The One Who's Not the One: A feel-good, laugh-out-loud romantic comedy Read online

  The One Who's Not the One

  A feel-good, laugh-out-loud romantic comedy

  Keris Stainton

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  The Invitation

  Hear more from Keris

  Books by Keris Stainton

  A Letter from Keris

  If You Could See Me Now

  It Had To Be You

  Acknowledgements

  For Emily and Martina *finger guns*

  Prologue

  Then…

  Cat had been lying awake for at least an hour before she decided to get up. The house was too quiet. There was no way she was going to get back to sleep. She couldn’t even get her eyes to close.

  Sam was lying on his back, one arm behind his head, the other across his chest, his forehead furrowed in a frown. She thought about waking him, but instead she swung her legs out of bed, pulled on Sam’s hoodie, and tiptoed out of the room.

  If she was at home, she’d have to use the light on her phone to avoid the bags and boxes and other random detritus scattered around, but Sam’s mum’s place was like Kelly’s – everything was perfect and tidy and organised. In the daytime, Cat found it comforting, but at night something about it bugged her. She went to the bathroom, peed, and stared at herself in the mirror, swiped at the dark circles under her eyes with her thumbs, pushed her hands back through her hair, sighed.

  She needed a cup of tea.

  There was enough moonlight coming through the windows on the landing and at the bottom of the stairs that she didn’t need to put a light on, so she padded down in her bare feet and headed for the kitchen, flicking the light on as she pushed the door open.

  ‘Shit!’ Harvey yelled from the dining table, pushing his chair back and making the legs screech across the tile.

  ‘Fuck ME,’ Cat yelped, her heart racing. ‘Oh my GOD.’

  Harvey was already laughing, a hand over his eyes. ‘Turn it off.’

  Cat flicked the light back off again and closed the door behind her as she stepped into the room.

  ‘What the fuck?’

  Harvey was sitting at the dining table, his curly hair pointing in every direction, his hand no longer covering his face, which, Cat could see, was puffy from sleep.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ Harvey said. ‘Although I was just starting to drift off when you scared the living shit out of me.’

  Cat laughed. ‘I scared you? I wasn’t expecting anyone else to be up. I nearly wet myself.’

  ‘Sorry. Do you think anyone heard?’

  Cat scoffed. ‘We both screamed like little girls, so I’d be surprised if they didn’t.’ She stared at him for a second. ‘I was just going to make a tea. Do you want one?’

  ‘I was, um…’ He scratched the back of his neck. ‘Actually, yeah. Tea sounds good. I’ll do it.’

  He pushed his chair back again and made to stand up.

  ‘You’re OK,’ Cat said. ‘I can.’

  She wanted something to focus on that wasn’t Harvey, in the kitchen, in a T-shirt and shorts, looking soft and sleepy and really really hot.

  ‘You couldn’t sleep either?’ Harvey asked, as Cat filled the kettle. ‘I mean… obviously you couldn’t.’

  ‘I woke up,’ Cat said without turning round. ‘And then that was it. Wide awake.’

  ‘Sam snoring?’

  Cat laughed. ‘Nah. Fast asleep though. He can sleep through anything.’

  She turned to glance at the door then. ‘Seems like we didn’t wake anyone up after all.’

  ‘Just Dusty,’ Harvey said, and Cat saw the family cat had hopped up onto Harvey’s lap.

  ‘Hey,’ Harvey said in a sing-song voice. ‘Human Cat is making tea.’

  ‘Don’t you start,’ Cat said. Sam had started the ‘Human Cat’ thing and thought he was very funny. ‘Mind if I turn the oven light on?’

  ‘S’fine,’ Harvey said. ‘It was just the big light. It’s really fucking bright.’

  The light from the cooker hood bathed the countertop in a warm orange while Cat finished making the tea and then took it over to the table where Harvey was nuzzling Dusty, who’d already had enough and was trying to get away from him.

  ‘What about you?’ Cat asked Harvey. ‘Reason you’re not asleep right now?’

  ‘Oh, I just, you know, woke up and started thinking about how I don’t know what I want to do with my life. Nothing important.’ He smiled, dipping his head, his hair falling down over his face.

  Dusty jumped down and ran to the door. Harvey got up to let her out and Cat found herself staring at his legs. They were nice. She looked down into her tea.

  ‘I thought you wanted to be a…’ Cat frowned. ‘Sound engineer?’

  ‘Lighting,’ Harvey said.

  ‘Ironic. Since you shrivelled like a Gremlin when I turned that light on.’

  Harvey smiled. ‘At work no one usually beams a light into my face when I’m almost asleep.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Cat said.

  ‘And my girlfriend dumped me,’ Harvey added, dipping his head and rubbing the back of his neck again.

  ‘Ah,’ Cat said. ‘God. Sorry. Why did she…?’ Cat couldn’t imagine what kind of girl wouldn’t want to go out with Harvey. He was sweet and funny and cute and, if he was anything like his brother, good in bed. That was a weird thought. She drank some tea and tried to un-think it.

