by G. K. Brady
“So. About Owen,” he nudged. “He’s single too.”
Why, exactly, was he trying to foist his roommate on her? Then again, maybe he’d do for a one-off date, not that it would go beyond that. He was too cocky, too handsome, too impressed with his own charm. Not to mention she had little idea if he could carry on a conversation. But time was running out, and she was desperate.
She tilted her head. “Can he dress up? Hold his own in conversations?”
Blake’s mouth opened and closed, and a calculating glint came into those pale green eyes of his. Whether it was amusement or irritation, she couldn’t tell. “Yes and yes. Might be hard to believe for a smart attorney like yourself, but we jocks have to make appearances at all kinds of formal events and behave like real humans instead of the subspecies we come from.”
Irritation it is. A frisson of guilt sped through her. She dipped her head and found refuge in her icy drink before meeting his cool gaze. “Touché, Mr. Renaissance Man. That was a poor attempt at a joke on my part, and I apologize.”
He nodded, and her mind took another detour. While she wouldn’t have pegged either man for dinner-party material, she was coming around to his suggestion—like a cruise ship making a turn in the ocean. Slow and ponderous at first but steady and sure.
“Okay. Why not? If your roommate’s up for being my dinner date, then I’m up for it too.”
Blake’s eyes widened, which prompted her to say, “Oh. You were kidding.”
“No, no. I meant it. When’s the dinner? I’ll check the schedule.” He extracted his phone from his back pocket and started scrolling.
He managed Owen’s schedule? He was Owen’s own little April. “Less than a week away, on Halloween.” Michaela paused to chuckle. “Maybe the dress-up part is the hostess’s way of having us come in costume.” To her relief, Blake’s lips tipped up in a half-smile. Hopefully, he’d dismissed her jabs about his roommate.
His smile broadened as he stared at his phone. “Good news. We’re in town, and we’re not playing that night.” He lifted his eyes to hers. “You’ve got a date.”
“Don’t you need to check with him first?”
“Nah. Trust me, he won’t have made any plans. He probably has no idea he’s free that night. You’re good to go.”
“So … you’ll set it up with him, then?” When he nodded again, she joked, “I feel like I’m working with a date broker.”
One eyebrow kissed his hairline, and his smile transformed into a smirk. “Kinda like speed dating? Basically, isn’t that what they are? Date brokers?”
“Possibly. I hadn’t thought about it that way before.” Crap, couldn’t he just let the disastrous dating round-robin go already? She masked her irritation. “Although I think you’re being generous.”
“How’s that?”
“Twenty-five four-minute conversations, and I didn’t connect with a soul. You’d think a date broker could at least have found one potential match.”
He surprised her when he cuffed her upper arm with a light touch. “Okay. As your date broker, I need to learn a little more about you so I can report to Owen and make the dinner go as smoothly as possible.”
“Oh, so you’re like a living, breathing dating app.”
He stared at her, mirth and surprise dancing in his eyes. “Don’t tell me you use those too.”
She shrugged. “Not very successfully.” When he quirked an eyebrow, she held up her hand. “Hey, eternal optimist here. I figure ‘the one’ has to be out there somewhere, and I’m trying to make it easier for him to find me.”
Tugging her behind him, he carved a path through clustered guests.
“Where are you taking me, date broker?”
Without answering, he stopped for a moment before guiding her to a private bistro table tucked in a corner of the solarium several yards from other partygoers.
“Someplace quieter.” He grinned as a thought seemed to occur. “That way I can conduct an interview. Consider me a living, breathing dating app questionnaire.” He pulled out a chair and motioned for her to sit.
Laughter bubbled up from her chest. “I think I need a fresh martini before we delve into twenty questions.” She eyeballed her mostly full glass of warming vodka. “You might get more honest answers from me that way.”
“Way ahead of you.” Blake raised his eyes above her head as he took the chair opposite her.
“Did someone at this table say ‘martini’?”
