The Ideal Boyfriend
A ROMANTIC SHORT STORY BY STEFANIA HARTLEY
Could Josh match Elise’s description of the perfect partner?
Josh had fallen in love with Elise. Together with other students, they shared a flat in the university’s halls, but their different timetables meant that they only met at dinnertime.
Josh spent hours in the kitchen, engaged in lengthy and complicated recipes, preferably involving the tossing of food in the air.
He would time his recipes to coincide with her dinner so that he could sit at the kitchen table with her.
If their flatmates had worked out that he was holding a candle – or rather, a flame – for her, they hadn’t said anything.
And if Elise had any inkling about his feelings for her, she hadn’t shown it, either.
With every day that passed, the thought that some other guy, braver than himself, would beat him to the post, gave Josh considerable anxiety.
So one morning, Josh gathered his courage and walked to her room with the intention of asking her out.
The door was open.
He knocked but nobody answered. He peered inside. Nobody there.
Something attracted Josh’s attention – an A4 sheet of paper, pinned to a corkboard, covered in pink hearts.
Josh’s own heart sank to the pit of his stomach.
Was there already someone in Elise’s heart?
He took a step in. On the sheet there was a list.
“Intelligent, loyal, good company, affectionate, not too sleepy, not too loud, not too energetic, not aggressive, loves people and children,” Josh read.
Josh couldn’t believe his luck.
This had to be Elise’s wish list for the ideal boyfriend, and it could only mean that she didn’t already have a love interest.
Armed with this list, he could make sure to tick all her boxes.
He wasn’t sure how intelligent Elise wanted her man, but he was loyal and affectionate with the people he loved.
He could be good company when he was in the mood, and he could be quiet when needed.
He loved people and he loved children, so that wasn’t a problem at all.
And he didn’t have an aggressive bone in his body.
He just had to show Elise that he ticked all her boxes.
But before he had read down to the bottom of the list and the last item, he heard steps in the corridor.
It wouldn’t look good if Elise found him snooping in her room.
He squeezed out of there and back to his room.
Next stop would be the library.
Intelligent and loyal, Elise thought of Josh while she was dissecting a fish in her afternoon zoology class.
The night before, Josh had cooked a whole sea bass with ginger and spices and had shared it with her, but only after cleaning it of its bones.
Josh was caring and sweet like this, and she had fallen for him from the first week.
But dating a flatmate was a taboo in the students’ community.
If the relationship broke down, there would be tension in the flat and everyone would suffer.
But this didn’t mean that she couldn’t enjoy watching his cooking displays – pancakes-tossing, ultra-fast slicing, blow-torch antics – and having dinner with him.
She just had to keep it strictly within the friendship and give no hints of her true feelings.
Walking home, she wondered what he might be cooking tonight.
But when she got to the kitchen, Josh wasn’t cooking anything at all.
Instead, he sat at the kitchen table with his nose in a book, frowning in concentration, and a sandwich in his hand.
“Only a sandwich for dinner?” she asked him, surprised.
“No time to cook. I’m busy reading this,” he said, flipping over the cover of the book.
The title read “Advanced Quantum Physics”.
“But I thought you studied art,” she said, confused.
“This isn’t for my course. I just like to stretch my mind,” he said, before returning his attention to the pages of the tome.
Elise microwaved a potato for her dinner and sat next to him, waiting for the moment he would put the book down and chat with her as usual.
But she finished her potato, her baked beans and her apple, and that moment didn’t come.
This wasn’t the dinner together she had been looking forward to all day.
She wracked her brains for topics that could interest him enough to put the book down.
“Which is your favourite football team?” she asked.
He looked up at her with apprehension, as if the question were a test.
“Er . . .” he hesitated.
“Manchester United?”
“You don’t seem convinced,” she said.
“Oh, no, I am! The most loyal fan!” he hurried to say.
“It’s fine, I don’t mind which team you support. I’m not into football,” she reassured him.
“But if you were,” he went on, “and you tried to make me change my mind about which team I support, I would never.
“Loyalty is very important to me, and I have it in spades!”
Elise was confused. Josh was behaving very strangely tonight.
He returned to his book and Elise’s hope of spending a cosy evening chatting with him evaporated.
Josh was trying to get his head around the extra dimensions of string theory, when a thought came into his mind.
He needed to consider all the items in Elise’s list at once.
What good was it to tick the intelligence box by reading this tome at the dinner table, if he then failed the “good company” requisite?
He slammed the book closed and, turning to Elise, asked her how her day had been.
