Crazy Little Thing Called Love: The perfect laugh out loud romantic comedy you won’t be able to put down. Charlotte Butterfield

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СКАЧАТЬ you sure you two don’t make some of these stories up to make me and Amanda a little bit envious of your exciting single lives?’ Jayne asked smiling. ‘I mean it puts my normal night of watching box sets in my pyjamas with Will a little in the shade.’

      ‘And me and Paul. The most excited we’ve been in months is when a new series of 24 was announced.’

      ‘Exciting single lives?’ Leila yelped. ‘Have you not been listening? Nothing about being a thirty-something, single woman in London is remotely exciting. Soul-destroying yes, exciting, no.’

      ‘Oh I don’t know, it has its moments.’ As Shelley was a statuesque redhead with measurements Marilyn would weep for, her experiences tended to sometimes be a tad different to Leila’s.

      ‘Honestly, you two don’t know how good you have it,’ Leila said, pointing the end of her croissant at Jayne and Amanda. What she wouldn’t give to spend evenings in her pyjamas with the love of her life rather than trundling down to a personality-less wine bar to speed date, or spending hours swiping left and right on Tinder. Trying to locate her future husband was more or less a full-time job, and she was sick of it.

      ‘You know what?’ Leila said, slamming her croissant down on the table. ‘I’m done. Finito. Caput. No more, I’m taking some time out from dating.’

      ‘You always say that. Every time you have a bad date, or your boyfriend turns out to be a dick, you say that that’s the last time,’ Amanda said. ‘You’re still in shock about careering halfway across the world for Freddie, you’ll be fine in a few weeks.’

      To be fair, her friends had tried to warn her not to follow Freddie to India. ‘Men don’t like to be surprised,’ Amanda had said, ignorant of the irony in her statement seeing as she had proposed to Paul, and not the other way round. And Jayne didn’t understand either, with her perfect marriage to Will, Richmond’s very own Mr Darcy. It was only a matter of time before Shelley joined their cosy married club and Leila would have to fly the spinster flag alone.

      ***

      As Leila walked the few streets back to her flat after their breakfast her phone vibrated in her bag. ‘Layles, flying back to London in a couple of weeks, let’s hook up and I can explain. Miss you XOXO’

      Her stomach lurched and she didn’t know whether to hurl the phone into the nearest wall or hug it close to her body in relief. In the first few weeks after coming back from India she’d replayed the hotel room scene over and over in her mind constantly, even sometimes concluding that maybe, just maybe, she might have been too quick to flounce off in a huff. Perhaps the girl wasn’t completely naked, she could have been wearing one of those nude catsuits, so she was actually fully dressed, and possibly she worked at the hotel and had just delivered his room service and then was trying to fix his TV for him, which is why she was sat on his bed with the remote. Put like that, she occasionally felt a bit sorry for the short shrift she’d given him. She had even gone as far as to punch out a text to him that remained unsent, wondering if maybe she did owe him the opportunity to explain. But for him to suddenly get in touch now, a couple of weeks before his arrival in London, with his fancy bit thousands of miles away, just made her mad and not in the slightest bit sentimental.

      ‘No thanks.’ She pressed Send.

       ‘Don’t be like that babe, doesn’t suit you. See you in a couple of weeks XOXO’

      Her fingers hovered over the keypad. If she was angry before, it was nothing compared to the white-hot rage that coursed through her veins now. How dare he? What planet was he on that he thought it was ok to treat her like that, then have complete radio silence for two months and then resurface like nothing had happened? She wouldn’t rise to it and send him a message back. Shaking, Leila slammed her front door behind her and threw her coat and keys down on the floor in the hallway. She was worth so much more than him. More than this ridiculous, fruitless man-search that made a little bit of her die inside with every unhappy ending. She’d had enough.

      ***

      ‘Celibacy?’ Thomas heaped two more roast potatoes onto her outstretched plate. ‘As in, become a nun?’

      Leila rolled her eyes, ‘No, Dad, as in a man ban. I have taken a vow of chastity to sort my life out.’ She ignored her older brother Marcus’s immature guffawing next to her and passed the gravy boat on to her mum, Judy, who was sat on the other side, remaining uncharacte‌ristically silent.

      ‘Well I think it’s a great idea. You’ve been like a beacon for complete prats for the last two decades, and it’s time you concentrated on understanding your own energy field and what you’re putting out to the universe.’ Ever since her sister Tasha had decided to study Mindfulness and Visualisation to fill the void left by her youngest child reaching school age, she’d been peppering all her sentences with words like ‘emotional intelligence’ and ‘cognitive defusion’.

      ‘Thanks Tash. I feel very positive about it actually, it’s going well.’

      ‘So, when did you start this man-ban?’ Judy finally ventured, rolling the last two words around her mouth as though they were part of a foreign language.

      ‘Last Tuesday.’ Leila replied.

      They all erupted in the type of laughter that makes furniture shake. Even Tasha’s three children joined in, the younger two, being only four and seven, had no idea what the hell they were howling about, but that didn’t stop them. Marcus’s annoying new girlfriend Lucy was chuckling away with the rest of them too, her perfect flicky-out hair bobbing along in time with her giggles.

      ‘I’m glad that I amuse you all so much.’ Leila huffed. ‘Next time one of you makes an important life choice remind me to be equally as supportive.’

      ‘Sorry darling,’ Judy rested her hand on her daughter’s arm. ‘We are supportive, it’s just that you haven’t got a great track record with seeing things through.’

      Leila put her hand on her chest in mock disgust. ‘I am offended by that, Mother.’

      ‘Violin. Ice skating. Veganism. Boot camp. Spanish. Watercolour painting. Salsa. Am I missing anything Thomas?’ Judy had seven fingers outstretched in front of her as she counted off all the pursuits Leila had let trail off after getting bored.

      ‘Ryan. Carlos. Simon. Steve. Robbie. Luke. Oliver. Liam. Freddie.’ Marcus added. He always took sides with Judy. Such a mummy’s boy. ‘And those are the only ones you introduced us to. There must be more that never got to the meet-the-family stage.’

      ‘That’s not the same! At all! I have been very unlucky in love, and I haven’t found the right hobby yet. Two completely different things.’

      ‘You are a bit fickle sweetheart,’ Thomas topped up her wine glass.

      ‘Adding the word “sweetheart” at the end of that damning insult does not lessen it Dad. And I am not fickle. I am merely seeking perfection in everything I do.’

      ‘And every one,’ Alex, Tasha’s husband chimed in.

      ‘Alex!’ Tasha and Judy exclaimed at the same time.

      ‘Let’s not lower the tone, Alex, it is Sunday after all.’ Leila thought Tasha’s remonstration based on it being the Sabbath was a tad hypocritical – the last time her sister had attended church was her own wedding fifteen years ago.

      ‘Right, СКАЧАТЬ