Not That Easy. Radhika Sanghani

ha. They’d be over Will more like.’

      ‘Hey, I’m not that bad.’

      ‘I know. I mean, I, uh … Kitchen?’

      He grinned at me. ‘Kitchen.’

       Chapter 9

      ‘Would anyone like a tea?’ I asked.

      There was silence. I stood up and leant across my desk so I was facing my colleagues. ‘Guys, tea?’ I repeated.

      The three writers all ignored me. Hattie, the youngest, shook her head, but Jenna and Camilla didn’t even bother to look up. I sighed to myself and walked through to the mini kitchenette alone. The more I tried to be friendly to the other office workers at the London Mag, the more they ignored me. Maybe if my next online date belonged to their Chelsea circle, I might get the occasional greeting.

      I pulled out my phone as the kettle boiled. There had been no word from JT ever since I had abandoned him in the Holly & Ivy. Which was fair enough, really. But there had also been a categorical silence from anyone semi-normal on OKCupid. Perhaps JT had sent round a warning email putting everyone off me—even though he was the one who’d bled on my face. I couldn’t even find a sluttier selfie to attract the swarms to my profile.

      I went to the search section of the site and selected my filters. I wanted someone over six feet, with a degree so we had stuff in common, and … ooh, it would be nice if they spoke a foreign language. And worked in … finance/banking/real estate. Then they could afford to pay for my dinner.

      I pressed ‘search’. Five results came up. They were all above the age of forty. Two were female. I sighed and deleted all my filters. Then I selected ‘aged 23–30’ and ‘male’. Foreign languages and degrees would have to wait.

      A couple of the men looked attractive. If only these guys would ask me out instead of all the creeps, but they never did. Unless … I asked them out first? It had worked for JT and Emma was right—it didn’t really feel like rejection when they were just pixels. Besides, they could be lying and secretly be seventy-year-old perverts.

      Without giving myself a chance to change my mind, I tapped out a message to Ben84.

      Hey, how are you? Been on here long?

      It wasn’t Pulitzer Prize winning, but it wasn’t as if any of the men sent me well-crafted witty messages. I may as well just send the same message to multiple men. I’d sent it to eight different people when I felt someone hovering over my shoulder.