Dating-ish (Knitting in the City Book 6)

by Penny Reid

“Yes. It does.” Marie smiled, her face close to mine.

  She did this. When we shopped, she looked at me for a prolonged period of time. She touched me, often. She stood close, sometimes she whispered in my ear.

  Thus, I didn’t shop for clothes, I shopped for the process of shopping for clothes.

  I remain disinterested in clothes. Except for suits.

  The buying of the suits months ago was done with one goal: make Marie think of me in suits, which—according to her own admission—were synonymous with non-platonic thoughts.

  I now know—now that we’d discussed everything after the friend-zoning in great detail—that she’d been having non-platonic thoughts about me well before I’d worn my first suit, and that the suits hadn’t been the catalyst for her feelings.

  But I still wore them.

  Because Marie liked me in suits. She looked at me differently. She looked longer. And showing her she’s worth the effort is important. She is important to me.

  “Do you even need a new tie?” She stepped away, regarding me with suspicion. “Didn’t we just buy you four last month?”

  “I don’t recall.” Obviously, that was a lie. “We have the faculty dinner next week and I need something for that.”

  “None of the other ones will suffice?”

  “I should make a good impression. Most of them still think I’m an undergrad.”

  I’ve come to understand clothes matter to most people because society decrees how a person is ‘packaged’ reflects the internal values, abilities, and personality of that person. This packaging is often called ‘personal expression.’ Since deciphering this, I’ve resented the concept of personal expression.

  As a child, what did my clothes say about me?

  They said: I’m irritated that you people want to judge me by what I’m wearing and therefore I think you’re really fucking lazy.

  But they also said: My housekeeper does my laundry; she irons everything, including my jeans and T-shirts. My gardener likes grunge bands and always brings me concert tees. My driver thinks I should wear belts with shorts. And my nanny picks out my clothes.

  However, when I became a teenager, I realized actually not giving a shit and wanting to look like I didn’t give a shit were two very different style choices.

  Funny how that happens. Funny how, in order to project to the world who you are, you’re often required to behave in an opposite way. But I digress.

  My disinterest in clothing was the catalyst for my first AI. Instead of allowing myself to be forced into spending precious minutes (daily) to ensure the clothes I wore reflected my internal values, abilities, and personality, I developed an algorithm to do it for me.

  Using data available via image search and defined parameters regarding individuals whose style I wished to mimic, the program created a virtual closet of clothes. I sent the closet to my mother’s personal shopper and had her purchase the items in my size. The housekeeper then arranged the purchased goods (complete outfits) on hangers in my actual closet. Instead of thinking about what I should wear, I outsourced that decision based on coded procedures.

  Because I was disinterested, because I desired to save time.

  The unintended consequence of this little time saver was a big cash payout. I showed it to the computer science mentor my senior year of high school. He showed it to a friend. That friend showed it to a group of angel investors. They wanted it, but not a teenager as a CEO.

  So I sold the program upon my eighteenth birthday, thereby allowing me to sever all connection to my parents. I haven’t spoken to either of them in twelve years. I’m not sure they’ve noticed.

  Thomas—my shrink—told me their disinterest in me had everything to do with their own psychosis and nothing to do with my value as a person. I believe him, primarily because he’s the expert. He has a Ph.D. And even though I still think of behavioral science as a soft science, the guy knows his shit.

  Secondarily, I believe him because I respect him, because he is both intelligent and good. All data indicates he is to be believed.

  But, again, I digress.

  I pushed my fingers into my pockets, a trick I’d learned early on when in close proximity to Marie. It helped me keep my hands to myself. I made a mental note to never again shop on a Saturday. The store was busy and I couldn’t touch her where and how I wanted. Because of laws.

  My left hand connected with a small velvet box within my pocket. I fiddled with it, twisting it, running my finger along the seam.

  The box.

  It had been in the pocket of whatever pants I was wearing since the weekend after Kerry and Marcus had visited. Since Marie told me she loved me. Not wanting to plan something cheesy and elaborate, I’d been waiting for the right moment.

  She shook her head and returned the tie to the table. “I think you have a tie habit.”

  I shrugged, not denying it, instead allowing a slow meaningful smile to claim my mouth. I did have a tie habit and we both knew it. Ties were versatile in their applied uses. As an example, I had more ties in her nightstand drawer than I had in my closet.

  “You’re bad.” Her smile mirrored mine, though her cheeks were now pink.

  “You like me bad.” I bent forward to brush my lips against hers.

  She gave a wistful sigh. “Come on, let’s go.”

  “Where are we going?” I let her tug my hand from my pocket and pull me towards the exit.

  “You’re taking me to lunch, and then home. Fiona gave me a new cake recipe and I’ve been wanting to try it.”

  That had me standing straighter and my mouth watering. When it came to Marie’s cooking, I was a Pavlovian dog. “What kind of cake?”

  “You’ll see.”

  I rearranged our hands so that our fingers were woven together. “If it’s her coconut cake, we should definitely buy a new tie.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll have to tie you up until you agree to marry me.”

  She laughed and time stopped, just a little.

