‘Not at all! That’s my job.’
Holly nodded in the direction of the bar. ‘In here for the LO this evening?’
Darby nodded. There was no way that she’d be telling Holly who she was having LO with. Not that Holly wouldn't work it out for herself. ‘Yes.’
‘We’ve just ordered. You’d better get in quick.’
‘Will do, thanks.’
‘Have a nice evening.’
Darby continued in the direction of the bar until she found Archie, who was standing with a half-finished pint, chatting to the woman behind. On seeing him, her whole body felt as it turned itself inside out, looked at the world differently for a second, then went back to normal again. At least, as normal asitcouldbe. She was so far from normal, it wasn’t even funny. Oh my, was she in trouble? She was. Chuckling to herself, her stomach zoomed. Truthfully, deep down, she wasnevergoing to not attend the dinner. He was way too special for that and something strange was happening to her around him. More importantly, she liked the strange feeling. Oh yes indeed, she did. Who had she been kidding that she might cancel? Pah! No one at all.
Archie looked exquisite, happy, calm and with his you know what together. Suddenly, she felt ridiculous. Here she was on a date with a younger, very handsome, tall, dark man. Why in the world would he want to go out with her? In one fell swoop, the old lack of self-confidence thing reared its putrid head. She felt certain that in the end, it would be a goose chase. Even if it went well, she’d soon find things out. There would be something wrong with him because it was always the same. At first, he would be fabulous, but it wouldn’t last. It would take her a few months to work out what was wrong with him, by which time she would be thoroughly depressed and over it. The potential war wounds she would suffer were why she should have cancelled. Closing her eyes for a second, all sorts went through her brain, mostly that she really could not be faffed to go through it all. The minutiae and nitty-gritty of the dating world were precisely why she’d been out of it for so long.
It appeared that Archie had no such thoughts running through his head. To the contrary, as he saw her, his whole face lit up. ‘Oh, hey. You look lovely.’
Darby pointed to his pint. ‘Thanks. You got a head start.’
‘I don’t like to be late.’
Darby liked that. ‘How are you?’ Darby felt as if her heart was about to jump out of her chest. She needed to get a grip. She didn’t need to hear the answer to how he was because she already knew. Oh my. He looked well enough to her. Like so well,it took her breath, her blood, her brain, her legs away. A strange occurrence happened to her eyelashes. They were blinking over and over again so fast that it felt like little flash bulbs were going off in front of her eyes. Darby Lovell had finally lost the plot.
‘I’m good, thanks. What can I get you?’
What can I get you? What can I get you?An easy enough question. Darby was so in her own head, she couldn't work out the answer. For a second, she felt as if she had left her own body. Her blood seemed to have taken on a life of its own and zoomed around, rushing from one ear to the other. It ran up and down her torso, had a quick visit to her toes and then forged its way back to her head. She blinked a few times and tried to percolate what she’d heard into actual words that made sense. He was asking what she wanted to drink, yes, that was it. Quite a reasonable question. Darby coughed. 'Err, yes, sorry. I'll have a glass of white wine, please.'
Settling beside Archie at the bar, Darby tried not to notice how good he looked. In a proper shirt rather than the work clothes she’d mostly seen him in, she realised that he was so far out of her league it was comical. She also clocked that he was clearly a fair bit younger, too. How had she not spotted that before?
Archie appeared not to have any clue about what was going on in Darby’s head as he slid a small menu chalkboard along the bar. ‘I’ve reserved a table in the snug by the fire. The Locals Only looks good, but have a look at the menu.'
Glancing at the chalkboard menu, Darby scanned downwards and then looked at another small sign underneath the long line of optics, where on thick brown paper suspended from a roll, the Locals Only dish was written in black pen. She tried to sound normal and just be concerned with the menu and not the ludicrous things that were going on with her forty-one-year-old body. ‘Slow-cooked lamb with brown onions, thyme and garlic.’
Archie followed her gaze. ‘Do you like lamb?’
‘I do. Gosh, that sounds nice. It must be what I could smell halfway down the road.’
‘James said it’s been slow cooking all day.’
Darby read from the menu. ‘With seasonal vegetables and rosemary potatoes. Oh, and there’s bread and butter pudding made with panettone. I mean, really? Posh bread and butter pudding? How nice must that be?’
'I can hardly deal with the sheer perfection of it all.' Archie joked.
‘I’ll go all in for both of those.’
'I was hoping you'd say that. I’ll get our order in. I heard a whisper that it was on the way to running out. If we don’t act now, we’ll regret it.'
James, the barman, overheard. 'Yeah, you'll want to order the lamb quickly. First come, first served, you know how it is and that bread and butter pudding is almost walking down the laneway on its own.'
Archie turned to Darby and joked. 'This is clearly a matter of some urgency. Shall we secure our lamb before it disappears?'
'Absolutely. I have to try both dishes.'
After putting their order in, they gathered their drinks and walked through into the small, snug area. As Darby walked to her seat, she loved the place. A built-up fire roared from a huge old fireplace, beautiful, worn timber tables were tucked on either side, an asleep Labrador took up most of the space on a rug by the fire and a huge old fisherman’s basket groaned with logs. Each table was topped with a small lantern with a candle flickering inside, the walls were covered in old black and white pictures of Pretty Beach and a gigantic mirror over the fireplacethrew little twinkles of light around the room. Life had been worse.
Darby appeared to be fine on the outside, or at least that’s what she hoped. On the inside, it was quite a different story. As she eased herself down onto a chair, she felt all kinds of oddness. Archie clearly didn’t feel that way at all. In fact, he was totally and utterly at ease in what he was doing, saying, and probably thinking. A penny dropped. Of course, unlike her, he obviously went out to dinner all the time. This was on the regular for him. Unlike her, this wasn’t a big deal in the slightest. It was just dinner and a few drinks in the pub. A regular old end of the week catch-up and getting to know someone he’d recently met. It wasn’t special at all for him. Oh my actual Christ, this wasn’t even a date!
There was no specialness going on in his body, no zooming of blood, no heart threatening to undo itself and gallop down the road. There was nothing going on inside him and especially not in that little spot sitting just behind the rib cage on the left. Darby forced herself to take in what Archie was saying, but really, she couldn’t concentrate as it dawned on her that she’d totally got the wrong end of the stick. What an idiot. Accomplished people like Archie went out to dinner all the time. Darby tried to bring herself back into the room.
