Getting Serious

It was the chocolate bar that did it. It had to have been. Rachel had a sweet tooth, and Kit Kat's were her favourite. That minor 'gift' must have spilled her affection rating over the edge and onto two hearts.

The irony was that, for once, Luke hadn't even been thinking about the Romance Mechanic when he put his money into the vending machine. He just felt it would be impolite not to bring his buddy back a snack after treating himself to one. Now something had changed in her. He could tell. The way she kept stealing glances at him. The frequency with which she was preening her hair.

Before long. the working day was done. The pair clocked off at the exact same second, just like they always did, and walked down the otherwise empty stairwell together, since Rachel didn't like stepping into a crowded lift. At some point she stopped, quite deliberately, and smiled at Luke. She was twirling her locks playfully, a mischievous glint in her eye.

"So, just to be clear, my date with you tomorrow is completely locked in, right?" she checked "I'm not going to get bumped for one of your many other women at the last minute?"

"No chance, I'm really looking forward to it"

Luke genuinely meant that. He'd longed for the chance to date Rachel ever since he first started working with her, but never thought it would actually happen. The fact she had found herself in any sort of queue to be taken out by him was testament to just how crazy his life had gotten recently.

"I'm very happy to hear that" she smiled "But just to be sure, here is something that should keep me in your thoughts"

She pushed Luke gently towards the wall and kissed him. It wasn't prolonged or aggressive, more like a brief, sensual teaser of what he could expect on their date. Her body remained in close contact with Luke's, her lips mere inches from his so he could taste her breath, as she pulled back only slightly to speak again.

"So you''ll come and pick me up at three, right?"

Moments later footsteps could be heard, rapidly increasing in volume, and Phil came into view. Rachel took a step back from Luke and adjusted her hair, a wicked smirk on her lips.

"Bye Phil!"

He said nothing in response to Rachel's cheeky farewell, but hurried past them both with an undisguised scowl. It was a 'life isn't fair' kind of an expression - why was Luke allowed to date as many women as he wanted, while Phil could only have one? And even she was now well on the way to becoming part of his colleague's harem.

Almost feeling sorry for Phil by this point, rather than rub the situation in his face, Luke waited for his former rival to pass by before kissing Rachel goodbye.

Then it was time to prepare for his date with Jools.

---

Jools was ready and waiting for Luke when he arrived to pick her up from work. She looked even more stunning than the last time he had seen her.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, after a whole day rushed off her feet in a restaurant, the last thing his date wanted was to be taken for a meal, so she had suggested a comedy club instead. She recommended a nearby venue where famous names apparently showed up unannounced quite often to test new material.

That wouldn't have been Luke's first choice of activity. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy stand up comedy, but he couldn't see how he was supposed to raise Jools' affection level if he wasn't able to talk to her. However, the venue had a bar where the pair could share a drink before and after the show, which only lasted for an hour. In the interests of keeping his connection happy, he raised no objection to her plan.

Luke needed to make the somewhat limited time he had with Jools that evening count. He was absolutely determined to end their date with a make out session, and didn't want to have to wait too long before unlocking her nudity options, both on the app and in real life.. To that end, he decided to give his date her gist or, more accurately, gifts, almost the moment they took their seats at the bar. He just had to find a way to make his choice of present look like an inspired guess and not the result of information gathered by a stalker.

"So, sometimes I like to bring a gift when I'm on a date" Luke lied as he reached into his bag "I was out shopping earlier, saw these, and just kind of thought of you"

He pulled out a pair of blue socks covered with pictures of cute little kittens and passed them to Jools. That seemed to scan with the conversation they had the previous evening.

Juliet instantly gushed with joy at the seemingly thoughtful gesture, even letting out an adorable squealing sound that didn't sound far off a kitten itself. She leaned over to hug Luke before inspecting her gift with admiration.

"I absolutely love these! I'm a complete nerd when it comes to cute and quirky socks. I used to love them as a kid and never grew out of the obsession. Look!"

She raised the hem of her trousers to reveal the Little Mermaid footwear she had on as a hidden part of her otherwise impeccably stylish outfit.

"Well, I'm very really glad to hear that. Because I was a little undecided which pair to get you, so..."

Luke had used Chat GPT to uncover a well hidden but relatively local shop selling nothing but socks, and swung by it between work and picking Juliet up. Since he hadn't established many of his dates likes yet, he had leaned very heavily into the cat/sock combination for gifts, pulling four slightly different pairs from his bag and handing them to his date one at a time, to ensure they would be counted separately.

She loved each pair equally, and the fifth and final one was met with a prolonged buzzing sensation from Luke's phone. That meant she was the second of his connections to reach the two heart mark within a matter of hours. He was really making progress now.

