by Nella Tyler
“Am I sure?” She laughed wryly. “I have spent the past…I don’t know, months? Trying to convince myself that I wasn’t in love with you. I’ve been pushing it out of my mind, over and over again. I told myself that I was just reacting to how much better than the rest of my clients you were, or the fact that you saved me, or…” She shrugged.
“I’m better than the rest of your clients?” I grinned.
“Of course you are, you big idiot,” she said sharply. “You know you are.”
“How am I better?”
Natalie rolled her eyes, lifting herself up onto her elbows. For a second, the sight of her naked breasts distracted me—she was so fucking gorgeous. “Are you seriously asking me how you’re better than the rest of my clients when I’m basically on the path to destroying my career right now, all because I’m in love with you?” I kissed her lightly on the forehead, and pulled back, draping my arm over her waist.
“I’m in love with you, too,” I told her quietly. “I thought it was just—basically—the fact that you’re beautiful, and that we were spending time together, and just one of those things, you know?” She smiled slightly, nodding that she understood what I meant. “But I’ve been on dates with other women, and none of them are even worth looking at next to you.”
“Oh—that’s right,” she said, smiling wryly. “You’ve gone out with all of what—two other women?”
“Hey, it’s valid,” I countered. “Neither Brigitte or Chelsea was anything next to you.”
“I guess I can’t be that mad,” she said. “I mean, you were supposed to date other women as practice and supposed to date the women that Katie matched you up with.”
“Technically, if you want to be real about it, Katie succeeded,” I pointed out. “She found me a match—and way before she promised to have it done by.”
“Oh, are you going to give her a bonus for that?” Natalie laughed and then sighed. “Maybe a bonus would keep her from firing me for getting involved with a client.”
“Would she really fire you?” She shrugged.
“Not if I quit first,” she said. She closed her eyes for a moment. “Look—I need to know, Zeke: is this just… is it just because you like me a lot because I’m fun and interesting…”
“And hot, and smart, and incredibly patient,” I added.
“I have to make a choice,” she said, sitting up in the bed. “If I decide to stay with you…if I decide to actually see you, to date you, then I can’t work at the agency anymore.” She swallowed and looked at me. “Even if Katie wouldn’t fire me, I wouldn’t feel right going on practice dates with coaching clients while I was seeing you.” I looked up at her for a long moment, and then I sat up.
“I want to be with you,” I told her. I reached out and found her hand amongst the sheets and gripped it tight. “I’ve wanted to be with you for weeks. I thought—like you did—that it was just some stupid infatuation thing, that I just liked you because…” I shook my head. “But if dating other women showed me anything, it was that none of them are as perfect for me as you are.” I laughed. “I even went so far as to basically describe you to Katie, to try and steer her towards someone who might be as much like you as possible because I thought I wouldn’t—in a million years—actually get you.”
“You what?” Natalie’s eyes widened and she stared at me.
“I tried to give Katie a description of a woman that would be like you,” I explained, laughing again. “When she asked me about my preferences to start setting me up with women, I basically described you to a T—as much as I thought I could, without setting off some kind of alarm.”
“And…”
“And the woman she set me up with was just…” I shook my head. “I knew in the first fifteen minutes of the date that it wasn’t going to work between us.” I looked down at our hands. “Even before this, I’ve never met a woman who makes me feel like you do.” I glanced at Natalie’s face. She was smiling, with tears in her eyes. “Hey, don’t cry.”
“I’m not going to cry,” she said, shaking her head even as a tear rolled down her cheek. “It’s just so crazy, don’t you think?” She sighed and brought her free hand up to rub at her eyes. “So obviously I’m going to have to quit. That…” she shook her head again. “That is going to make life interesting for Brady and me.”
“You can’t wait to get a job lined up?”
Natalie shrugged. “Do you want to keep this a secret? Because I’d have to. And eventually, you’d have to tell Katie that you’ve found someone. In the meantime, you’d have to at least pretend to date other people.” She met my gaze. “I really—really—don’t want you to do that. Please.”
“Then I’ll get you a job in the office where I work,” I told her. “I can’t hire you directly under me—obviously—but I could get someone else to hire you. You’re smart, you’ve got tons of skills, I’m sure you’d be a great fit somewhere.” I smiled. “Or…”
“Or?” I swallowed; the thought that had occurred to me was definitely the better option in my mind, but Natalie was so independent, so self-willed, that I wasn’t sure how she’d take it.
“Or, I can support you, if you wanted to be a full-time mom,” I said finally. “Just—just if you wanted it. I wouldn’t in a million years try to make you do anything you didn’t want, but it is an option.”
Natalie stared at me. “You’d…support me?” I held her gaze for a long moment and nodded. “Or—or get me a job at your company? Just…just to stay with me?”
“Of course,” I said, laughing. “I’d do whatever I needed to do to keep you.” I cleared my throat. “And Brady, of course.” I grinned wryly. “I like that kid. And like you said—he needs a father figure.”
“You’re…you want to be his father figure?” She stared at me with wide eyes.
