Not OK, Cupid

by Anna Kaling

Genres: Friendship; Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

Anna Kaling's sparkling debut rom-com, Not OK, Cupid, is perfect for fans of Sophie Ranald, Jo Watson and Sally Thorne. Readers are raving about Not OK, Cupid! 'I'm pretty sure I have NEVER laughed so hard in my entire life...a rom-com fan's dream' 5* reader review 'Great characters, lots of laughs, and oh-so-hot sex scenes' 5* reader review 'Positively the best romantic comedy I've read in a long time' 5* reader review Love doesn't always follow the rules... Ally Rivers has three jobs, a disastrous dating record, and her gran won't stop talking about sex with eighty-year-old Melvin. Now her best friend Sam confesses his whole family think they're engaged. The longest relationship she's ever been in is fabricated, and her intended is gay. Playing Sam's besotted lover at a family party, Ally discovers the hot gardener she's been flirting with is Sam's dad, Marcus. She even sucks at fake relationships. But Marcus is on to them and embroils Ally in another scheme - encouraging Sam to come out. Scheming is not Ally's forte and, worse, she and Marcus are falling for each other. After years in an unhappy marriage, he's not letting Ally go without a fight, but she's torn between the best friend she'll ever have and the only man she's ever been in love with. Either choice will leave two broken hearts, and Gran will still have a more successful love life than her...

Release date: February 4, 2020

Publisher: Headline Eternal

Print pages: 277

Sample

Ally Rivers narrowed her eyes at the woman’s moustache. One remaining black hair moved up and down as she talked, waving like an antenna.

Ally readjusted the lamp to get it in focus. ‘If you just keep still for a moment, Mrs McDonald, then we’ll be done.’

Just as she wrapped the thread around the hair, it moved. Mrs McDonald cocked her head to peer up from the massage chair. ‘You look tired. Are they working you too hard here?’

‘Oh, no, Mandy’s doing me a favour with the extra hours. I’m saving up for a holiday so I want as many shifts as I can get. If I just remove this last hair . . .’

As Mrs McDonald nodded, the hair glinted in the light. With her tongue poking out the corner of her mouth, Ally leaned in for the kill.

Mrs McDonald frowned and cocked her head the other way. ‘It was Ibiza you went to last year, wasn’t it? Where this year?’

Ally sat up, trying not to look at the clock. Mrs McDonald had described the office she worked in, where she was the only woman and all the men sat in silence. It sounded nothing like the salon, with its constant buzz of chat and people coming and going. Making small talk with her was the least Ally could do while she ripped her facial hair out at the roots.

‘If I win the lottery, the Caribbean,’ Ally replied. ‘But probably Ibiza again on a late deal. I’m not very good at saving.’

‘I bet you’re not.’ Mrs McDonald grinned and the hair disappeared into a wrinkle. ‘I was like you once, always out partying, always . . .’

Ally’s mind drifted as she flexed her aching feet on the tiled floor. After fourteen days of extra shifts at the salon, the café and the bar, she’d seriously considered wearing her fluffy cow slippers to work.

This afternoon she was finishing early. Once the moustache was vanquished she could clean her station, collect her tips and top up her tan in the park for the rest of the day. That’d be kind of like a holiday – sun, sea (there was a lake), sand (in the children’s play area), and . . . well, no sex, but there was an ice cream van. She could get one of those cider lollies that tasted like Barcelona. And maybe on her way to Mum’s she’d buy some prawns so they could cook a paella together. With a glass of white wine and dinner on Mum’s patio, it’d be like an evening in Spain. Sort of.

She blinked back into focus when she noticed Mrs McDonald’s moustache had stopped moving.

‘Sorry, what did you say?’ she asked.

‘I asked if we could speed it up a bit. I have a meeting at two thirty.’

Ally flexed her feet and showed her teeth. ‘Sure. Just keep still for me and I’ll finish up.’

‘Ooh!’ said Mrs McDonald, as Ally leaned over her. ‘That’s a lovely necklace. Where did you get it?’

Half an hour later, Ally stepped out of the salon into beautiful July sunshine. Her sore feet rejoiced in flip-flops – the cow slippers might’ve been a bit hot – and she could feel the vitamin D buzzing in her bare limbs. All she needed was a beach, but west London wasn’t famed for its beaches.

At the end of the street she turned into the park and spotted the perfect patch of grass. It was soaked in sunshine, close enough to the stream to hear running water, but far enough away that she wouldn’t get eaten by a swan. If only she had a set of watercolours with her to capture the scene. She needed to build a new portfolio of paintings to go with her new ad. Not that anybody would commission her to paint landscapes, but people liked looking at that sort of thing.

