by K. C. Crowne
“Glad to hear I’ve got a little fan club.”
I approached the door to Mom’s room and saw her in her usual spot near the window, her usual reading material of some trashy eighties romance book written in braille overturned in her lap. The man she’d been talking to was a tall, broad-shouldered orderly who was, in fact, quite handsome – though he couldn’t have been older than twenty-five. He glanced up at me as I approached and smiled.
“Well, looks like you’ve got a visitor,” he announced. “I’ll leave you to it.”
“Oh, see you around, Marcus.” They both laughed as Marcus headed out the door.
“She’s something else,” he said to me as he passed.
“Don’t I know it.”
He smiled warmly as he stepped through the door and left Mom and me alone.
“I see you didn’t waste any time flirting with the newest orderly,” I said with a smirk as I entered, setting my makeup bag on the dresser and going over to Mom to give her a hug and a kiss.
“A gal’s gotta have her fun somehow around here.”
She hugged me and I took a seat on the edge of the bed. The room was small but cozy, decorated with pictures of Mom and me, along with some paintings she’d done when she still had her eyesight. “What’s the deal with the makeup bag?” She gestured in the direction of the kit I’d brought with me.
“How did you know it was a makeup bag?” I asked.
“I swear, kiddo – after nearly a decade of me being blind as a bat I’d think you’d be hip to my superhuman hearing by now.”
“Still,” I said, leaning back on my palms. “It never stops being surprising.”
“I’m like a bat – total echolocation. But I don’t need that to know you’re showing up here to visit alone. Again.”
“Mom, I don’t know why you think one day I’m going to stroll in with a fiancé or something. I haven’t had a serious boyfriend in years.”
“Believe me, I know,” she grumbled. “But you have to let your mom dream, right? A nice little fantasy that I’d hear your tap-tap-tap along with the boom-boom-boom of a man’s feet along with you. And hell, why not the pitter-patter of a pair of little shoes along with them? If I’m going to dream, I’ll dream big.”
I chuckled even though I was eager to change the subject. Mom wasn’t about to let me off the hook that easily. A wicked grin formed on her lips, her eyes widening with excitement.
“Wait, is that why you’ve got the makeup bag?” She leaned forward in her seat. “Tell me you’ve got a date tonight, kid.”
I rose and paced slowly across the room. Despite being blind, Mom was able to follow me with her eyes. She set aside her book, rose from her chair, and leaned against the window behind her. Years of being sightless had taught her how to move around the world almost as effectively as someone with sight. If her eyes didn’t have that milky look to them, it’d be easy to forget she didn’t have her vision.
“It’s not a date,” I said.
Mom cocked her head to the side in confusion. “Is it with a man?”
“Yeah.”
“Is it for business?”
“Nope.”
“And it’s just you and him?”
“Just him and me.
She hooted happily. “Then it’s a date!” She smacked her hands together. “Hot damn! Who’s the lucky guy?”
“He’s this patient I had today, an Irish guy with bad vision.”
“How bad are we talking?” Mom asked. “Because if he’s totally blind you’d better send him my way instead – we’d have a hell of a lot in common.”
“Mom,” I said, my tone flat.
“Alright, alright. I’ll get myself in check. But a handsome Irishman? God, I used to date an Irishman. His name was Killian, and this was back in, ah…seventy-seven? I was a hippie, he was a businessman from Dublin. And let me just say, opposites most definitely attracted.”
“M-om,” I said.
Mom let out a raucous laugh. “Anyway,” she said. “That’s great! You’ve finally got something going on that doesn’t involve getting people to read tiny letters of a chart.”
“That’s actually how this started,” I said. “I gave him an eye exam and…”
“He made out with you right there in the middle of the exam room!” she finished, her voice dripping with excitement.
I reached over and took Mom’s romance book, the cover an impossibly beefy guy with piercing green eyes, his shirt open enough to show off his comically built physique, a sexy woman in a tight dress in one arm.
“You’ve been reading too many of these books, Mom,” I said, setting the book back down on the stand.
Once it was down, however, I craned my neck to take a longer look at the man on the cover – tall and built and handsome with green eyes. Replace the ripped shirt with a parka, and he looked a hell of a lot like—
“You ask me, you don’t read enough of them,” she chided, raising a finger in my direction. “You’ve gotten so wrapped up in work that you’re forgetting about love and romance and s-e-x.”
“Thanks for spelling it out for me, Mom,” I said with a chuckle.
“Just saying. I know you like to live your life a hell of a lot more…deliberately than me. You like to have your schedule and your plans and your routine. And I get it – I really do,” she assured me. “But you need to loosen up and have some fun every now and then. I swear, you’re half my age and I cut loose more with my girls at lunch than you do. What’s up with that?”
“I just don’t want any distractions,” I said.
“Is that right? Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like your life is full of them. As in, distractions from one of the few things that really matter in life – love.”
“I’ll get to it when I get to it. I’m happy with my life. I really am.”
“Sure, sure.”
“Anyway,” I said, emphasizing each syllable to change the subject. “Enough about my love life. What’s been going on with you?”