This time, rather than hugging Luke to thank him for her present, Jools threw her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply. She smiled coyly, with her eyes almost seeming to sparkle, as she pulled back but maintained eye contact with a silent smile for a few moments after. Luke almost felt giddy.

However, he managed to compose himself enough to resume their conversation and begin the push towards three hearts, and all that would come with it. Now Jools seemed more willing to share personal information with Luke. He had assumed, due to her conventional beauty, that Jools was probably aiming at landing a part in a soap or something similar. In fact, she was a classically trained actress. Her parents had been as well, and Juliet was named after the famous Shakesperian role, which her mother had once been cast in at the Stratford theatre.

It was a different iconic character, Ophelia in a Midsummer Nights Dream, that Jools had been lined up to play in London's West End in the coming weeks, though only as an understudy for now. Nonetheless, it was a huge production with a big name star in front of her, so the signs that her own time in the spotlight would come were highly promising.

The getting-to-know-you conversation was brought to a pause as the doors for the show opened. Jools insisted on sitting in the front row, which Luke would usually be **** to do at a comedy event. However, he didn't want to disappoint his date or seem like a coward, so put up no resistance.

The first few acts weren't much to write home about - just run of the mill, semi-professional comedians who weren't doing anything Luke hadn't seen before. Then, with about fifteen minutes left, a very excited looking compare practically bounced onto the stage as he prepared to announce the final act.

"Ladies and gentleman, as you will be aware, this venue is occasionally blessed with some of very the top comedy talent in the country, who use this stage as a platform to test new material here before anyone else gets to see it being performed. On that note, I am delighted to welcome the beautiful and hilarious Sasha Stone!"

The audience went wild, and Luke suddenly found himself in the slightly surreal position of sitting only a few feet away from one of the hottest, in every sense of the word, celebrities in the county.

Sasha Stone was a bonafide household name in the UK. She was first and foremost a stand up comedian, but she barely seemed to be off the TV, appearing also on panel shows, talk shows and as the star of her very popular and award winning self-penned sitcom. This was about as big as a coup as the venue could have realistically pulled that night.

There was no doubting Sasha's talent, but Luke always felt she had got a major push to the top because she was almost unfairly attractive. He was one of probably millions of British men who had lusted after her from his armchair at home for the past few years. Now he was sitting and watching her in the flesh, where she looked no less stunning.

As the comedian began her set, Luke felt his phone buzzing. That was always an exciting event for him now, so he instinctively pulled it out to see what Romance Mechanic related update he might have received. In fact, it was a false alarm - a WhatsApp message from a group chat he had been included in and forgotten to disable notifications for. To make matters worse, when he looked back up he could see that he had caught Sasha's attention.

He scrambled urgently to get his phone back into his pocket, but it was too late.

"No, please, make sure you're up to date with all your messages, I can just work around you" the comedian told him sarcastically "Are you completely certain you're done? You don't want to check in on your Hinge matches? Because that total hottie next to you can't seriously be your date?"

She walked over towards Luke and Jools like a shark that had smelt blood.

"Is she genuinely here with you?"

Luke nodded.

"How the fuck did that happen?" Sasha turned to Jools briefly "Sorry to be so indiscreet, but is he paying you? Did you leave your drink unattended at any point this evening?"

Jools laughed, placed her hand on Luke's knee supportively, and shook her head.

"Then what? Do you like big eyebrows? Unkempt hair? A man who dresses like an undercover policeman from 2008?"

Andy felt like he wanted his seat to swallow him, but then Sasha broke into a friendly smile.

"What's your name?"

"Luke"

"I'm just messing with you Luke. Enjoy the rest of the evening"

Sasha winked at him before turning back and returning to the centre of the stage, which actually gave Luke butterflies. For her part, Jools seemed delighted to have been included as part of the show.

His phone was buzzing again. The group chat had probably kicked off now. No way was he risking checking it until the show was over.

Luke only braved another glance at his notifications once he was safely back in the bar. It turned out that second buzz had come courtesy of the RM app. There was a new name on his Love List.

Well, this was an extremely interesting and welcome development.

A

The post show drink Luke had in the bar with Jools was pleasant, if uneventful. He was able to laugh off his roasting from the famous comedian, and continue to bond with his date. By the end of the evening he was still quite a way off hitting the three heart mark with Juliet and unlocking those all important nudity options. He nonetheless enjoyed the steamy make out session they had in the alley outside the comedy club before they each made their separate journeys home.

It had been a wonderful night with a beautiful woman that couldn't have gone much better. And yet the overriding thought Luke couldn't get out of his was that he now had one of the country's sexiest celebrities sitting on his love list, just waiting to have her hearts filled by him.