With a happy sigh she stretched out on her back, kicked off her shoes and spread her arms like a snow angel. Glorious. Who needed to be rich when you had grass and sunshine?

Her phone rang just as she got comfortable, and she pressed it to her ear without opening her eyes. ‘Ally Rivers.’

‘Hi, Ally Rivers. It’s Samuel Kinsell.’

‘Sam! Sorry, thought you might be a client. I put that ad up on a bunch of websites. How’d you like my professional phone voice?’

‘Lovely. Beautiful, like you.’

Ally opened her eyes a crack.’ You want something.’ Sam might have been the only man in her life she hadn’t lost interest in within a few months – they’d been best friends for seventeen years – but he was also gay and never showed the slightest interest in her looks. In fact, he hadn’t even noticed that time a bad dye job had turned her hair carrot-orange.

Best not to think about the orange hair incident.

‘Of course I don’t want anything,’ Sam said. ‘Hey, you remember when we were fifteen and I retyped your history coursework after you dropped it in the pond?’

‘I couldn’t help it. A swan looked at me.’ She shot a look at the lake to see if they were listening.

‘Yeah. But I still typed it up and you said I was the best friend in the world and you’d repay the favour one day.’

‘You’ve been saving up that favour for thirteen years?’

‘Yup. Will you come to a party with me?’

She kicked off her shoes. ‘A party? Sure. You didn’t need to guilt trip me into a party. Well, unless it’s filled with my exes. When is it?’

‘Um. Seven o’clock.’

‘Today?’ She dug her bare toes into the grass and felt them protest. ‘Oh, Sam, I can’t. I need a night off.’

‘Ally, I need you,’ Sam said in a wheedling voice. ‘It’s Gavin’s engagement party. It’s the first time Mum and Dad will be in the same room for ages, and I want them to remember how good things were so Dad can get over this mid-life crisis or whatever it is and move back in. But Gavin’s bound to try to embarrass me in front of his friends and I’m already dying of heat exhaustion and I might end up battering someone with a champagne bottle. Look, there’ll be cocktail sausages and Prosecco. And maybe I can find some rich aunts who’ll hire you for portraits of my dick-head cousins.’

Ally closed her eyes and suppressed a sigh. Gavin. Sam had never been able to stand up to his bullying prick of an older brother, and things were awkward enough with their parents’ divorce in progress.

‘Well, if there’s Prosecco, sure,’ she said brightly.

‘Thank you, best friend ever.’ Sam’s relief was evident. ‘You didn’t have plans, did you?’

Mum wouldn’t mind cancelling dinner, and Ally could relax on her morning off next week. Well, it wasn’t exactly a morning off, but her first shift wasn’t until eleven so she could have a lie-in.

‘Nah,’ she said. ‘When do you want to meet?’

‘Three?’

That meant four, but he really wanted her to be on time.

‘Three. I’ll be there.’

After saying goodbye, she slipped her flip-flops back on and headed for the Tube station.

By three forty, Ally was ready in an azure cocktail dress with champagne nail polish. Twenty minutes to kill, and the sun was blazing through her living room window. She peered down at the front garden, fifteen feet below. It was in shadow thanks to the lime tree; nowhere to sunbathe.

Hitching the dress up her thighs, she hopped on to the window sill and swung her legs outside. Her anklet caught on the latch
and almost unbalanced her, but she wriggled into a comfortable position without further mishap.

The sun spread over her skin like she’d stepped into a warm bath. She crossed her ankles against the brickwork and curled her toes in pleasure.

She leaned forward when she caught a glimpse of bare skin. On the opposite side of the road, a few doors down, a shirtless man dug in his flowerbeds with a spade. Ally positioned herself so he was in view, but he finished gardening and went inside. Spoilsport.

She retrieved her phone from her clutch and the OkCupid icon notified her of several new messages. She scrolled through the profiles. After discounting the ones who’d sent her unsolicited dick pics, she was left with two married men whose wives ‘didn’t understand them’ and an estate agent. Not OK, Cupid.

‘Ally, what the hell are you doing?’ a voice called from the street.

Ally lowered the phone. Sam was crossing the road with his familiar stocky gait.

‘Sam!’ She swung her legs inside, hopped off the window ledge and ran downstairs.

Sam was waiting on the doorstep in a black suit and a blue tie that matched her dress and made his sandy hair look brighter.

‘Hello, sexy.’ She threw her arms around him, not minding that he was sweaty and radiating more heat than an atom bomb.

He kissed her cheek. ‘What were you doing hanging out of the window?’

‘Sunbathing.’

He pulled back and gave her a look. ‘Out of the window?’