I stepped over to the mirror and began touching up my makeup as Mom told me all about her adventures around the community with her friends. I was happy to hear it all, of course. Knowing Mom was in good hands and had a fun group of ladies to pass the time with went a long way toward making me feel better about her situation.
As I put the finishing touches of my makeup on, Mom’s best friends showed up to take her to dinner.
“See you, Mom,” I said, giving her a kiss as we departed.
“See you, sweetie. And remember what I said – have some fun! You deserve it!” Her friends took her off, leaving me alone.
I sighed, wondering if fun was anything close to how I felt about the evening ahead.
Chapter 5
PATRICK
A strange-as-hell feeling formed in the pit of my stomach as I sat at the bar of Park’s. The feeling was so damn strange, in fact, that it took me some serious thinking to figure out what the hell it was.
I was nervous.
Not truly nervous, to be sure. I wasn’t scared of Lola or anything like that. More like I was so damn eager to see her again, to get the evening going. I was so used to having women hanging off me whenever I wanted that meeting her, a woman who seemed immune to my charms, was new and exciting.
I checked my watch as I took in the neon-purple, ultra-hip interior of Park’s. She was running late. The bartender, a stylish young man dressed in skinny jeans and a white button-up shirt, approached me.
“Another?” he asked, nodding to the empty glass of the beer I’d just finished. I nodded and seconds later the glass was full.
Since I was waiting anyway, I slipped out my phone and decided to get a little research done – part of being a self-made entrepreneur like myself was always working when I could. I opened Google and typed in “haunted locations in Denver,” wanting to see if there was possibly anywhere nearby I could add onto my itinerary.
“Hey.”
I turned in my seat and there she was
. And damn, did she look good.
Lola was dressed in the same clothes she’d been wearing at the clinic, but there was no doctor’s coat to hide her body. Her tight, dark blue jeans clung to her curves, her striped sweater stretched over her ample chest. Her makeup was done up – nothing crazy, just a little accentuation of her gorgeous eyes and full lips.
My cock shifted in my jeans, my body informing me it was well aware of the incredible specimen of beauty that stood before me. I cleared my throat and made a conscious effort to shove down the part of me that wanted to react to Lola like some kind of horny schoolboy.
“Hey,” I said, rising from my seat and giving her a quick peck on each cheek. “Good to see you again.”
Her body tensed a bit as I kissed her, and I sensed that she was either nervous or not used to dates. I gestured to the seat next to mine and we sat down.
“Sorry,” she said. “Didn’t mean to run late on you. I had to make some calls to the office about appointments tomorrow.
“Your receptionist not handling them?”
She shook her head. “No, not that clinic. The other one in town where I work pro-bono. The whole staff’s volunteer, which means receptionists are a luxury. Usually, we handle our own appointments.”
“That’s impressive,” I said. “Making time for the less fortunate.”
She shrugged as if it were no big deal. “I try to give back. Eye care can be so damn expensive – doesn’t seem right that only the rich or people with insurance have access to it.”
I liked what I was hearing. Part of me wanted to talk about the charity work I’d done, but I hated talking about that sort of thing. I donated to make a difference, not for people to recognize me as some philanthropist.
“That’s grand,” I said. “Pretty damn admirable.”
She nodded quickly, her mouth in a flat line. I got the sense she felt the same way as me about charity – you do it, you don’t brag about it.
“I’ve been really lucky in my life. Some people haven’t.”
“You’re right about that.”
Before our conversation could continue, the bartender approached. I opened my mouth to ask a question, but before I could, she was already on it.
“Vodka with cranberry juice,” she said, her voice crisp and professional. The bartender nodded and was off, leaving a pair of menus on the bar in front of us.
A small smile curled the corner of her mouth as she looked at me. “You were going to do it, weren’t you?”
“Do what now?”
“Order for me.”
“Now, what makes you think I’d do something like that?”
“You had that look on your face, that overly confident posture that men get when they’re ready to tell me what I want.” She followed this with a challenging narrowing of her eyes.
“Never,” I said, meaning it. I was about to ask the specials when she’d jumped in.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. See, the thing I recognized about you right away, what made me mad attracted to you, was that you’re obviously the kind of woman who knows what she wants. And you’re most definitely not the type of woman to sit by with a demure look on her face while a man makes all the decisions.”
She clearly like this assessment. “You’re right about that. God, I get so sick of the kinds of men who think their job is to take a woman who shows the slightest bit of independence and tame her like a horse. They act like they’re into independent women, but as soon as you actually show independence, they get all kinds of insecure.”
I smiled and gestured toward myself with a sweeping motion. “Do I look insecure?”
She looked me up and down, and I was almost certain her eyes lingered on my crotch for a few seconds.
“Nope. Or maybe you’re good at hiding it.”
“That’s the thing about me, Lola,” I said with a smirk. “You never have to worry about me hiding anything. Life’s easier if you just come out with who you are and what you want.”
“Yeah? And what do you want, Patrick?”
I flashed her a smirk before turning my attention to the menu. “You, of course.” I let my eyes lock onto hers for several moments, then slowly lowered them to the menu. Out of the corner of my gaze I saw her face redden, her eyebrows arch.