Michaela jerked in surprise as the accommodating bartender leaned down, handing her a fresh cocktail while he gently lifted the half-consumed one from her fingers. “Um, thank you,” she said dumbly. He tilted his head, then strode away. She stared at Blake. “Are you responsible for that?”
“Yep. Gave him the signal as we were heading this way.”
“Jeez, he’s stealthy … and fast! And wow! You’ve covered all the bases. That speed-dating coordinator could learn a thing or two from you.” How many drinks have I had now? I’ve lost count. It occurred to her that while she’d intended to duck out quickly, she was enjoying herself all of a sudden. A whole lot. The thought of leaving got pushed to a back corner of her mind, though the little goody two-shoes on her other shoulder warned that she should ease up on the drinks. She reminded the conscience-wielder that she was using Lyfts tonight, then she narrowed her eyes at Blake. “You’re not trying to get me drunk, are you?”
He appeared offended. “Wow. Suspicious much? No, I am definitely not trying to get you drunk. I just want to see you have a good time.”
“Oh. Well, that’s very considerate of you. But I need a promise from you.”
“What’s that?”
“You will tell me if I start to slur?”
He regarded her, seeming to fight a grin. “Yes, I will tell you if you slur … or otherwise act like someone who’s inhaled her weight in martinis.”
“Hey! I have not.”
“I didn’t say you had … yet. Nor am I encouraging you to. It’s just … I’ve seen it happen a few times.” The grin bloomed on his handsome face.
Wait. He’s not handsome. He’s just … my kissable neighbor. Who’s not as young as he used to be. Oh God, don’t go there! The martinis had her in their grip—again. This was only the second occurrence in the last year, and he was the sole witness both times. The guy was going to think she was a lush. “Before we begin, may I ask you a question?”
He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not the one filling out the questionnaire, but ask away.”
“Why don’t you drink?”
The sudden tension in his body was unmistakable as he sat forward and carefully placed his forearms on the table. His deliberate movements had her guessing he was formulating his answer. Part of her was alarmed her question had turned him into a tightly wound coil, but another part registered his very masculine hands and wrists that disappeared into the cuffs of his charcoal button-down. His deep voice pulled her from her wayward thoughts. “I’m not an alcoholic, if that’s what you’re asking. I have a few reasons for not drinking. One, I’m an athlete who’s constantly in training. Two, my family has … issues. I stay away from the stuff out of principle.”
“Doesn’t every family have issues?” she replied.
His shoulders seemed to ease as he straightened, shrugged, and executed a drumroll on the tabletop with his index fingers. “I guess. But alcohol does funny things to people, like shutting down logic. I’ve seen drunk people do a lot of stupid things they would never even consider when they’re sober. And unfortunately, I’ve also witnessed ordinarily decent human beings transform into very ugly ones.”
“I completely agree. Sort of like the potion Dr. Jekyll drinks that turns him into Mr. Hyde.” Lucky for her, she’d never had to deal with it personally, but she’d been witness to Fiona’s anguish when dealing with her alcoholic father’s behavior. Ugliness in spades. And though Michaela felt absolutely no judgment coming from Blake, she refrained from taking
a sip of her as-yet untouched martini.
“Okay. No more distracting me with questions.” His mouth quirked, and the tension seemed to dissolve. “Let’s get this interview back on track. What kinds of issues does your family have?”
“Wow! You just go straight for the jugular, don’t you?”
“May as well dig in.”
She propped her elbow on the table and tapped her chin with her index finger. “Now let’s see.” She held up her finger in an “Aha!” gesture. “My father bakes.”
Blake gave her a bemused frown. “And that’s an issue why, exactly?”
“Because he’s a mad scientist, or more precisely, a mad chemist, who loves to put ingredients together and see what he can hatch.”
“Doesn’t sound so bad to me.”
Dropping her chin to her chest, she looked up at him through her lashes. “Have you ever eaten quiche made with olive loaf and maraschino cherries?”
