Hello, again!
I had thousands of ideas for a new story that were running around in my mind but this is the one I was most excited to start and therefore will be my new project! This is completely AU and I hope you will enjoy what I have in store for this Regina and Robin.
Please do not be shy to let me know what you think by leaving a review. As always, I love hearing from my readers and their thoughts and feelings towards my writing. So without any further waffle, here's chapter one:
It's a Monday lunch time in London, meaning that graphic designer Regina Mills and her co-worker and best friend Kathryn Goldberg are sitting in their usual spot at Lucia's Café just a block away from their office. The January sky is filled with heavy grey clouds that threaten rain over the city and umbrellas are tucked neatly in ones pocket or side bag. Everyone at the office has a serious case of the January blues, Christmas is over, a new year has begun and resolutions have been made, making the majority of women in the office snappy and constantly bitter as they eye the chocolate muffins which mock them at the other side of the cafeteria. And though Regina has made no such silly promise to herself, this does not mean that she is any exception from the case of January blues which is going around.
Especially with the month of love fast approaching.
Regina has been single for two years now, since her (not so heartbreaking) break up with Graham just a few months before she transferred from Brooklyn to London. It was a just a bit of fun which carried on for far longer than it most probably should of. The relationship, if you could call it that, had consisted of physical attraction and only that; there wasn't a metaphorical spark, which Kathryn bangs on about herself and Frederick having before they got married, and Regina wanted, still wants, a spark.
The graphic designer sighs over her large cup of coffee, which she nurses between her palms before bringing the beverage up to her crimson lips. The sound catches Kathryn's attention as she finishes pulling her long blonde hair up into a sophisticated ponytail.
"What's up, G?" the blonde questions with a frown, cutting off a slice of the muffin she and Regina had halved and bringing the piece up to her mouth.
Regina shakes her head, "Huh? Oh, nothing. Just thinking," she dismisses with a shrug, swirling the warm coffee around the chunky porcelain before placing it back down onto the table.
She should know better than to think Kathryn was going to leave it at that. "Oh no you don't," she interjects, looking over at her brunette friend with a stern expression, "You see, this is what not having sex does to you, Regina. It makes you..." Kathryn hesitates, trying to find the right word.
Regina lifts a brow, sitting back in her seat. "Makes me?" she replies impatiently, suddenly extremely intrigued by her friend's (now sugar coated) insult.
"Mopey."
"Mopey?!" Regina exclaims, eyes wide and head shaking in disbelief, "I reassure you Kathryn that I can be many things but mopey isn't one of them."
"Mhmm, and when was the last time you got some?" Kathryn teases, knowing the answer already. After all, she likes to bring the subject up at least once a week.
Regina rolls her eyes, mutters a choice word beneath her breath before picking at her muffin. "Will you stop bringing that up? Just because you're happily married and will be quite frankly 'getting some' most weeks doesn't mean I need the same. Work takes up a lot of time for me."
"No. You take up a lot of your free time by filling it with work," Kathryn corrects rather pointedly. Of course she's right, not that Regina would ever admit that she does indeed spend her free time doing work so that she doesn't have to dwell on the feeling of loneliness.
"It's a chicken and egg situation," Regina dismisses, waving her hand between them as she pops a piece of muffin into her mouth.
"Yeah, yeah. Truth is, Regina, it's been two years since Graham and you need to get back out there. What's the point of working out when you have no one to show your body off to?" Kathryn prods with a narrowed gaze over her Latte.
"The point is self confidence, Kathryn," Regina shoots back irritably before raising a brow, "Which I do indeed have lots of."
"Don't I know it," the blonde retorts with wide eyes. "Maybe you should use some of that confidence in finding a date," she suggests coolly.
"I came here for a nice, peaceful lunch..."
"Oh give it a rest," Kathryn chuckles, shaking her head and reaching for her friend's hand giving it a squeeze, "I just want you to be happy."
