ME & THE MONSTER

hello, you

"Er, hi," I said to the guy behind the door. He was wearing a hoodie, on which was printed, for some obscure reason: Crocodiles forever. "Is Kal in?"

He frowned at me. For one horrible moment, I wondered if Kal had been pulling my leg when he'd asked me over for lunch at his and given me some random address.

Again I checked the message he'd sent me the night before, anxiously. Number 10 White Lion Street, Islington. Maybe he had been laughing at me behind my back the whole time and –

"Yeah," the guy said, in lightly accented English, and yelled over his shoulder: "Kal! Your girlfriend's here, man."

I cringed. "I'm not his girlfriend," I said. "We're just, um, friends."

And even that was stretching the truth a little. We hardly knew each other, after all. We were – what was the term? Friendly acquaintances? We'd kept a lively banter over text for the last couple of weeks, but I wasn't sure what was the deal with us. What his deal was, or what he really wanted from me.

The guy scratched his beard. "Lovely. Whatever. Get inside, get inside."

I followed him into a poorly lit hallway and into a spacious living room. The guy with the crocodile hoodie hopped down on a chair and whipped out his phone, forgetting all about me. My heart was hammering with nerves. Then a door to my right opened, spilling out a pungent scent of spices and a flood of light.

"Thought that might be you, Rae," Kal said, and grinned.

At the sight of him, my stomach lurched with an absurd mingle of exhilaration and terror. I straightened my denim skirt and swished my long red plait behind a shoulder. I'd spent the best part of the morning prettying myself up, and hoped I'd managed the 'cute but casual' look. I definitely didn't want to look as though I was trying too hard.

"Welcome to our humble abode. Are you hungry?" Kal asked.

"Starving," I said, and followed him into the kitchen.

A riot of smell and noise engulfed me. It was cramped and chaotic: jars were scattered all over the island, pans and pots sizzled, and loud music blared out from the radio on the windowsill.

"Have you been cooking?" I asked, surprised.

I didn't have him pegged down as the cooking type. I'd imagined him to be the typical lazy bloke who lived on microwaved lasagne from the supermarket.

Kal wiped his hands on his Donald Duck apron. It looked comically incongruous over his smart black shirt.

"Course. I'm quite the chef," he said. "I do a mean curry, actually. Do you like curry?"

"Loads," I said. 

"Thank god. Otherwise you'd have gone home hungry, Rae. Just kidding. I had everything under control; plan B mapped out, C, D, all of them," said Kal, bent over an onion. The knife in his hands gleamed. "I'm afraid we'll have to wait for ten minutes or so before it's ready, though. Want anything to drink meanwhile? Coffee, beer? Juice?"

"Juice sounds great, thanks," I said. "I'm a healthy gal. Well. Sort of. Hey, love the apron, by the way."

Kal clutched at the rim that fell to his thighs and did a silly little twirl, sending himself up.

"I know, right? Donald Duck's just the greatest. I even have a soft toy of him."

I burst out laughing. Who would've thought that this guy would be so quirky? 

"You're serious?"

He grinned back at me. 

"Never been more serious. He was a present from my aunt for my seventh birthday, and I treasure him still. I keep him at the foot of my bed."