  Pragmatically, I knew it was impossible for time to stop just a little. Time is relative, and can be slowed—theoretically—but cannot be halted. Not outside of a particle collider experiment gone horribly wrong and/or a black hole.

  But when Marie laughed, when her mouth curved in a perfect arch, when her eyes became the combined colors of hydrogen on the visible light spectrum, when the manifestation of happiness as perfect music passed her lips, then time stopped.

  Just a little.

  I’ve never been a funny guy, not purposefully. Not until Marie. Not until I heard her laugh for the first time. Everything about it was addictive. You have to want to talk to people in order to have an occasion to be funny, and there were only two things I enjoyed as much as talking to Marie.

  One involved her cooking, the other involved her body, and both involved eating.

  “I know what I like.” I shrugged, licking my lips, poised to pounce as soon as she finished pressing the white shavings to the frosting.

  I have no shame when it comes to—

  “Coconut.” Her tone was flat but also teasing, and she lifted an eyebrow at me.

  “Yes.” I was hovering, but no aspersions ought to be cast on account of my hovering. She knew how I felt about coconut before she made the cake. Nothing about my hovering should have been surprising.

  “You’re coconut crazy. For your birthday, I’m going to get one of those coconut bras.”

  I blinked and then stared at the most amazing woman on the planet (not a controversial claim). “That would be so awesome.”

  She chuckled, wiping her hands on a towel.

  I was already reaching behind her for the plates. “Are you finished? Can we eat—”

  “Na-ah,” she pushed at my chest, backing me out of the kitchen. “Not yet.”

  “What?” I sounded panicked because I was panicked. I’d been forced to watch her bake for the last three hours, the alluring aroma of toasted coconut and baked coconut permeating the air.<
br />
  And now we weren’t going to eat it? Perhaps she was a closet sadist.

  I can work with that.

  Marie steered me into the bedroom. “I want you to take off your clothes.”

  I immediately removed my shirt and then unbuckled my belt, not needing to be told twice. “Please tell me we’re going to eat that cake naked,” I bent to her ear and whispered while I unzipped my pants, “off each other.”

  “No.” She shivered, then she added, “Maybe. I don’t know. Possibly.”

  I kissed and then bit her neck.

  She shivered again. “Okay, yes. We can do that. But first,” she braced her hands on my shoulders and held me away, “first you need to lie on the bed.”

  I lifted an eyebrow at her command and the nervous tremor in her tone. “Marie . . .”

  “Please?” She was biting her lip now and had dropped her hands from my arms, twisting her fingers. “I need to do something and I need you to lie down.”

  I inspected her. She was definitely nervous. “Okay. Fine.”

  Stepping out of my pants, I lay on the bed as instructed, tracking her every movement as she reached into her nightstand with lightly shaking fingers and pulled out a length of rope.

  She reached for one of my hands and I stiffened. “What’s the rope for?” She’d never tied me up before.

  “It’s not rope, see?” Marie trailed the edge of it over my abdomen, placing her knee on the mattress next to me. “It’s knit, and made of silk and bamboo.”

  “It’s fancy rope.”

  “Now we won’t have to ruin your ties.”

  “I don’t consider them ruined.”

  She huffed. “It’s very soft.”

  “It’s soft, fancy rope.”

  Marie set her teeth and glared at me. “You’ve tied me up. Why can’t I tie you up?”

  “After months of being regulated to the friend zone, I don’t like the idea of my movements being restricted.”

  The side of her mouth lifted, but her glare persisted. “Listen, just give me five minutes, okay?”

  I examined her, the stubborn set of her jaw, and her appearance of anxiety. “Why are you nervous?”

  She huffed again. “You’ll find out once I tie you up.”

  “You’ll release me if I ask?”

  “Of course.” She touched my wrist again and this time I allowed her to secure me to the headboard. Once that was done, she reached for my other wrist and tied it as she straddled my waist, her breasts—sadly still encased in her dress and bra—were in my face.

  Testing the knot twice, she jumped from the bed and searched the second drawer of the nightstand. Apparently finding what she was after, she straightened and faced me, her hands behind her back, looking very serious.

  “Matt.”

  “Valkyrie.”

  A hint of a smile relaxed her features as she sucked in a large breath. “So, we’ve been dating for a while.”

  “Not long enough.”

  “And I—I—what?” Her face fell. “What do you mean not long enough?”

  “Just that we should have started dating sooner.”

  “Oh.” She nodded, the movements of her eyebrows telling me that my words had disconcerted her.

  I crossed my ankles. “Why aren’t you naked?”

  She shook herself. “Oh. No reason.”

  “Then why am I naked?”

  “Because I didn’t want you to be suspicious.”

  That made my eyes widen and made me suspicious. “Suspicious? About what?”

  “Stop rushing me. Let me say my thing.” Marie stood straighter and lifted her chin, her eyes darting over my body. “And stop doing that.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Flexing your . . . muscles.”

  “I can’t help that muscle. It sees you and flexes all on its own.”

  She slid her teeth to the side and cleared her throat, her eyes now studiously focused on mine. “So, as I was saying, we’ve been dating for a while now and I think things between us are going very well.”