“Wow,” she said, grabbing the menu off the bar and opening it. “Are all Irishmen this forward?”
“Forward – or confident, however you like to think of it.” I flashed her a smirk, letting the heavy sexual tension hang in the air for several long moments. “But in this case, it’s more that I want to know about you. I wanna get into that head of yours, Lola. I wanna know what makes you tick.”
And that wasn’t the only part of her body I wanted to get into. But her reaction wasn’t one I expected. Lola’s eyes glanced down at the menu.
“Let’s order our food first.”
I cocked my head to the side curiously and watched as she flipped through the laminated pages. The way she eagerly side-stepped the subject of herself…it was strange. But we were out to eat, and it was a first date, so no sense in thinking too much about it.
I reached over and placed my finger on her menu, getting close enough that I could smell the scent of her hair. “That’s a good one – the short ribs. Best you’ve ever had, I’ll bet.”
She flicked her eyes to me, a sliver of her white teeth exposed in a wry smile. “Considering I’ve never had short ribs, you might be right.”
My eyebrows arched and I clapped my hands together. “Then it’s settled. I’ll get the sampler so we can have a bit of everything, and you can get the short ribs. Trust me, you’ll want a pile of ‘em.”
“Not really my thing,” she replied confidently.
I was a touch confused. “Not into ribs? Hmm…” I cast my eyes over the menu. “They do a killer bulgogi steak – meat’s spiced perfectly. You’ll be in heaven.”
“Steak’s not really up my alley, either.”
“Then the chicken? Nice and simple, if you don’t wanna get too adventurous.”
“Not a fan of chicken, either.”
I set down my menu. “Love, it might be a bit easier if you told me what you did like.” My brows lifted as I thought of something. “Wait, you’re not one of those picky eaters, are you? I swear, that’s such an American thing.”
She chuckled. “I guess you can say I’m a picky eater – I’m a vegetarian.”
“A vegetarian? You’re kiddin’ me.”
“Not at all. Been one for over twenty-five years.”
“You’re tellin’ me you haven’t had so much as a cheeseburger since before you were a teenager?”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
“Now, that’s certainly something. And you know I gotta ask why.”
She closed her menu and sipped of her cocktail. “When I was a kid, we had this cat named Lacy. Cutest thing in the world – black with white paws. I loved her like crazy. One day, my parents made me dinner. And I remember it really specifically. We were having chicken and rice. Anyway, up to this point I’d never really thought about where meat came from.”
“Not cats, if that’s what you’re getting at,” I teased.
She laughed, shaking her head. “I know, but for some reason, during that meal I took a bite of my chicken and chewed it and my eyes fell on Lacy. She looked back at me in this way that…” She shook her head. “I don’t know, it was like I could see her intelligence, and I became acutely aware of the fact that she was a living, breathing creature. And then I realized that chickens are the same. And cows and pigs – especially pigs. Did you know pigs are smarter than most dogs? And cleaner?”
“I didn’t. But did you know that chickens are so dumb they’ve been known to drown by lookin’ up at the rain with their beaks hung open?”
Another laugh. “Pretty sure that’s an urban legend. Anyway, I knew from that moment on there was no way I’d be able to eat meat again. I mean, we don’t eat cats, right? What’s the diffe
rence between a cat and a dog and a pig, when you think about it?”
“Well, I suppose you make a point,” I conceded. “Personally, I don’t know how anyone could live life without steak.”
She opened the menu and placed her fingertip on something under the menu’s very small vegetarian section. I craned my neck to see the tofu steak.
“You substitute,” she said. “And trust me – I don’t miss meat in the slightest.”
“Then I’ll have to eat enough for both of us.” My eyes drifted down to the sampler platter on the menu – the sight of it almost made me drool as much as the gorgeous woman next to me.
The bartender returned, and we put our orders in. Rushes of flame rose around us at the many table-side grills, the smell of meat thick in the air.
“If I’d known you weren’t a meat-eater, I would’ve picked a place that wasn’t meat central.”
She smiled. “It’s fine. I’m so used to going to the same three vegetarian places that a change of pace is nice every now and then.”
A thought occurred to me. “You said you loved pets – you have one of your own?”
Lola shook her head sadly. “I wish. I was lucky enough to have a cat and dog growing up. But I’m so busy with work, I can barely keep my plants alive. Someday, maybe. How about you?”
“Same story. Nothin’ I’d love more than a little hound, but when you’re jet-setting across the world every other month, got no place to call your own, your lifestyle doesn’t exactly lend itself to keepin’ a pet.”
“You don’t have a place to live? Where do you sleep?”
“I’m lucky enough to be able to afford really nice hotels.”
“Sounds kinda lonely,” she observed.
“I suppose it can be sometimes. Right now, I’m staying with my brother Finn and his family in the guest house next to their mansion.”
“You’ve never considered settling somewhere? Even just a small apartment?”
I shook my head. “Getting an apartment means signing a lease. And signing means you have to be there for at least a year. And if you’re somewhere for at least a year, that means you’re puttin’ down roots. And roots are the last thing I need right now.”