‘I can’t sunbathe inside, can I? Anyway, let’s go. Your car has air con, right?’

Sam looked shifty. ‘Can I come in for a minute? I need to talk to you.’

‘Can’t you talk to me where there’s air con?’

‘Um. You might not want to go after this.’

Ally stared. ‘When have I ever not wanted to go to a party?’

‘You’ve never been to a party like this. Trust me.’

Uh-oh. Maybe his parents were swingers, and they’d arrive to a house full of middle-aged people in lingerie and leather. She shook her head to dispel the image. There’s no way Sam would want her in a room with his naked parents, let alone when they were . . . swinging, and Mrs Kinsell really, really didn’t seem the type, unless all the time she spent at ‘church’ was a euphemism.

‘I think you’d better come in,’ she said.

In the living room she dropped on to the sofa next to him, fanned her face with a copy of Vogue, and braced herself. ‘OK. Tell me.’

Sam cleared his throat. ‘You’re very generous, kind, helpful and, of course, beautiful.’

‘What have you done, Sam?’

‘Hey, I got you a present.’ He proffered a carrier bag, and Ally drew out an adult colouring book – her latest hobby – filled with pictures of animals.

‘Oh, great! Thank you.’

‘There are no swans in it. I checked.’

Ally kissed his cheek again. ‘You’re the best.’

‘No, you’re the best. You’re the best friend I could hope for and I know you’d do anything for me.’

‘Hmm?’ Ally flicked through the book to see if there were any cows.

‘I was saying how generous you are to your best friend.’

She dragged her attention away from a drawing of a cute giraffe eating a branch. ‘As much as I enjoy flattery, spit it out, Sam.’

‘I have a confession to make.’

‘Oh?’

‘I told a lie.’

Ally waited.

Sam cleared his throat. ‘You know my parents don’t know I’m gay?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘But I’m twenty-eight, so it’d look weird if I’d never had a girlfriend.’

Ally narrowed her eyes. ‘Uh. Huh.’

‘So, I told a little white lie.’

‘Go on.’

‘Hang on.’ Sam dug deeper into his pocket and pulled out a lollipop. Coca-Cola flavoured. ‘For you. Best friend ever.’

Ally snatched it. ‘You said I’m your girlfriend?’

He grimaced and nodded. ‘I mean, if I was going to have a girlfriend, it would have to be you. Since you’re so beautiful, not to mention kind, and would do anything for your friends. Anything.’

Ally waved a hand to bat the flattery away. ‘How long have I been your girlfriend?’

‘Uh . . .’

‘Sam?’

‘Three years.’

‘Three years?! Sam!’ Unbelievable. Sam’s outrageous lie was her longest lasting relationship. By almost three years.

‘Don’t be angry. I was forced into a corner.’

She folded her arms.

‘I was!’ he insisted. ‘Look, I’ve been making up girlfriends since I was sixteen and Gavin brought a girl home to meet Mum and Dad. Every time they put pressure on me to introduce a girlfriend, she’d mysteriously break up with me. I tell you, it’s lucky I’m gay because I have the worst luck with women.

‘Then one year Gavin got really drunk at Christmas and started telling everybody I was making it all up, hinting that women weren’t my type. Remember how he always called me a faggot when we were at school? So I blurted out that you and me had got together. I showed him a text where you said I was sexy and you loved me. I mean, he doesn’t know that you always say that even though we’d rather wax our pubic hair with sandpaper than have sex with each other. It shut him up right away, because he always fancied you in school and knew he never had a chance.

‘I was going to break up with you, I swear, but then Gavin started making digs about how far out of my league you are, and how you’d leave me for someone better-looking. So I made us more and more in love. Please don’t be angry, you know I—’

Ally clamped a hand over his mouth. ‘You know, I’m so damn impressed you’ve got away with this that I can’t be angry. Man, how did you do it? Haven’t they wanted to meet me before this?’

‘Of course. But you’ve been working so hard at your career, and you had a few placements at different hospitals around the country. It’s amazing we lasted through all that long-distance stuff. We must really be in love. But Gavin keeps hinting so I agreed to bring you today . . .’

So that’s why the big fat liar wanted her to go with him, not for moral support. Well, probably a bit of both. Gavin still terrified him, even though he was no longer a nervous schoolboy.

‘Hang on.’ Ally frowned. ‘Did you say hospitals? And career? What career?’

‘I told them you’re a nurse.’

‘Hey! What’s wrong with my real job?’

Sam winced. ‘Nothing. It’s just that you’re so caring and sweet. The perfect nurse. And, uh, Gavin’s fiancée is a lawyer . . .’