"I am," Regina replies out of habit, shrugging her shoulders as she reciprocates the squeeze of fingers.
Kathryn frowns, "Are you?"
"Most of the time," the brunette sighs before lifting her gaze from her coffee to the pair of blue eyes staring her way, "I love my job, and you."
"I love you too, G. That's why I want you to find love. Graham was really good looking and was a great accessory. But you, yourself, said that in the year that you two were together the words, 'I love you' weren't once exchanged. At least not with meaning," Kathryn reasons, her tone sympathetic. She has grown such a strong friendship with Regina over the last year and a bit since they were both transferred to work in London and allocated as partners. Sure, the brunette gets on her nerves sometimes but it's inevitable when your work partner is also your best friend. They had been friends before, back at the firm in Brooklyn, but during their flight to the UK things just clicked and the two have been close ever since.
Kathryn knew about Regina's past briefly back in the U.S. but all the details had finally spilled out when the blonde had been confided in one evening last year over a glass of wine and a box of chocolates. It was on the very eve of Valentine's when Frederick had a work thing out of the city that he couldn't get out of. Naturally, Kathryn simply couldn't be alone on a holiday as pointless as Valentine's and had begged Regina to sleep over and watch cheesy movies on the couch like they were thirteen years of age again.
Regina sighs, slipping her hand from her friend's grasp and wrapping her fingers around the handle of her mug. "Maybe I'm just difficult to love," she mutters, turning her gaze to the busy streets outside of the café.
"Nonsense!" Kathryn admonishes before reaching out and taking her friend's chin in her hand, turning her head to look back at her, "We just need to find you the right guy. With the help of science."
"Science?" Regina scoffs mockingly, tilting her head up away from Kathryn's grasp.
"Yep," the blonde nods before grinning and lifting her coffee up to her lips, "By that I mean the internet. Internet dating."
"Oh for goodness sake, Kathryn, not this again," Regina groans, rolling her eyes with a tut.
"I'm serious, G! We can find your perfect match and barely lift a finger," Kathryn reasons, lifting her pinky from her grasp on the handle of her beverage to exaggerate her point.
Regina shakes her head, finishing her coffee and grabbing her purse. "I'm fine with my vibrator, thank you," she retorts in a hushed tone with a smirk before standing and heading out of the café, leaving a chuckling Kathryn struggling to keep down her coffee behind her.
"That is a horrible idea," Robin exclaims over a pint of beer. He and his old roommate — now best friend — John have come together at their local pub like they do most Monday nights since Robin moved out to live more central to the city, it's closer to work and allows him to have more personal space.
"I agree to differ. C'mon Robin, you're a good looking fella with a lot going for you. You're clever, artistic- chicks dig that shit," John replies, guzzling back the last of his drink before nodding to the barman for a second.
Robin rolls his eyes. "And yet just last week you were telling me that 'Photography is for gay dudes'," he mocks, raising a brow and lifting his beverage to his lips.
John snorts a laugh, nodding his head at his own apparently amusing remark, "Aye, I did. But I didn't accuse you of being gay. I shared an apartment with you. Trust me, no gay guy will have that amount of straight porn on his laptop."
"What were you doing on my laptop?!" Robin exclaims with wide eyes. He isn't going to deny that fact that he did have pornographic material stored on his hard drive back when he was a freelancer and had a lot of time on his hands, but he is curious as to why in the hell John was snooping around his things.
"The wifi was down and I was training a real fit bird at the gym earlier on that day. I needed to release steam," John shrugs, "That was when I was giving up sex for lent."
"Mm. And remind me how long that lasted?" Robin teases, apparently the life of being a fitness trainer involves consuming shakes that taste absolutely gross, vocabulary Robin would never reciprocate and pulling women constantly. It's honestly a miracle how the man doesn't have every STD listed on the leaflets that are pinned to the boards in the doctor surgery with the amount of women he has slept with in just the time that he and Robin have been friends.