“Well, I mean…” I shrugged. “I don’t want to overstep my boundaries or anything, but if I’m dating you seriously…if we end up together long-term…”
“You’re thinking about long-term?” I reached out and pulled Natalie into my arms, pressing her body against mine.
“If I didn’t think it was way too soon, I’d ask you to marry me right now,” I murmured in her ear. “Besides, I haven’t had time to get a ring.” I kissed her on the lips, holding her tight.
“I can’t believe it,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t actually believe it.”
“You’d better believe it,” I told her. I kissed her forehead, her nose, each of her cheeks, and then her lips again. “When that asshole attacked you…that was when I knew. I mean, I really knew.”
“Why didn’t you say something then?” Natalie looked up at me from my chest.
“Because I didn’t think you felt the same way,” I explained. “But now I know. And, you’re going to have a much harder time shaking me now that I know you feel this way.” I squeezed her waist. “I plan on sticking around. After all, the whole reason I wanted to use the matchmaking service was because I wanted to find someone I could marry.” Natalie laughed.
“I guess that makes sense,” she said, laughing again. “I guess in that case, you should probably stay the night. Brady will be so thrilled to see you at breakfast.” I laughed with her, and pulled her down between the sheets with me, holding her close. “Whose apartment are we going to live in?” I considered it.
“You know, I feel like I want to get a real house, for the two of us,” I told her. “With a yard and all that. We could get a dog for Brady, walk to the park. It’ll be great.” Natalie stared at me for a moment, still shocked, but gradually she started to warm up and lose her surprise, and we lay in bed, talking about the future. I couldn’t wait to get started on it; I was definitely done with practice.
Epilogue
I stepped through the doors at the agency and out onto the sidewalk, looking around me; it didn’t look different—and I had expected that it would. It was my last meeting with Katie, and my last official day of working for her as a dating coach. It should
feel different. It should look different. The landscaping up and down the street looked exactly the same as it always had and so did the building. I shook my head, smiling to myself as I started towards the garage where my car waited. I couldn’t afford to stand around staring at things—I had somewhere to be.
Brady and Zeke would be waiting for me at the park. I had—for once—a real date, with a man I was in love with. After spending such a long time going on dates with men I didn’t care one bit about—at least romantically—it almost felt weird to know that if Zeke wanted to kiss me, he could. If I wanted to go to bed with him, I would. Brady was warming up to him, as well, and he’d stopped making any kind of comment about me needing a man in my life.
As I walked towards my car, I thought about my last several meetings with Katie. I had put in my notice only a few days after Zeke and I had both come clean about our feelings for each other, and I’d planned the situation carefully. At first, I didn’t admit to starting a relationship with Zeke. I knew that if I did, I would probably be fired immediately—even if Katie liked me and liked the results that I had been getting. I wrote up my letter of resignation, signed it, and presented it to her at our status meeting, explaining that I didn’t feel like I wanted to continue—I wanted to move onto other things.
But as the weeks wore on and Zeke kept postponing meeting with other matches that Katie found for him, she figured it out. In my second-to-last meeting with her, she asked me if I knew anything about why Zeke was suddenly slowing down on the prospect of meeting potential matches.
“That would be because he already found a match,” I said. “Me.” My heart was pounding in my chest when I told her, but I knew that I could survive getting fired a week early.
“About time you admitted it,” she had said, grinning—shocking me.
“You knew?”
She had nodded. “I’ve known there was something between the two of you for a while now,” she had told me, shrugging. “Especially when he turned down the second match I made for him—and I suspected back when he failed to establish a rapport with Chelsea.”
“Why didn’t you fire me, then?”
Katie had shrugged again. “First, because I wasn’t sure either of you would act on it,” she’d explained frankly. “Second, because even if you two did act on it, I wasn’t sure it would last. Honestly, I probably should have all of my clients end up in threatening situations on their dates: it certainly seems to bring people together.”
“That’s not the reason why,” I’d told her. “There were…feelings…before that.”
“Of course there were,” she had said, laughing. “If there hadn’t been, he wouldn’t have been so on-the-spot about interfering.”
“So you knew that there were feelings between us and didn’t care?”
She had grinned. “I cared, but I figured that you would keep Zeke out of trouble, and then if things didn’t work out between the two of you, he’d be even more suited to finding a serious match.”
I unlocked the driver’s side door on my car and climbed in. My last meeting with Katie had gone more or less as I expected it to; she hadn’t had anything negative to say about my performance, and she definitely couldn’t fault me in terms of keeping things professional with the rest of my clients. It probably helped that Zeke had paid her a bonus for the fact that he was, in his own words, “taking you away from the agency,” and the fact that he’d found a suitable match within a month of signing up with the company. I started the car and checked the time. As long as traffic wasn’t too bad, I should make the meeting with Brady and Zeke in the park, and Brady would just be settling down from his romp, just in time for us to go to the first place on our agenda.
The fact that I could trust Brady alone with Zeke was a major thing, in my mind; when I’d told Katie where I was going after our meeting, she had looked—if not shocked—then at least a little surprised that I trusted someone I was dating so much. “Brady loves him,” I’d told her.
“Clearly, but the fact that you trust him to take care of Brady without any supervision…maybe I should dock your last paycheck, consider you a member.”