  ‘Yeah. She was… I mean, she’s right. We weren’t… It’s just…’

  ‘Have you ever thought about public speaking,’ Cat teased.

  Harvey sat up straight and stretched his arms over his head, smiling at her across the table. ‘I’m tired, OK? I’m not at my best.’

  ‘You should go back to bed.’

  Harvey lifted his tea and looked at her over the top of the mug. ‘Got to finish my tea, haven’t I.’

  An alarm buzzed on his phone and he glanced down at it before pushing his chair back again and standing up.

  ‘Want to see something cool?’

  ‘Oh, my mum warned me about people like you,’ Cat said, and immediately regretted it.

  Harvey grinned at her. ‘We have to go outside.’

  ‘Kinky.’

  Harvey was already opening the back door, so Cat followed him out into the garden.

  ‘Perfect night for it,’ Harvey said, looking up.

  ‘For a murder?’ Cat asked, rolling the r.

  ‘International Space Station,’ Harvey said, heading further out into the middle of the lawn.

  ‘You set an alarm in the middle of the night to look at the International Space Station?’ Cat asked, following him and looking up too. The sky was dotted with bright stars. ‘How will you know it?’

&n
bsp; ‘You’ll see,’ Harvey said. ‘It’s unmistakeable. And, no, I don’t set an alarm. It’s an alert. It wouldn’t have woken me up if I hadn’t had my phone… there, look.’

  Cat looked where he was pointing and saw what looked like a bright white star moving smoothly and surprisingly quickly above them in an arc.

  ‘Holy shit.’

  She knew without looking at him that Harvey had turned to grin at her. ‘I know, right?’

  ‘That is not what I was expecting. Like… what is it?’

  ‘It’s the International Space Station.’

  Cat glanced at him. His head was tipped back and she took the opportunity to look at the long line of his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing slightly as he swallowed.

  ‘Yeah, but is it a satellite? There’s not, like, people on it?’

  Harvey looked at her, nodding. ‘There is, yeah. I don’t know who right now, but you remember Commander Hadfield? He was on it.’

  ‘Yeah. God. I thought he was on a…’ She wanted to say rocket. There was no way she was going to say rocket. ‘Something else. Something stationary.’

  ‘Nope,’ Harvey said. ‘It’s constantly circling the earth. It’s really fucking cool.’

  Cat glanced at the white dot again and then back at Harvey. Even in the dark, she could see his eyes sparkling.

  ‘You really love it,’ she said.

  He looked at her, smiling. ‘I do, yeah. I just can’t imagine what that would be like. Being up there, looking down at all of us, down here. Seeing the earth – all of it – every single day. They see like sixteen sunsets and sunrises every day, something like that.’

  Cat had no idea how that could possibly work, but instead she said, ‘Wow.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Harvey replied. ‘Wow is the word.’

  One

  Now…

  ‘I’m still thinking about the exploding bee genitals,’ Cat said into her phone.

  The man sitting opposite her on the Tube who’d been rustling the Metro and tutting at every page, looked up at her and frowned. She resisted the urge to pull a face at him.

  ‘Why?’ Kelly said.

  Cat could tell her friend was distracted. She shouldn’t phone her in the mornings – Kelly had to get herself and Arnold up and dressed and out of the house for school – but Cat just got so bloody bored on her commute.

  ‘Because they make a sound! It’s mad enough that they blow their own balls off when they shag, but that the explosion is audible to the human ear? The fuck is that?’

  ‘What a world,’ Kelly said.

  ‘Am I on speaker?’ Cat asked, hearing the echo of Kelly’s enormous kitchen.

  ‘Of course you’re on speaker. I’m doing Arnold’s lunch.’

  Cat knew that Kelly wouldn’t be making the kind of packed lunches she used to get – a jam sandwich and a few chocolate fingers if she was lucky. No, Kelly was probably making something ridiculously creative.

  ‘What’s he having?’ Cat asked.

  ‘Mediterranean salad jar,’ Kelly told her. ‘I’m chopping a red pepper.’

  ‘Will he eat that?’ The woman sitting next to Cat crossed her legs, kicking Metro Man in the shin. He rustled his paper again.

  ‘Course,’ Kelly said. ‘He loves it.’

  ‘Weird kid,’ Cat said, but she smiled into her phone. Arnold was her godson and the love of her life. Probably. ‘Tell him I’ll bring him a family bag of Skittles next time I come round.’

  ‘You will not.’

  ‘Gotta go,’ Cat said. ‘Going underground.’

  ‘Have a good day,’ Kelly said.

  Cat spent the rest of her commute playing Two Dots on her phone (occasionally forgetting where she was and muttering ‘For fuck’s sake!’ aloud). She always planned to use the time to read or draft emails to friends she hadn’t been in touch with for too long, but the lure of distraction was too strong.

  After getting off the train, Cat stood on the Tube platform and considered whether she had the time or inclination to go and get coffee. And maybe a pastry. She should go straight to work – she was meant to start at ten and it was five to – but most of the male managers just wandered in whenever they felt like it and no one ever questioned it. Cat, however, was used to being conscientious. It had always been her downfall.