John smirks, obviously proud of himself. "Two days. She practically begged me to take her home. It would've been rude to deny her," he replies in a chivalrous tone.
"You could've at least made it to your room," Robin recalls, "A naked woman laying on the couch at 6 in the morning was the last thing I expected to have to tiptoe around before I went to work."
"We are going off topic," John dismisses with a wave of his hand. "Internet dating. You won't come out with me because you're at "work"-"
"I am at work!"
"So," John continues, ignoring Robin's correction, "How else are you gonna meet birds?"
"John, why can't you understand that I am quite happy just to focus on my career, right now?"
"Robin, seriously. I know that things between Marian and you went sour, but not all women are like that. You need some fucking action, man. It's been what? Two years?"
"I'm not counting," Robin retorts quickly, although truthfully John's exaggeration isn't drastically off. There was a night about a year ago in which he had agreed to accompany his, then roommate, on a night out. John had gone back to some girl's apartment, who he had managed to pick up not two minutes into the second bar, leaving Robin alone with about six over intoxicated women. Long story short, he took one home later that night and loathed himself for it for a good four weeks afterwards.
John simple chuckles lowly, shaking his head, "We are setting you up an account and we are finding you someone. One night stands, as we have established, aren't your thing."
"It's good to know that you finally believe me," Robin replies sarcastically before sighing and taking another sip of his beer, "I'll think about it," he mutters, watching as a couple strolls hand in hand through the door, the woman holding a rose and a smitten smile on her face as she leans into her partner.
He wants someone to shower with roses.
It's coming up to the month of love and Robin really is rather fed up of spending that day alone for so many years, spending the day on the sofa with a beer, flicking through the endless possibilities of chick flicks and romantic crap. Or rather, when he was living with John he would be doing the same but with the volume cranked higher as his best friend nailed a woman in the other room. It's hilarious to think how close the pair are yet how different their morals and personality are from one another's. That's not to say that they don't drive each other up the wall.
It's 10pm when Robin has finished his final beer and is heading back to his apartment. The elevator is broken again making him curse under his breath as he takes the stairs all the way up to the fifth floor before fumbling with his keys and letting himself into his apartment where he throws his keys into the bowl by the door.
It's sad to think he has had this apartment for a year and not one woman has passed the threshold, unless you count his mother, which Robin truly does not. He sighs as once again a conversation about his love life with John has led to him feeling lonely and pitiful towards himself as he heads into the kitchen for another beer before bed. He probably shouldn't with work so early in the morning and he's already had a few back at the pub, but nonetheless he shrugs the feeling off as he sits himself at the kitchen counter and cracks the beer can open.
It's after his first swig that his eyes fall to his laptop which sits in front of him and he's tilting his head in silent consideration. Internet dating. Surely he's too old to be on those kind of sites searching for a female when really they are all either too young for him or out of his league in the looks department. However, his curiosity gets the better of him and he's opening up the lid to his laptop and opening up the browser. Perhaps it's the buzz of the alcohol encouraging him to do this, but he places his can of ale to the side and types the following into the search engine:
Top 10 dating websites UK
Robin is surprised by the number of hits that pop up and fill his screen but, after scanning the first few, he clicks on the link to a newspaper article which he quickly reads the contents of. It's a list of the best 15 dating websites based on reviews, results and the number of applicants however the one that catches his eye is listed as the third best in the article. Deciding that this is most likely the best option for himself, Robin bites the inside of his lip anxiously as he opens a new tab and types in the address given.
The site that loads is aptly titled CreativeMatch and its logo is impressively extravagant and well designed, made up of artists paint brushes and figments of objects associated with someone who has a creative mind or job title. The website overall seems friendly and the set up fee is nothing substantial when you are bringing in what Robin is bringing in each month, so he shrugs, asks himself what the harm of a few months' trial would be, before he is following the links to sign up, filling in the necessary details.
It's past 1am when Robin's head finally hits the pillow.