Match.com

“Your phone is ringing,” Busy picked my phone off the counter and waved it at me. “Is that a Christmas ringtone?”

“I’m in the middle of something.” I held up my dough covered hands as proof. I was trying to make bread dough before I went to bed and Busy had volunteered to stay up with me and have some wine.

“It’s that Marcel guy,” Busy said.

“Exactly.”

“Was it really that bad?”

My date with Marcel had become ‘the-night-that-must-not-be-talked-about’. I told Busy, when she asked me about it the next day, that I never wanted to talk about it. So far, that had worked. Neither of us talked about him or that night for a whole week. But Marcel kept calling me and I know Busy won’t drop it.

“It wasn’t…bad necessarily. Jus'…I fought 'e liked me and then 'e jus' ran out the door. I mean 'e literally bolted out of the 'ouse.” It was dealing with a split personality.

“What’d you do?”

“Oh yeah Busy, 'cause it was my fucking fault that 'e suddenly decided 'e wasn’t interested.”

“That’s not what I meant Murs. And he’s obviously interested you twat. He’s calling you.”

Point taken.

“Probably to apologize or something…'e’s too sweet for 'is own good,” it was true. He was the nicest guy I’d met in a while.

“Maybe you should answer than…don’t you want to talk to him?”

“Of course I want to talk to 'im.” Hell, I was pretty much ready to sleep with him that night.

Busy smiled, her typical victorious, I-told-you-so smile that irritated me to no end. She laid my phone down next to the bread pan I was filling, as if I could just call him back right now.

“Are you busy next week Murs?” Busy asked, moving around me to wash her empty glass and put the red wine back.

“No…why?” I sometimes hated playing nanny to my nieces and nephews because it always meant getting rooked into things I didn’t want to do.

“Well I met this guy Scott and he’s taking me to dinner. And I was wondering if you could watch the kids? Tabby and Martha want to go see that One Way movie…”

“One Direction.”

“What?”

“The band…they're called One Direction.”

“Whatever…anyway, they want to see it and Brad was supposed to take them,” ah, my incapable-of-physical-work ex-brother-in-law, “so I was hoping you could.”

“Sure, that’s fine.”

“Thanks, I’m gonna head up to bed. Call that Marcie fellow back, so he can stop harassing you all the time.” She gave me a kiss on the cheek and headed up the stairs to her bedroom.

My sister was boy hunting again and I was still in the same predicament as before. I felt like we were in secondary school all over again, only this time I had a slim chance of beating her out because she had four kids and I was relatively child-less. I’m sure this Scott fellow was like all the other men she dated, questionable yet attractive and financially successful. That was the difference. I always ended up with the dud and she always got the good one.

Except maybe this time. Aside from being a finically insecure uni student (and having ditched me in the middle of a date) Marcel was the best anyone could probably get.

I cleaned up the bread remnants and popped the dough in the warmed oven to let it rise overnight. I really didn’t want to call Marcel and here a stupid excuse about why he ditched me. I didn’t want to just give up though. I really liked him. He was funny and sweet and I liked him too much to just decide to give up.

The phone only rang twice before he answered, “hello?”

“Marcel, it’s Murphy,” obviously.

“Murphy,” he sounded relieved…I think. “Murphy listen, I wanted to apologize for the other night.”

“It’s fine…I was pretty drunk and I shouldn’t 'ave been so forward.” I get a little too handsy when I’m drunk.

“No, no…I mean, I didn’t uh…you were fine…I was definitely enjoying it,” I swear I could hear him blushing, “I just…I had school early in the morning and I didn’t want to be late. I’m so sorry I ran off like that…I must have seemed like such a pillock.”

“Ye were kind of a dick.” I laughed.

“Yeah,” he laughed, “listen…can I make it up to you? I’m house sitting for a friend of my mum’s and I thought maybe we could hang out this weekend?”

“I’d like that,” I couldn’t keep the smile off my face, “are ye cooking?”

“I am!” He sounded excited.

I pulled myself up on the counter and listened to him tell me about the food he was planning to cook for me when I came to his mum’s friend’s house. At least this time he couldn’t run away and I definitely wouldn’t be running away.

We agreed to spending Saturday together. They weren’t formal, fancy-restaurant dinners but I would settle for Cantonese food and bad movies if it meant spending some more time with Marcel. I told him I was going to bring Bananagrams and he laughed but promised to play it with me. And that I should be forewarned that he is a master wordsmith.

Busy would give me a hard time on tomorrow when I told her that she would have to be around over the weekend to actually watch her children. She couldn’t make any extra dates with Scott. She should agree anyway, she was forcing me to sit through the One Direction movie with my nieces and nephew on Monday. It was bad enough that their second album was on rotation in my car because of Tabby and her obsession with them.

“I’m glad you called me, I was really worried about the other night. I didn’t mean for things to go the way they did,” Marcel apologized again.

“It’s okay, really. I should 'ave let ye explain…I jus' figured ye weren’t interested.” I admitted. I had a serious case of loose lips when he was around, I told him everything.

“Of course I’m interested.” He insisted.

“Good, ye can prove it to me on Saturday,” being tried makes me sound slutty.

“S-sure,” he stuttered out, making me laugh.

Sometimes Marcel seemed so confident and then other times he would close right up and become his usual, reserved self. It was a little confusing to say the least but I was trying to learn to keep up.