“You got a bonus out of Zeke! What more do you want?”
I pulled out of the garage and started towards the park, across town from the office. Katie was pleased for me, I knew. She would miss having me as an employee, but even if I hadn’t given her grounds for dismissal, I knew I couldn’t keep dating Zeke and coaching men in their attempts to find a relationship. Part of me thought that even if Zeke hadn’t come along, all things being equal, I probably would have gotten burned out anyway—especially with the situation with Nathan. I would have to continue being in contact with the agency for a while longer, since the case was ongoing, but from a professional standpoint, I was done with them. My last paycheck would be mailed to me, and Zeke had made his final payment on his account. We were both finished with matchmaking.
I’d thought long and hard about how I was going to move forward. Zeke’s invitation to me—to support me while I went back to being a full-time mother—had been tempting. But I’d decided instead that it would be better for both of us if I let him put my name forward for a position at the company he worked for. I wouldn’t be working for him—that was one condition I’d insisted on, and one that Zeke was happy to fulfill—but I’d be putting the skills I’d gained as a dating coach to good use in the HR department. I was set to start at the company in two weeks’ time; my first day would be the Monday after Zeke, Brady, and I returned from a little vacation together, camping in the mountains.
Traffic didn’t let me down, and I pulled into a spot in the lot outside of the park with five minutes to spare before the time I’d told Zeke I’d meet up with him and Brady. He had given me the idea to do a little tour of the final five pre-K places that I’d come up with for my son to go to in a few months’ time, after he turned four. It was hard for me to believe that in a little more than a year, my only son would be starting Kindergarten—but then, I thought to myself, I still had years of fertility left; there was always a chance that I’d have another kid.
“Mama!” Brady ran up to me, ignoring Zeke’s protest, and I laughed at the sight of my boyfriend on the ground, pretending to be a bear for my son’s amusement. I scooped Brady up in my arms as soon as he was within range and gave him a quick hug before setting him down again.
“Are you two goofs ready to check out some pre-K places, or should we call it a day and just hang around the park?” Zeke pulled himself up off of the ground and dusted the stray grass off of his clothes.
“I think—I hope—I managed to keep Brady going long enough that he won’t get bored,” he told me, wrapping his arms around me and kissing me briefly—but deeply—on the lips.
“Let’s get going then,” I said. “I have a fabulous idea for dinner, but we need time to stop at the store to make it happen.” Zeke took my hand in his and I grabbed my son’s hand as well, and we walked towards my car in the parking lot. To anyone watching, we would have looked like a completely normal family—someone might even assume that Zeke was Brady’s biological father, that we’d been married all along. As far as I was concerned, Zeke, Brady, and I were already a family. It was only a matter of time before it became official.
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TRY – THE COMPLETE SERIES
By Nella Tyler
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 Nella Tyler
PART 1
Chapter One - Mackenzie
Fifteen minutes after work ended for the day, I made my way to my favorite bench, not far from the children’s physical therapy center where I worked. It was cold outside,
of course, but I’d been stuck in the stuffy, heated office for long enough that it was a nice change, especially with a hot drink in my hands to keep them from freezing in my gloves. I sat down and took a sip of the thick, sweet hot chocolate, looking into Amundsen Park. It was late enough—and dark enough—that the park itself was mostly deserted, but the quiet was nice.
I took another sip of my drink and thought about Thanksgiving; it had seemed to come so much faster than usual this year, and I’d been taken by surprise when the office announced the closure. Nobody—least of all kids—wanted to do physical therapy on Thanksgiving, and very few people wanted to do it the day after. The holidays were a little different; with vacation happening and parents trying to get their shopping done, they were more than happy to schedule as many sessions as their insurance would allow. All day at work I had been debating whether or not to put myself on the on-call list for overtime during the week of Christmas; I had a few days to make up my mind still, but I didn’t know how I felt.
I sighed, snuggling deeper into my coat, trying to convince myself to get up and start for home. I had a ton of shopping to do—and of course, with Thanksgiving being over, and the first full week of the holiday season starting, it was going to be a madhouse anywhere I wanted to go. I was tired just thinking about it, especially after a long day of working with kids who were almost frantic between one school holiday and another. I grinned to myself as I drank down some more hot chocolate, remembering little Ruby-Lee; she had made a lot of progress since I had started working with her three months before, and she had wanted to show off the fact that she could actually walk a straight line finally—by trying to run along a balance beam set on the floor until she’d nearly twisted her ankle.
Helen, who’d come in with unbearable sciatic nerve pain, was starting to make progress too. It made my heart ache to have to tell her that she wasn’t likely to ever be able to continue her ballet instruction—at least, not enough for her to become a professional danger—but she was slowly coming to terms with the idea on her own. The twelve-year-old girl had given me a look while we went through the back stretches at the beginning of her session and said, “They’re doing The Nutcracker starting this week. I’m already too old to play half of the parts and too young to play the rest of them.” I had given her a quick hug and told her that there were a lot of things she could still do; the fault in her spinal alignment that caused her sciatica wasn’t something that could really be cured—but at least she could get back into dance for fun if she kept moving along at the rate she had been.