She instantly smiled and told him about the fish dissection that had gone wrong and the experiment that hadn’t worked.
He wanted to squeeze her hand in sympathy, but with the kitchen full of people, it didn’t feel like the right place to be intimate and affectionate like that.
They needed to go out, somewhere they wouldn’t be surrounded by people who knew them.
“Shall we go for a walk?” he suggested.
She hesitated and he immediately regretted offering such a lame suggestion.
He needed to take Elise somewhere quiet so that he could be affectionate, but he also needed to be good company and entertaining.
He must show her that he could be the life of the party.
Of course, what he needed was a party!
“Let’s go to the nightclub!”
Elise regretted telling Josh about her day’s misadventures.
Of course she had bored him with her moaning!
But to have bored him so much that he now needed a night out at the nightclub was a little crushing.
Also because she would have rather continued chatting with him in the kitchen.
She had almost turned down his invitation but then thought better of it – what if he went out without her anyway?
She hated thinking of him dancing with other girls.
So now she was on the dance floor, bobbing half-heartedly to the music while her feet were killing her.
On the contrary, Josh was dancing like a dervish.
He gestured to follow him to the stage.
That was where the most extroverted dancers showed off their moves.
Certainly not for her.
“No, thanks,” she shouted over the loud music. “I’m not feeling as energetic as you.”
As if she had pressed a switch, he stilled suddenly.
Had she said something wrong?
Taking her hand, he led her away from the dance floor towards the sofas.
How considerate of him!
They sat down and her feet thanked her.
But she started to feel guilty about taking him away from the dance floor, which he had seemed to enjoy very much.
“You don’t have to sit with me, if you want to dance,” she offered.
“Oh, I’m totally out of energy. I’m not an energetic guy,” he said, while his foot betrayed him, tapping to the rhythm.
Elise was ever more confused.
Josh told himself that he must be more careful.
He had almost failed the “not too energetic” requirement.
Thankfully, he had stopped himself just in time.
Now that they were sitting in a quiet corner, with the music in the background and soft lighting, it must be his chance to tick off the “affectionate” box.
But what exactly would she like him to do?
The same gesture could be considered restrained by someone, and too forward by someone else.
This was a territory fraught with danger.
So Josh did what he had wanted to do when they were in the kitchen and she was offloading about her bad day – he patted her hand.
“You can go and dance, if you want,” she said, misunderstanding the gesture.
“I’ll just have a little more rest, then I’ll join you.”
Josh regretted suggesting going to the nightclub when she had already told him how tiring her day had been.
“No, it’s fine. We can sit here as long as you like,” Josh said.
“Thanks,” she said with obvious relief.
“And if you’d like to go home, that’s fine too,” he said.
“Actually, I do. Do you mind?”
“Not at all!”
Outside, the night was quiet and the air refreshing, and the moon had risen in a clear sky.
It was a nicely romantic setting for ticking the affectionate box.
Josh was about to reach for Elise’s hand when he heard some shouting.
“My phone! Give it back! Thief!”
He whipped round and saw a girl chasing after a guy, clutching a glittery pink phone, running in his direction.
Josh didn’t think twice.
He intercepted the thief and tackled him to the ground.
The man punched and tried to wriggle free but Josh pinned him down.
A scuffle ensued until the girl caught up, snatched her phone from the thief and Josh let the guy go.
The girl thanked him profusely, but now Josh had a bleeding lip and a black eye, and Elise looked shaken.
Josh remembered point six of the boyfriend’s wish list – “not aggressive” – and groaned.
There was no way he hadn’t failed that one.
Despite the last night, Josh had set his alarm at six o’clock so that he could tick the “not too sleepy” box in Elise’s list.
It had taken a very loud alarm, positioned far from the bed, and all Josh’s willpower, to drag him out of bed at that hour.
And now he was groggily preparing his breakfast in the kitchen.
Elise appeared at the door.
“You’re up early,” she said, rubbing her eyes.
“I don’t need much sleep. I’m not a sleepy person,” he said, immediately betrayed by a yawn.
“I thought you liked sleeping in,” she said, looking confused.
“People can grow out of bad habits,” he said.
“You’re up early, too. Early lecture?”
“I was woken up by your alarm. I could hear it through the wall,” she said.
Oh, no. This was going to make him fail the “not too loud” point.
“I’m so sorry. You won’t hear a noise coming from my room again!” he promised.
He rushed to the shops and bought a pair of wireless headphones which he connected to his TV, laptop, phone and his alarm clock.