  Her stomach rumbled, making her mind up for her. She’d planned to have breakfast at home, but she’d opened the fridge to find the milk gone. But the empty plastic jug had been put back in the fridge. Her flatmate, Georgie. Or, more likely, Georgie’s dickhead boyfriend. She really should move out. Or ask Georgie to move out. Or for her dickhead boyfriend to not stay over so much at the very least. But she never did. Because she was a massive wuss.

  Five minutes later, Cat came out of Starbucks trying to balance her own latte, an Americano for her boss, Colin (because if she was going to be late – and she was – she might as well suck up a bit too), a cheese and tomato toastie, napkins, sugar sachets and a stirrer.

  ‘Got your hands full there,’ a man sitting at the nearest outside table said.

  ‘Right? I didn’t think this through. Is it OK if I just…’ She was already putting everything down by the time she actually looked at him and, woah, he was really hot. Brown eyes and dark hair that was flopping over his forehead. A hint of stubble and a cheeky grin.

  ‘Help yourself.’ He gestured at the table.

  He was smoking, which Cat wasn’t a huge fan of, but she could work with it. She put her purse on the table as she opened her bag to put the toastie in and took the top off her coffee to add sugar.

  ‘Do you work round here?’ the guy asked. He narrowed his eyes as he took a drag of his cigarette and Cat was appalled to find it made him look even hotter.

  Cat smiled. ‘Yeah, not far. You?’

  He shrugged a little, smirking again and Cat wondered if Colin would accept ‘I met a cute guy and did a bit of flirting’ as a reason for lateness. Maybe if she added ‘And I bought you an Americano! Ta-da!’

  ‘Maybe I’ll see you around?’ he said, pushing his chair back and standing.

  ‘Maybe.’ Cat smiled up at him.

  Maybe they could meet here each morning before work, Cat fantasised, as she watched him walk away – nice tight bum hugged by black jeans. Buy their coffees separately and chat a little until one day she’d arrive and he’d have already bought her latte and she’d offer to return the favour, but he’d say, ‘How about a real drink?’ And then they’d… shit. Where was her purse? On the table was her latte, Colin’s Americano, the empty sugar packet and stirrer. No purse. She must have put it in her bag. But she couldn’t see it. She took out the toastie, a pair of spare knickers she’d had in there for, god, possibly years, three haphazardly folded issues of Stylist magazine, a pen, two frayed phone chargers, one of those bags that folded up into a strawberry that had been part of her (shit) Secret Santa at work last year, a perfume sample, a packet of tampons, and an empty water bottle. But no purse.

  ‘Shit,’ she said. And then, louder, ‘SHIT.’

  ‘Y’alright, love?’ the man on the fruit and veg stall called.

  ‘That guy I was talking to?’ Cat said. ‘I think he stole my purse.’

  She still couldn’t quite believe it though. Maybe it had fallen under the table or she’d put it in her pocket or… No. It was gone. He must have taken it.

  ‘Come here and I’ll give you a banana. For free,’ the fruit man said and waggled his eyebrows.

  ‘Now’s not the time!’ Cat said, muttering ‘for fuck’s sake’ under her breath.

  At least she still had her phone. She called Kelly.

  ‘You will not believe what just happened,’ she said, as soon as her friend picked up.

  * * *

  ‘Doing a half day?’ Cat’s boss, Colin, said without looking up from his desk. The office smelled like soup, even though it was only half ten.

  Cat gave a feeble laugh at his feeble joke, before saying, ‘I’ve just been mugged!’


  Colin’s head shot up from where he’d been staring down at his laptop. ‘What? Seriously? Shit!’

  Cat nodded. She actually felt much better than she had just after it had happened. She’d drunk her latte and eaten her toastie and talked to Kelly. She’d almost stopped shaking.

  ‘I got you a coffee,’ Cat said. ‘But I dropped it when… it happened.’

  That wasn’t actually true. She’d thrown it away because by the time she’d finished hers it had gone cold, but it was the thought that counted.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ Colin asked, emerging from his office. It was such an unusual occurrence that heads popped up throughout the room. ‘Do you need to go to hospital? Or the police! Did you call the police?’

  Cat shook her head. ‘I’m fine. I’m not hurt. It was just… a shock, you know?’ She sat down at her own desk. ‘I didn’t think about the police. Should I call them? I don’t know what they can do. He’ll be long gone now.’

  ‘Have you cancelled your cards?’ Colin asked.

  Cat shook her head. ‘Not yet.’ There was so little money in her bank account that it hadn’t seemed urgent.

  ‘Right, you should do that,’ Colin said. ‘Mate of mine got his wallet nicked once and by the time he’d realised it had gone, they’d helped themselves to over six grand.’

  Cat stared at him, the idea of having anything close to six grand in her bank account completely alien.

  ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘That’s shit.’

  Colin nodded. ‘So, yeah, cancel your cards and then I need the Blacklers file, if you’ve got it to hand.’