His mouth dropped open.
“I know, right?”
“That sounds awful!” he spluttered.
“It was awful. And my mom and I had to eat it without gagging! Unfortunately, that was one of his more palatable experiments.”
Blake grimaced, then a more thoughtful look took over his features. “You get along with your parents?”
“I do. I had the rare upbringing that didn’t leave me damaged, like so many people I know. My parents are boringly normal and very sweet. A little overprotective, but I think it’s because I’m an only child and they’re a lot older. My mother was forty-one and my dad was forty-five when I was born. They’d given up trying to have a baby years before Mom got pregnant.”
“Were they happy when they found out?”
“Over the moon!” She threw her hand out. “Or so they tell me. Sometimes I wish I had siblings to pull some of their attention away from me, though.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“You’re an only child too?” She took a minuscule sip of her martini while he fidgeted.
“Not exactly, though my sister and I grew up in separate households, which left me smack in the center of my folks’ brutal tug-of-war.”
Sadness in his eyes plucked at her heartstrings. “I’m sorry to hear that. I take it your parents divorced.”
“Not exactly.” One of his powerful hands shot to the back of his head, smoothing his hair. “Let’s put it this way. My dad should have divorced my mom, but he stuck it out because he was loyal that way. It is what it is … or was. He’s since passed.”
“Oh no. That had to be really rough.”
“It wasn’t a day at the waterpark. But if it hadn’t been for all the turmoil, I doubt I’d be where I am now. So there’s that.”
She cocked her head at him in question, and he went on. “Hockey was an outlet, a way for a little kid to blow off his pent-up emotions. We lived down the road from an ice rink, and that’s where I went to escape. I could leave the arguing and nastiness behind and lose myself on the ice, so I became a rink rat.” He paused to grin. “That’s where I met Owen. He was better than I was, and he took me under his wing. We hung out at his house all the time, and being around him, around his family, gave me something solid to hang on to. It gave me a front-row seat to how a normal family acted.”
He smiled wistfully, then let out a mild chuckle. “On the ice, we were always outdoing each other, skating faster than the other one, pushing the envelope. But when it came to sticking up for me, he was fearless. With the other kids, with his own family. Because I was there so much, his mother and even his grandma treated me like one of their own, which meant I got in trouble when I did something wrong. Owen, though, he’d deflect or try to take the blame himself. I guess he felt sorry for me because of my home life. His friendship was a lifeline that kept me from drowning.” He stared at the tabletop as if seeing a film from his past there, then shook his head before reapplying his half-smile. “I guess I’m pretty competitive, so even after his family moved away, I kept at it, working my ass off as if Owen was right beside me, pushing me. In hindsight, I suppose I was trying to stay one stride ahead of the unpleasantness at home.”
Her heart constricted, and she fought an odd urge to comfort the little boy he’d once been. “So, um, I take it you and Owen stayed connected all those years.”
“Somehow we did, which is a miracle, considering we were a pair of prepubescent wing nuts.” He huffed a laugh, and some of the melancholy slipped from his features. “We plotted and planned and ended up in juniors together. When that first day came, it was as if we’d never spent any time apart.”
“How nice that you have each other.”
“Yeah,” he sighed, then suddenly brightened, as if waking up from a snooze. “I took us off track. This interview is about you, not me.” He adjusted his too-tall frame in the too-small chair. “Who do you admire most in the world?”
“Perry Mason,” she blurted without thinking.
He gave her a skeptical look. “The TV attorney?”
“You bet. He never lost a case. Well, there was one episode where he did, but then he worked everything out. Bet that was some trivia you didn’t know.”
Blake laughed, a warm, rumbly sound. “You’re right. I’m not up on my Perry Mason trivia, but you can bet I’ll get right on it and fill my head with even more useless facts. You do realize he’s not real?”
“Doesn’t mean he’s not a stud. I mean, he always figures out who the true criminal is. Talk about a superhero crime-fighter. And your trivia is not useless. It’s entertaining.”
