The Dating Club

Coffee, Clothes Shopping and Cringy Rom-Coms

Chapter Six: Coffee, Clothes Shopping and Cringy Rom-Coms

"Remind me why you picked me up at ten o'clock to go on a date again?" I ask again as we enter the parking lot in town.

     Now I may be no, aha, 'expert' on these things, but I have seen enough of Marissa's embarrassingly cringy Rom-Coms to know that when it comes to dating, the girl does not generally get picked up from her house at this hour of the morning to go to a date.

     "I thought I'd choose something more... you," says Matty, checking his rear-view mirror as he slides into a parking slot. I go back to being silent. It's obviously no use asking him again; Mathew Miles is notorious for three things: his fortune, his ability to get girls weak at the knees with one glance and his stubbornness.

     After sitting in the car in silence for the past half hour as he drove, it's a given that things have not got off the best start. This is not only because I managed to dodge every single one of his attempts of conversation (these usually involved smooth one-liners, not-so-subtle innuendo and flirty flattery) but I also tried my best to make him aware that the dating scheme is absolutely, 100% not my idea and that I am in fact being blackmailed into it.

     He only smirked at this, and winked at me, with a "sure babe," "I believe you," comment that had me banging my head on the window.

     He gets out the car and before I can let myself out he is at my side, helping me out, something I find charming and irritating at the same time.

     "Do I look disabled?" I hiss, accidentally quoting my favourite TV show.

     Matty laughs, a sound I find really attractive. "You watch Some Girls?" He says, turning to close the door behind him.

     I look at him, mouth open in shock. "You do as well?"

     He shrugs and I revel in this new piece of information. It's a strange experience, trying to imagine Matty of all people, watching the chick flick soap.

     I am suddenly filled with images of him and the rest of the rugby team, curled up in sleeping bags with popcorn and pink pyjamas around a television, watching replays. I laugh out loud, and Matty looks at me curiously. "Sorry," I say, putting a hand over my mouth and trying to hold it in.

     He blushes and I see an emotion - anger? Embarrassment? - cross his face. "I didn't want to. I had to watch it with Emma, my last girlfriend."

      We are both silent and I realise I've touched a sensitive subject.

     Being the gossip I am, I also know quite a lot about everyone else in the school, and I know enough about Matty to see that he does not take relationships seriously.

     But him and Emma, well that was serious. He was, for the first time in his life probably, not the one with the upper hand.

     And it was her that broke up with him. That was what was so strange about it all. And, cute, in a sad way.

     "You got change for the parking meter?" he says, changing the subject.

     "I thought you were the one taking me on a date, not the other way around," I say jokingly.

     "I'll pay you back silly, it's just the smallest change I have is a twenty pound note." I gape as he opens his wallet, stuffed with paper and cards.

     I've always known that Matty has a sizeable fortune (you would have guessed it by the fact that he turned up at my house in such a pricey sports car) but seeing it up close is a different thing altogether.