When Polly Met Olly: A fantastically uplifting romantic comedy for 2019!. Zoe May

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СКАЧАТЬ and it occurs to me that Gabe might be able to leave work early and hang out. With me working on freelance jobs all over the place or being broke and cooped up in the flat, it’s been a while since we went to a bar or grabbed dinner. I send him a text in the hope that he doesn’t have plans with Adam. He replies as I’m finishing off my coffee, saying he’ll be done with work in twenty minutes and do I want to come and meet him. I’ve never met Gabe at his office before, even though I’ve walked past it a few times. I tell him I’ll be there and then leave the café, navigating my way a few blocks to the skyscraper where he works.

      Gabe’s waiting for me outside as I arrive. He stands outside his office next to a corporate water feature – a fountain made from bricks – which is both tranquil and urban. He hasn’t notice me yet and looks tired and bored.

      ‘Hey!’ I greet him as I approach.

      He turns to look at me, his distracted bored expression replaced by an animated smile. We hug.

      ‘Wow, so this is your fancy bank, eh?’ I comment as I look upwards, taking in the vast gleaming structure.

      ‘Yep. This is it!’ Gabe follows my gaze, looking markedly less bothered. ‘That’s where I sell my soul for a pay check.’

      I laugh.

      ‘Come on.’ Gabe tugs gently on my arm. ‘Let’s get away from here.’

      ‘Long day?’ I ask as we walk away from his building.

      ‘Something like that,’ Gabe sighs. ‘Every day is a long day.’

      I glance over my shoulder as we walk away, taking another look at Gabe’s workplace. It’s so tall and imposing with its huge globally recognised logo emblazoned across the front. Other office workers are beginning to trickle out, looking neat and professional, like Gabe, in their suits. It’s strange to think that this is the world Gabe’s inhabited for the past year and a half. It couldn’t be any more different to our kooky flat in Brooklyn or The Eagle on a Friday night. His life definitely has two sides to it.

      ‘Let’s get a drink,’ Gabe says as we head towards a cluster of restaurants and bars nearby.

      ‘Good plan!’ I agree.

      ‘How about here?’ Gabe says, pausing outside a glass-fronted high-end chain bar. Its tall, rustic, wooden benches contrast with stainless-steel, low-hanging lamps. Everyone is perching on stools, the women drinking cocktails and prosecco and the men sipping pints from slender glasses. It looks totally stiff and uptight.

      I wrinkly my nose. ‘Urghh. That’s so not us, Gabe.’

      Gabe laughs. ‘There isn’t anywhere like The Eagle around here, Polly. I know you don’t frequent these parts often but this—’ he gestures towards the pretentious bar ‘—is all we have.’

      ‘Nooo.’ I groan. ‘I refuse to believe it. Surely not everyone in the city wants to drink in such wanky establishments.’

      ‘It’s not that wanky,’ Gabe insists. ‘I go there with Adam quite a lot.’

      I link arms with him and steer him away. ‘Come on, there must be somewhere nicer.’

      ‘By nicer you mean a dive bar, don’t you?’ Gabe teases.

      ‘Exactly.’ I smile smugly.

      We keep walking, passing other pretentious bars, which appear to be exact replicas of the first and I’m beginning to wonder whether Gabe was right, maybe city workers really do all drink in poncey establishments where they’re forced to perch and drink from tall slender glasses and have weird uptight fun, when suddenly, I spot what appears to be a dive bar from the chain Milano’s tucked away down a side road.

      ‘Is that Milano’s?’ I squint at the sign in wonder, as though it might just be a mirage.

      ‘Oh, not Milano’s,’ Gabe grumbles. ‘What if someone sees me?’

      ‘It’ll be fun!’ I insist. ‘Anyway, just tell them I dragged you there.’

      ‘Urghh… fine,’ Gabe sighs, rolling his eyes.

      ‘Come on!’ I give his arm a gentle tug. He groans as we head down the side road.

      Milano’s is the opposite of Wall Street’s sleek pretentious bars. Every surface behind the bars is covered with flags, beer mats and stickers for everything from workers’ unions to biker associations. The place seems to have a total aversion to leaving any inch of wall uncovered. In the seating area, the walls are plastered with blurry pictures taken of punters over the years, photographed by other drinkers who weren’t able to keep a steady hand. Everyone’s smiling in the pictures and looks relaxed, if a little wasted. The Rolling Stones are playing on a jukebox and a TV flickers on the wall in the background. A few solitary drinkers perch at the bar nursing pints, chatting to one another. They look like they’re probably regulars. Gabe raises an eyebrow and I can tell it’s not quite his kind of establishment.

      ‘Oh, come on. Drinks on me!’ I suggest.

      ‘Fine,’ Gabe sighs as I order two pints. The barmaid sings along to the song on the jukebox as she pours each one. She’s totally un-self-conscious and I’m already liking the laid-back vibe of the bar. I pay her, tipping generously even though I can’t really afford to. I hand Gabe a pint and we head to one of the tables in the corner. We take off our coats and sit down.

      ‘So, how’s office life?’ Gabe asks as he sips his pint.

      ‘Weird,’ I admit, filling him in on my meeting with Olly. I whinged to him last night about having to be a mystery shopper while I selected my terrible outfit. Naturally, Gabe didn’t approve. He already thinks my job is a bit dodgy and the fact that I was being asked to go and spy on a rival business was just another level of shadiness that he wasn’t on board with.

      I tell him about Olly, from his impressive offices and effortless charm to his weirdly clinical approach to dating.

      ‘It felt so prescriptive and formulaic, he had a checklist for everything – height, income, diet – and then he ticked a load of boxes for the criteria that apply to my ideal man,’ I tell Gabe, taking a sip of my pint. ‘It was just so heartless and unromantic.’

      Gabe shrugs. ‘Relationships aren’t all fireworks. Sometimes those kinds of things do matter.’

      I wrinkle my nose. ‘When you met Adam, you weren’t like, “And how much do you earn? Would you describe yourself as a social drinker or regular drinker? And are you a night owl or an early bird?” No! You just felt a connection. You had a spark!’

      ‘Well, yeah…’ Gabe’s eyes go momentarily wistful and I expect he’s thinking back to how he and Adam met – they bumped into each other in Starbucks. Literally bumped into each other. Gabe was looking down at his phone and accidentally walked straight into Adam, who was also distracted, causing Adam’s green matcha latte to spill all over Gabe’s shirt. After Adam flirtatiously helped him clean himself up in the bathroom, they ended up having lunch together and swapping numbers. Gabe was so excited when he got back that evening. He didn’t just have a spark with Adam, he had fireworks. I’d seen him have crushes on guys before, but I’d never seen him quite as into anyone as he was with Adam.

      ‘You just followed your heart. You СКАЧАТЬ