‘Oh, and being a starving artist isn’t as impressive as being a lawyer?’

‘I should’ve saved the lolly for this bit.’

‘Does that mean you didn’t bring any more gifts? No, don’t answer that. You’re not distracting me with lollies. You didn’t think this through, did you? I can hardly keep my story straight when I’m telling the truth. And what if one of your relatives shows me a rash and asks me to diagnose it?’

Sam shuddered. ‘I don’t know. Just never, ever describe it to me.’

‘Ugh. Are we going to have a fake wedding when they start hinting?’

‘Uh, about that . . .’ He rubbed his chin.

‘Please tell me we’re not married?’

‘Not yet. But I proposed to you a few months ago.’

‘Oh, Sam. You muppet.’

‘Look, Mum and Dad have been talking more since Gavin and Kaitlyn’s engagement. This party is the first time they’ll have been in the same room in months. If they see us as well, all these happy couples, they’ll remember why they got together in the first place and Dad might come to his senses, finally. Please, Ally. Mum needs him.’

Ally sighed. ‘I am not having a fake wedding. Or a real one. When I become a world-famous artist, you’re not getting half my paintings.’ She shook her head at the window. Sam was usually so sensible, giving her a familiar, weary look when she confessed the latest foolish thing she’d done. But he wasn’t sensible where his brother was concerned, forever seeking the prat’s approval. If this was what it took to save him from Gavin’s taunts, then fine.

She hopped up and looked down at her dress. Perhaps not ideal for meeting-the-parents; it just about reached mid-thigh, and the strapless sweetheart neckline just about covered her breasts. But screw it, she looked good and it was a shame to cover up on a beautiful summer’s day. Or a day ending in Y. ‘Come on, dear fiancé, or we’ll be late.’

Sam followed her down the hall, looking delighted. ‘You’ll do it?’

Of course she would. She’d pretend to be a Teletubby if it would help Sam.

But she would make him squirm by laying it on thick about how in love they were.

She made a mental note to call their other best friend before he did. It would take some convincing for Rachel to believe Sam had come up with this hare-brained scheme, not Ally.

‘Ally?’

She stopped, finding herself at the bottom of the stairs with Sam behind her, looking like a puppy who was trying so hard to be good and not snatch a treat.

‘Oh, of course I’ll do it,’ she said. ‘What are best friends for? But you owe me. Big time.’

He kissed her cheek, grinning. ‘I do. I’ll let you name all our fake babies.’

‘Eurgh. No babies. Real or fake. Where is this party, anyway?’

‘At Mum’s. Essex.’

Ally forced her outraged feet into high heels – dark blue, strappy, and doing wonderful things to her calves – and followed him outside to his Honda.

‘I get to control the radio today,’ she informed him. ‘For the rest of our lives, probably.’

She tuned it to Heart FM, and Michael Bublé crooned at them. Sam’s eyes slid to the radio display, but he kept his mouth shut. Ally unwrapped her lolly and crossed her ankles on top of the glove compartment so the sun could catch them. She just had to remember to re-cross them every few minutes to get an even tan.

‘Ally?’

‘Mm?’

‘Don’t flirt with my cousins, will you? They’re all arrogant pricks who’d only be interested in your body. Just your type.’

‘Hey!’

Sam raised an eyebrow at her.

‘Oh, all right,’ she conceded. ‘I won’t. Spoilsport. Do you actually like any of your family?’

‘Uh . . .’ He tapped the wheel. ‘My parents?’

‘Well, that’s a start. Do you really think they’d be upset if you come out?’

The tapping stopped. ‘Mum would. She thinks it’s unnatural. Perverted. When we were kids Gavin used to call me a fag when we argued, and she’d get so angry. Say it was disgusting even to suggest it.’

‘Oh, Sam. But she loves you. She’d get over it.’

Ally had only met Mrs Kinsell once. She and Rachel had gone to Sam’s place after school, back when the family lived in London. Mrs Kinsell, a petite woman with a strong limp who looked like a gust of wind might blow her away at any time, had hovered over them from the moment they arrived.

She’d given them orange squash and mini packets of Haribo, then told them fond stories about Sam while he sat red-faced and radiated silent apologies. For dinner she’d fed them chicken nuggets in the shape of dinosaurs with smiley potato faces on plastic neon plates, then insisted they go home for their bedtimes even though they were twelve and it was seven o’clock. They were out of the house before Sam’s dad was home from work.

Even now he lived seventy miles away, Sam visited her weekly and called every other day. The strain of keeping up his lies must be awful.

Ally squeezed Sam’s hand on the gearstick. ‘She’d come round.’

‘I don’t want to upset her. She’s really fragile. You’ll see.’