He shifted, as if the compliment sat awkwardly on his broad shoulders. “Do you think we should nominate him for a red cape with the letters PM on the back?”
A warm blanket of coziness wrapped around her, and she grinned at him. “Now you’re talking. I like it.” An image of him in a superhero cape with the words “Super Date” on it bobbed about in her brain. Why can’t I bring you with me to the Steadmans’? Because he’d offered up his roommate instead.
After spending time with Blake, she found it hard to believe Owen was the older of the pair. Regardless, neither man was a candidate for the role of her future husband—only a guy poised enough to not make her look bad and possibly make her laugh at the dinner party. Blake definitely fit the bill; she hoped Owen would do the same.
She covertly scanned Blake’s face, taking in features chiseled by more than mere years. Yep, he’d do in a pinch. It didn’t hurt that he was easy on the eyes with his short blond hair and the way his cut body filled out his fitted shirt and slacks. Oh, and he smelled good too. Getting a whiff of his citrus-and-spice scent when he’d leaned in to talk to her, she’d struggled not to stick her nose in the air and inhale.
The devil on her shoulder had her mind leaping to places it shouldn’t go, with her libido quickly falling in behind. Down, girl!
In her head, she began ticking off reasons why Blake would be the better fill-in. He had a relaxed confidence about him, he was intelligent, easy to talk to, and—bonus—something about him made her feel safe. But there was that one showstopper: he was a player, and not only at pro sports.
He snapped her out of her zigzagging musings when he said, “Okay. Your philosophy on … relationships.”
“Your point being …?”
“I’m a dating app, remember? You still need to complete the questionnaire. Since this is about romance”—he executed an exaggerated air-quote thing, accompanied by an irreverent smirk and eye-roll—“therefore your input is required. The question is nonnegotiable.”
“Wow,” she laughed. “You even sound like a dating app.”
He sat back, his light green eyes drilling into her while he waited. A cackle from the other side of the solarium reminded her revelers surrounded them, countering the feeling they’d been cocooned in their own little world.
“You do realize we’re in the middle of a cocktail party, right?” she asked.
“You’re good at throwing out diversionary tactics.
Is that something they teach you in law school?”
Leveling her gaze at him, she took a long, slow sip of icy vodka. “And you’re good at being one-track-minded. Is that something they teach you in hockey school?”
He burst out with a laugh and leaned forward again. “Hockey school. That’s a good one.”
She grinned. “Well, what do you call it?”
“I think it’s called decades of playing. From the time you’re old enough to skate, you’re honing those skills. Ever read Malcolm Gladwell?”
“I love Malcolm Gladwell.” She held up her finger. “Wait. I think I know where you’re going with this. You need so many hours of doing something before you’re good at it. Ten thousand, right?”
He nodded, and a lazy smile curved his mouth. “Exactly. You need ten thousand hours of doing one thing before you’re proficient at it. You don’t go to ‘hockey school’ for that.”
She raised her glass to him again. “Just like you don’t go to tenacity school, right?”
He matched her, raising his mostly empty glass of club soda. “We’re on the same page.”
“You know, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy myself tonight, but thanks to your witty repartee, I’m having a blast.”
His eyebrows pulled together in a V. “Are you yanking my chain right now?”
“Not at all. I’m being very sincere. You’re fun to talk to. I’m having a good time hanging out with you.” The martinis might have nudged her into voicing the sentiment aloud, but she meant every single word.
Chapter 12
You Say Love, I Say Void
Blake told himself not to gawk at the woman sitting across from him—the one he was trying really, really hard to think of as just anyone else he might encounter in his life. A trainer, his housekeeper, a truck driver. Not that he encountered many truck drivers, but still. He needed all the backup he could get. Too bad nothing was working. Instead, what crowded his mind were the silky curls he longed to push back from her perfect, velvety skin … plus, that taunting tattoo. And, of course, the smoking-hot kiss he couldn’t forget.