‘Good.’ He was smiling as he watched her eat, which hopefully meant he didn’t think she was a complete gannet.
‘How long did you go out with her for?’
‘Four months? Five?’
‘And what went wrong? Was it the chicken thing?’
‘More the sister thing. Lena didn’t like her. She didn’t like Lena, either. After a while, it just seemed easier to break up.’
‘Can I say something? You shouldn’t let your sister dictate who you see. It’s your business, not hers.’
‘I know. But it wasn’t just Lena. It was the chicken thing too.’ He paused. ‘And the fact that she used to call herself practically-a-vegetarian.’
‘Ha, we had a resident at the home like that. Went on and on about being a vegan, then every Sunday morning he’d slope off to the local café and have a bacon sandwich.’
‘Quite. Anyway, as you can probably tell, no great loss. I wasn’t heartbroken. That was last year.’ He added soy sauce to his Singapore noodles. ‘How about you? Seeing anyone at the moment?’
Did he think she’d be sitting here sharing a Chinese with him on a Saturday evening if she were? OK, this wasn’t a date, but still.
‘No.’ Flo took a gulp of wine – it was delicious, an icy New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc – and shook her head.
‘So what happened with you and your last boyfriend?’
‘Are we sharing tragic stories?’
‘Seems only fair.’ Zander speared a king prawn with his fork, then stopped with it halfway to his mouth. ‘Oh. Is yours really tragic?’
She grinned. ‘Not tragic. Just one of those boring break-ups for the usual reasons.’
‘He cheated on you?’
‘Not that reason.’
‘Now I’m curious. Do you want to talk about it? Or would you rather not?’
Flo wondered if she should quickly make up some other story, one less likely to send shivers of terror down any man’s spine. She could say they’d grown apart, become bored with each other, the magic had simply faded and died away, blah-de-blah . . .
Ah, sod it. Why not tell the truth?
‘His name was Marcus. He was the same age as me. We were together for two years and everything was great . . . well, I thought it was great.’ One more glug of wine for good luck. ‘Then one night we were out with friends, chatting about various things, and someone asked me if I wanted to have children. So I said yes, eventually, one day. Well, Marcus stopped talking and looked at me . . . and that was pretty much it. He announced that he didn’t want kids ever. And I said I did, but not for ages. And one of the other guys said jokingly, “Careful, women in their thirties are like time bombs, those eggs don’t last for ever.” And everyone laughed.’
Flo paused, remembering the way Marcus had reacted towards her after that.
‘Anyway, he decided he couldn’t trust me, said how did he know I wasn’t going to trick him and trap him and deliberately get pregnant? And that was when I realised we were over. There was no way in the world I would ever have done that. But if he thought I was capable of it, we didn’t have much of a relationship.’
‘And that was it,’ said Zander.
‘It was. After two happy years, we fell out of love with each other in the space of two minutes. The next day, we broke up.’
‘Wow.’ Since her wine glass was now empty, Zander offered her a refill.
‘Yep. Funny how quickly life can change.’
‘And were you devastated?’
‘Surprisingly not. Bit shocked at first. But it was like turning off a light switch.’ Flo shrugged. ‘Once it happened, I knew I was never going back.’
‘And do you know what he’s doing now?’
‘Oh yes, he’s going out with a twenty-three-year-old. The really horrible part of me is dying for her to get accidentally pregnant.’
Zander laughed. ‘That’s very honest.’
‘I’m always honest. Otherwise I wouldn’t have told you the reason we broke up.’
‘And that was a year ago?’
‘Just over. I was thirty-one then. Now I’m thirty-two.’ Flo pulled a face at him. ‘Imagine how few eggs I have left.’
‘Thirty-two isn’t old.’
‘It is when men are scared that it’s making you desperate. Funny how I’m still single.’
He helped himself to the last of the fried rice. ‘You aren’t desperate.’
‘I know that. But they don’t.’
Zander’s phone began to ring and he pulled it out of his shirt pocket. When he saw who was calling, his jaw tightened.
‘Who is it?’ Not that it was any of her business, but she was nosy.