons: Instructions on correct usage.’

‘Uhhh, yeah…’ I vaguely remember something about it.

Ted sends round these copywriting manuals from time to time, just in case Sandra and I want to do a bit of extra ‘background reading’. But I don’t think, in this lifetime, I’ll ever be bored enough to go through them; I’d rather watch paint dry. In fact, I’m sure they’d make watching paint dry look like a fireworks display.

‘Well normally…’ Sandra chuckles nervously. ‘Normally, I keep all the manuals in a folder on my desktop labelled “Punctuation SOS”.’

For a second I’m quiet, and then I realise that Sandra thinks she’s been really witty. I let out a polite little laugh. Sandra takes a deep wheezing breath to calm herself down.

‘Well, the manual wasn’t in my folder, I couldn’t believe it. I always put them in there,’ she sighs, shaking her head. ‘I searched everywhere. I did a comprehensive search of all my files, but I still couldn’t find it, then I went through my emails from Ted. I checked my backpack, because sometimes I take the manuals to read on the tube but it wasn’t there either! Ted had gone home so it wasn’t like I could ask him to resend it, so I thought I’d just have a quick look on your computer to see if you had a copy.’

‘Mm-hmm.’

‘I went over to your desk and your computer was still on. You seemed to be in a bit of a hurry to get home last night so I guess you forgot to turn it off, but when I moved your mouse, the screen lit up and the first thing I saw was this site… Dream Dates,’ Sandra says.

Now it’s my turn to blush. Bloody hell. I went on Dream Dates during my lunch break to find the deactivation button, but with my deadline looming for the catheter paper, I must have forgotten to log off. Oh no! What if Sandra had seen the penis criteria?

‘Sandra, you didn’t read anything, did you? It was just a joke. My friend set it up as a joke!’

‘I’m sorry, I did read something,’ Sandra admits.

That’s it. I’ve scarred her for life. I’ve traumatised Sandra, who I’m pretty sure is still a virgin, with my crude penis specifications. No wonder she’s been blushing so much.

‘What did you read?’

‘I wasn’t snooping. I don’t want you to think I was snooping or anything… It was just there.’

Not a dick pic. Dear Lord, not another dick pic! Last time I checked my phone, it did say I had twenty unread messages, some of which were no doubt genitalia.

‘What was “just there”?’ I ask tentatively, bracing myself.

‘This message, from this guy. It popped up on the screen, the words were just there. I couldn’t help reading them,’ Sandra tells me.

‘Just words?’ I ask.

‘Yes… Just words.’

‘Oh great!’ I enthuse, relieved.