The Dating Detox: A laugh out loud book for anyone who’s ever had a disastrous date!
‘A laugh-out-loud funny take on modern dating for lovers of Paige Toon and Adele Parks. Perfect to read while you’re detoxing in January!’ Closer MagazineA supremely unlucky in love, late twenty-something living in London decides to leave the whole sorry business of dating behind – at least for a while.Dating is a dangerous sport. So after her sixth successive failed relationship, romantically-challenged 20-something Sass decides she’s had enough.The Dating Detox is born. No men, no break-ups, no problem.The result? Her life – usually joyfully/traumatically occupied with dates, clothes and vodka – is finally easy. Chastity rocks. No wonder nuns are always singing. Everything falls at her feet. Especially men.Will Sass break the rules? Why does fate keep throwing her in the path of the irritatingly amusing – and gorgeous – Jake? Will she ever roll the dice and play again? Or is a love-free life too good to risk losing?
Читать The Dating Detox: A laugh out loud book for anyone who’s ever had a disastrous date! онлайн беплатно
The Dating Detox
Gemma Burgess
Published by Avon an imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2009
This ebook edition published by HarperCollins Publishers in 2017
Copyright © Gemma Burgess 2009
Gemma Burgess asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © 2017 ISBN: 9780007332823
Version: 2016-10-31
For Anika and Paul
Contents
Dedication
Nine months ago
I knew the second I walked into this party that it wouldn’t be any fun. Every person here looked around when we walked in. Then they welcomed Rick and ignored me. That was two hours ago and now here I am, in my stupid librarian costume, sitting in the kitchen alone, trying to enjoy myself and failing. Very. Badly.
My friends aren’t here, which doesn’t help. They’re all having dinner together in a pub in Westbourne Grove. I wish I was with them. But I have to be here. My boyfriend Rick is here. He is friends with the guy who’s throwing this party. Or he knows a guy who knows him. Something like that.
Where the hell is he, anyway? I haven’t actually seen Rick in ages, but I don’t want to be one of those socially-needy girlfriends. Especially after last night. Hell, people at this party are unfriendly. Perhaps they don’t get that I’m dressed as an ironic geek.
The theme is ‘Come As Your Childhood Ambition’, and I’m surrounded by sexy nurses and Pink Ladies and ballerinas and air hostesses. (Aspiring to jobs that don’t come with a revealing/girly costume doesn’t seem to have occurred to these women as five-year-olds.) I should have come as Prime Minister or something. But I really did want to be a librarian. The men are dressed as Indiana Jones and Luke Skywalker and knights and things like that.
For God’s sake, I’m 28 years old. I can handle an unfriendly party, can’t I?
We’re in a large flat just off Kensington Church Street, and it’s packed. It’s just the kind of party I usually love. Lots of people having loud conversations and being funny and silly. I don’t know anyone, so I ought to just flick the insta-banter switch, go forth and jazz-hands myself around the party, conquering friends. I tried to do that earlier, but they just seemed to not hear me, or look through me. Or something. So I don’t want to try again. If only my friends were here.
I wonder how much longer I can sit in this stupid kitchen, pretending to read and send non-existent texts. This is so not me.
I wish I didn’t look so dowdy. I’m wearing a tweed skirt and carrying a pince-nez and a stack of books. I felt terribly chic and witty when I was getting ready, now I just feel drab and lost. I could go home. But that might upset Rick. Plus, they’re his friends, and I would really like to get to know them better. I’ve never really met any of them before.
Seriously, where the sweet hell is Rick? He seems stressed tonight. I know his work is crazy at the moment. He was texting me about it the other night. Seeing him less is probably good for our relationship anyway. I just hang out with my best friends when he’s busy. Or hang out by myself in the kitchen at parties where everyone’s a bit weird and unfriendly. That’s good fun too. (Sigh.)
‘Are you a teacher?’ says a guy who just walked into the kitchen. He’s dressed as a cricketer. (How imaginative.)
‘Librarian,’ I say, and add, in my best librarian tone, ‘Shhhh!’