And Sam blamed himself for her disability, even though it wasn’t his fault she’d had pregnancy complications. That was yet
another reason for Ally to use an IUD, condoms, and take a monthly pregnancy test just in case the universe hated her.

She was about to change the subject when ‘Islands in the Stream’ started playing, and she sang at the top of her lungs.

Sam suffered in silence and didn’t even try to turn down the volume.



Sam and Ally arrived an hour before the party was due to start. The house was a run-of-the-mill semi-detached, clad in white stucco with picture windows. Well-kept but unremarkable, apart from the flowers – bright pansies and geraniums in window boxes, pink and yellow roses entwined around trellises, chrysanthemums and gladioli and flowers she didn’t even know the name of in the borders around the driveway. It was surprising that Sam’s mum could look after all these plants, but she did a great job.

‘This’d make a great watercolour,’ she said.

Sam wasn’t listening. He stared with tight lips at a red BMW on the driveway.

‘Gavin’s?’ she guessed.

Sam made a noise that might’ve been a confirmation. Ally took his hand, squeezed it, and dragged him to the front door. While he prodded the bell as if it were a ruptured cyst, she breathed in the scent of roses.

The door opened and Gavin smirked out at them. Ally was transported back fifteen years, watching him strut down the school corridor with a trio of giggling girls. Gavin would always pause to make them laugh by insulting his brother. Sam would stand and take it, frowning at the tiled floor like he could make himself disappear with the power of thought. It was Ally who told Gavin to piss off to the STI clinic where he belonged, or something equally mature. It was always her who fought with him until he gave up. Or sometimes Rachel, all five-foot-two of her blazing at the bully.

Even in appearance, Gavin hadn’t changed. A tailored suit made his skinny legs look even feebler, and he seemed to have slicked back his hair with lard.

Ally tried her best to look besotted as she pressed herself against Sam.

‘Well, hello,’ Gavin said, looking Ally up and down. His gaze lingered for a moment on her cleavage. ‘Barbie’s finally come to meet the parents.’

She stopped herself rolling her eyes. The nickname hadn’t been funny in school either, though Gavin found it ingenious. Instead, she beamed at him, full-on Stepford. ‘Gary! How simply wonderful to see you again.’

The smirk slipped. ‘Gavin.’

‘Oh. Silly me. Of course. I’m always forgetting names. Hey, d’you remember Sara French from school? I saw her the other day in Waitrose, and I called her Sandra. Embarrassing. You know how you two dated for a while? Well, she came out as a lesbian soon after. Happily married to a woman called Jess now. Funny that, isn’t it?’

‘Uh-huh.’ Gavin stepped aside to let them in. His expression had soured.

Sam leaned over to whisper in Ally’s ear as they walked. ‘I wish you’d bring mean Ally out more often. She’s sexy.’

Ally tried to look offended. ‘I’m always sexy.’

Gavin led them to the kitchen and introduced them to his fiancée, Kaitlyn. She was very pretty but spoiled her features by making a cat’s-bum face when she appraised Ally’s dress. Kaitlyn’s was a similar blue, and probably cost six times more than Ally’s, but it washed out her auburn hair and pale skin. She’d be a knockout in olive green.

‘We were so sad not to see you at Julie’s birthday party,’ said Kaitlyn. Ally sat next to her at the breakfast bar and held Sam’s clammy hand on her knee. ‘It was absolutely gorgeous. Gavin got a cake specially made, in the shape of her church. He’s so thoughtful.’ Kaitlyn simpered at him.

‘Ally was at work,’ Sam blurted out.

Ally stroked his hand with her thumb. ‘Yeah, you know nurses. Always short-staffed. It’s hard to swap shifts. Being a lawyer must keep you busy.’

‘It’s not easy,’ Kaitlyn agreed. ‘Some days I don’t leave the office until nine p.m., do I, darling?’

Gavin shook his head and winked at her as he lifted a cooler box on to the breakfast bar. ‘Don’t know when we’re going to find time to make a little Kinsell. When are you two getting hitched?’

Sam was going to dehydrate if the rest of his body was sweating as much as his palm. Ally gripped it harder. ‘We’re in no hurry. We don’t need to prove anything with a bit of paper.’

‘Or a ring.’ Kaitlyn lifted up Ally’s free hand.

Gavin’s eyes lit up. ‘Sam, you didn’t even get her a ring?’

Ally tugged at the gold chain around her neck, dragging her nana’s antique sapphire ring from her cleavage. She put her best simpering smile on. ‘I keep it next to my heart.’

Kaitlyn’s smirk vanished as she examined her own ring finger. The stone was significantly smaller than. . .