Free Dan Taylor Is Giving Up on Women by Neal Doran Page B

again, is he? I can’t get my head around spats.’
    ‘You’re perfectly safe. Rob’s not coming. He’s been called into work — some yoghurt client’s PR crisis because its good bacteria have been found taking a walk on the wild side. You’ll have to manage just with my bad impression of Gok Wan.’
    ‘Oh,’ I said, a bit taken aback. ‘As long as you don’t keep squeezing my bangers I think we should be fine.’
    ‘Likewise. Now go and blow off your French Fancy and trust me. You’ll be in a much better position when you’re less available and dressed to kill. Then call me when you’re at the station.’
    Hannah hung up and I deleted my planned response to Delphine’s invite. After spending a while agonising, I told her I couldn’t make it today, breaking a personal record of how many times I could say how sorry I was about that into a one-hundred-and-forty-four character message. The response came back immediately.
    Oh. OK. I’ll be fine. I think…
    I hoped she was going to be OK. It felt difficult leaving someone who’d gone out on a limb to suggest doing something stuck at home, rejected and miserable on a Sunday afternoon. I’d been there myself enough. But I was also a bit relieved to have an excuse to say no in some ways. Things were moving perhaps a little too fast for me and I just thought Iwasn’t that sort of boy…
    For a while I just lay there, considering I should probably get up off the living-room floor in a second. Also that there seemed to be a potential fortune in coins and old pen tops under the furniture when you looked from this angle. After a minute or two more of vacant staring, I hauled myself to my feet and braced myself for my expedition into uncharted territory with Hannah.

Chapter Six
    ‘We’ll start at Gap and Designers at Debenhams, then tea and cake on the way, and finish with cocktails at Selfridges.’
    Hannah explained the plan for the day as we emerged from the underground at Bond Street and joined the scattered but growing early afternoon crowds. At this time of day it was mainly slightly disappointed-looking tourist families, and the early risers amongst London’s gangs of mopey and surly-looking teens.
    ‘Couldn’t we just go straight to M&S?’ I asked. ‘There’s a sale on, then we could be in the pub by one-thirty.’
    Hannah gave me one of her stern looks, usually reserved for Rob, as she raised an eyebrow in my direction. Wearing a black and white belted mac, she looked like a no-nonsense detective from the fashion police. I was in her manor now. I was worried to see that she was wearing a pair of Keds that would in no way stop her from walking for miles.
    ‘No can do, Dan. Marks is great for some things, but unless you’re telling me you’re in the market for a new bra and some decent everyday knickers, we’re moving on.’
    I looked myself up and down. I didn’t think the grey round-neck sweater I was wearing was that offensively inoffensive, and it certainly didn’t look as if it was concealing moobs — not on a day when I’d spent nearly an hour in the gym. Hannah shook her head as I gestured hopefully that the High Street favourite hadn’t let me down too much in the past.
    ‘Sorry, it’s a lovely colour on you, but today we’re going to have to be ruthless, and with Rob not here I’m going to have to be bad cop as well as good cop,’ she said with a cheeky grin. ‘You’ll also have to fill in for Rob holding my handbag and looking a bit awkward outside changing rooms while I try on things.’
    Girly clothes shopping? My look of general reluctance to be out in the spitting rain traipsing from department store to department store — does anyone ever traipse when they’re not shopping? — intensified into one of sheer horror. A cry of ‘Nooooo!’ rose up in my throat.
    ‘Just kidding,’ said Hannah. ‘It’s all about you today. I’m not even going to look in the sales. We’ll start on you from the ground up. Time to get