Elise was ever more puzzled by Josh’s behaviour.
He seemed to be a different person, and she wasn’t sure she liked the new Josh as much as the old one.
Tonight, at dinnertime, she would try and find out what had happened.
When she got home that evening, she headed for the kitchen, hoping to find him there, singing as he cooked, as usual.
But he wasn’t there.
She knocked on his door, but there was no answer.
All was silent inside, but light seeped under the door. Was he ignoring her?
He must be cross with her about last night.
If she had snatched the phone from the thief while Josh was tackling him, perhaps he would have received fewer punches.
Instead, she had stood on the spot, petrified with fear for him, until the girl had caught up.
She knocked once more. No answer again.
So she padded over to the kitchen sadly, resigned to have dinner on her own.
Josh pulled his headphones off.
He had been wearing them all afternoon and now his ears were sweaty, but after waking Elise with his alarm, he couldn’t risk breaking her list’s decibel requirement again.
Was she still upset with him for waking her up? He was about to find out.
He stepped out of his room to go to the kitchen, when two children ran out of another room, cutting in front of him.
“Sorry,” Daisy, another of his flatmates, said.
“My nieces have been cooped up in my room all day and they’re bouncing off the walls!
“My sister has left them with me for the day and they’re driving me crazy.”
Josh’s ears pricked up.
Wasn’t “loves people and children” one of the items on the list?
“If you like, I’ll help you entertain them,” he offered.
“Oh, yes, please!” Daisy agreed.
“I’ll fetch my football and I’ll meet you out on the grass,” he told Daisy.
The patch of grass at the entrance of their block was in good view of the kitchen window.
With some luck, Elise would see him entertain the children and he would have ticked the “good with children” box.
Elise had finished her supper but there was
still no sign of Josh in the kitchen.
It saddened her that he’d rather eat in his room and give up on a cooked supper than risk meeting her in the kitchen.
Could he be unwell instead?
She was about to head back to his room when she heard a voice coming from outside.
“Pass it here!”
She could recognise that voice in a million.
Elise ran to the window and her heart squeezed when she saw him kicking a ball with Daisy and two little girls.
So this was the reason for all his strange behaviours – he was in love with Daisy!
After playing football, Josh had given piggyback rides to Daisy’s nieces, and played aeroplanes with them, followed by hide-and-seek and tag.
By the time the girls’ mum had come to collect them, he was exhausted.
He had hoped that Elise would come out and join them, or at least watch them from the kitchen window, but there had been no sign of her all evening.
He met her the next morning in the kitchen, when she was having breakfast.
He had taken to waking up early.
The day became so much longer.
“Hi, how are you?” he asked her jovially.
“Fine. You?” she replied without a smile.
Was she cross with him?
He couldn’t have woken her up again – his alarm now went through his headphones.
“Did you have fun playing with Daisy’s nieces last night?” she asked, avoiding eye contact.
This was his chance to impress her.
“Oh, yes! They’re great kids.
“I love children.”
“But Daisy is your flatmate,” she went on.
Flatmates shouldn’t date, everyone knows that – don’t you?
“I’m not dating Daisy!”
“But you want to, don’t you?”
“Not at all! You’ve totally misunderstood.”
Was this why she was giving him the cold shoulder?
Was she jealous?
Emboldened by that thought, he gathered his courage.
“I played with her nieces because they were bored, and because I wanted to impress you.
“I would like us to be more than friends,” he confessed.
“Oh.” A smile spread across Elise’s face. She looked beautiful.
“Actually, I’d like that, too,” she admitted shyly.
“I just thought it wouldn’t be a good idea, as we are flatmates.”
“But in a few months, we’ll move out of here and we won’t be flatmates anymore,” Josh said.
“We just have to make sure we don’t break up before then.
“I’ll do my best to tick all your boxes so you don’t have to break up with me.”
She looked a little puzzled, then smiled and kissed him.
That evening, on his way to the kitchen, Josh knocked on Elise’s door.
“Would you like to have supper together?” he asked her.
“I’d love to. We could also cook together.”
“Excellent idea.”
But Josh’s happiness drained away as his gaze fell on the corkboard.
The list with the pink hearts was still there.
Why would she need the wish list if she already had a boyfriend?
Then his gaze fell on the last item in the list, the one he hadn’t managed to read the first time.
Gets along with other dogs, it said.
Josh burst into laughter.
All this time, he had tried to tick all the boxes of Elise’s wish list for a pet dog!
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