Dan Taylor Is Giving Up on Women by Neal Doran

repetition, stretching far beyond Middle Eastern and Mediterranean foodstuffs.
    It was when we were all laughing over Niamh and I simultaneously shouting ‘NAP-KINS’ that I sat bolt upright in shock as I felt an unshod foot sliding itself up my right calf. It was the shock that caused me to swallow suddenly the unstoned olive I had just flipped casually into my gob, and which lodged itself firmly in what is known as ‘the wrong way’.
    I started to heave and panic as I realised I couldn’t breathe, and pushed myself back from the table. The ‘ack-ack’ noises I was making first prompted giggling from those around me, but as I fumbled and grabbed at my neck I saw the smiles drop and mouths fall open in surprise.
    ‘Dan, are you OK?’ Hannah’s voice had an edge of panic too.
    Stupidly trying to answer made me panic more. I tried to get to my feet, but instantly buckled under my weight and fell to the floor. I felt as if I was beginning to lose consciousness, my mind racing for ways to tell them I needed help.
    The last thing I remember is realising that the seductive foot had been on my right calf, the wrong side of the table for it to have been Niamh’s. I couldn’t believe that that bastard Rob was going to kill me with a wind-up.

Chapter Four
    It was Sunday morning in the gym, crowded with the usual influx of fair-weather members. People still in that burst of New Year enthusiasm and all convinced that this was the year they really would get in shape. People like me. With the loud dance music and rhythmically clanking machinery it felt like a cross between a nightclub and a Victorian textile mill, and about as much fun as either.
    As I walked between the aisles of whirring treadmills, and pumping step machines, I saw that Rob was already in place, over by the weights apparatus, finishing a series of reps on the lats machine. He was slyly adding twenty kilos to the weight as he left it for the next guy to use.
    ‘Sport! You made it alive and in one piece,’ he said in greeting as I found a free spot on a chest press.
    ‘I’ve been eating nothing but soup since Friday,’ I said, ‘which is a strange thing to have for Sunday breakfast.’
    As you might have gathered, I didn’t die on Friday night. Some quick thinking from Rob cleared the Mediterranean blockage, but I still hadn’t quite forgiven him yet for causing me to choke in the first place. After I’d got back on my feet I’d made my excuses and a pretty quick exit before I nearly died again of humiliation. I’d hidden myself away since then, but after I received the text from Rob, all but daring me to chicken out of our planned fitness drive, I decided it was time to face the — annoyingly high-NRG — music.
    ‘So have you two heard from Niamh at all since I, y’know…?’
    ‘Since I saved your life, do you mean?’ asked Rob.
    I let the press’s weights clang back into place as I finished my reps and swapped over with Rob, who watched and waited as a young blonde, glimmering from a spin class, walked past chugging greedily on a water bottle.
    ‘I mean, since I had a little embarrassing difficulty with a morsel of food,’ I said.
    ‘You make it sound like you had a bit of spinach in your teeth — that’s gratitude.’
    ‘Anything at all from her?’ I asked, doing my best not to get involved in the argument over heroics.
    ‘She left straight after you. Yesterday she may have phoned and spoken to H. There may have been some questions as to the state of your health after your NEAR DEATH experience. And there may have been some sniggering after that.’
    ‘The evening didn’t go too well, I guess.’
    ‘Oh, you didn’t think so?’
    ‘It was just as we were starting to click,’ I offered hopefully.
    ‘Pal, it was brutal in there. When you collapsed I seriously had to consider whether it would’ve been kindest to let you slip away peacefully.’
    ‘You know how I am,’ I said. ‘It takes a while for me to get relaxed around