  That made me frown. “That’s a severe understatement of fact and is therefore an imprecise ascribing of value.”

  She must’ve liked my argument because she grinned. “I’m glad you feel that way.”

  “It’s not a feeling, it’s a fact.”

  Marie laughed. The sight and sound had me relaxing further on the bed.

  “Okay, so it’s a fact. And given the facts, I think it’s time we moved—or at least we considered moving—on to the next step . . .” her smile dwindled until it left her eyes absent of humor and full of hopeful anxiety, “. . . in our relationship.”

  Before I could question her meaning, she placed one knee, then the other on the bed and knelt next to me, withdrawing a blue velvet box from behind her back. I stared at her, not masking my confusion, as she opened the box and revealed a set of gold square cufflinks with engraved wavy lines.

  “One is sine, the other is cosine. One is you, and one is me.” Her typically melodic cadence was now tight with nerves. “Marry me?”

  I stared at her—at her spectacular eyes, presently both gray and green—my mouth embarrassingly agape, finally managing to say, “You . . . ?”

  “Want to marry you.” Her voice broke, wavered, but she nodded with certainty. “I love you, Matt. I love you completely. I want to spend the rest of my life with you and I hope that you—”

  “Stop.” I shook my head, closing my eyes, squeezing them shut. “Damn.”

  This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.

  Seven months.

  I’d been carrying that ring around for seven fucking months.

  And she distracts me with coconut, gets me naked, ties me to a bed, and proposes.

  “Damn.”

  I felt her shift on the bed, heard her breathing change, and my eyes flew open. To my everlasting regret, the hopeful anxiety in her expression had been replaced with confused hurt. Thus, my growl of frustration couldn’t be helped.

  “No, Marie. No. Don’t make that face. Don’t have those thoughts. You don’t know—listen, stop. Grah!” I pulled against the bindings, wanting, needing to reach for her.

  But I couldn’t.

  Because she’d tied me up with soft, fancy rope.

  Taking a deep breath and releasing it carefully, I lifted my chin towards my pants where they lay discarded on the floor. “Can you bring me my pants?”

  “Of course.” She nodded jerkily, closing the box on the cufflinks and shoving them back in her drawer, then darted to my jeans.

  I watched her rushed movements, having to grit my teeth to keep from spewing profanities. She placed the jeans over my middle, as though to hide my nakedness, and the action drove a frustrated laugh from my lungs.

  Great.

  Just . . . great.

  With still shaking fingers, she untied my right wrist. “I’m sorry. I should have gone with my original plan.”

  “Original plan?”

  “I was going to bake the cufflinks in the cake.” She sighed, shaking her head. “But, see, well, Janie and Quinn got engaged after he tied her up, and you said that thing about tying me up until I agreed to marry you and I just thought—I thought—I guess I don’t know what I thought.”

  With my right hand free, I shoved it into the left pocket of my pants while she worked on the other wrist.

  “And if you need time to think about it, I completely understand. I know it was sudden. But I saw the cufflinks and it felt like—I don’t know—a sign? So I got them and—”

  Now that both of my hands were free, I caught her around the waist and pulled her down, laying her back on the bed and rolling over her.

  “Marie,” I kissed her quickly. “You never cease to surprise me.”

  She nodded, her brow still knit with worry. I kissed her again, deeper, because she tasted awesome and it felt like the right thing to do in the moment.

  But before things could get out of hand, I lifted my head, placed th
e box—the box—on her chest, popped it open, and showed her the ring inside.

  And improvised.

  “Marie Harris, I don’t want to think about my life without you. You are the sine to my cosine, and those cufflinks are perfection. So is your cooking, everything you make is perfection. And delicious. And you’re delicious. I love how you taste. I want to taste you now. But first, I have to finish saying this. I love how you feel. I love your bravery and honesty, I love how fucking smart you are—sorry for cussing while proposing, but you are so fucking smart—and how good, how deeply, deeply good. And sexy. Petabytes of sexiness.”

  Unable to restrain myself, I kissed her again, noting that her mouth was open and it took her a few seconds to respond because—clearly—I’d shocked the hell out of her.

  Leaning away, I pushed my fingers into her hair and looked straight into her eyes. “To put that quantity into perspective, one petabyte is one million gigabytes.”

  “Oh,” she said, the word more breath than sound.

  I sucked in air, suddenly nervous for reasons I couldn’t presently comprehend, and prepared to ask the question I’d been wanting to ask, but hadn’t because I’d wanted to wait for the right moment.

  “Marie, will you marry me?”

  She released a short exhale, her eyes darting between me and the ring, her smile growing massive, and nodded. “Yes. Yes. Of course!”

  In the next moment she reached for my face and brought my lips to hers. We kissed while I surreptitiously removed the ring from the box and slid it on her finger. I wanted her wearing that ring as soon as possible. I’d waited long enough. But now I understood, I shouldn’t have waited.

  Because every moment with Marie might not be perfect, but it would always be the right moment.

  -The End-

  About the Author

  Penny Reid lives in Seattle, Washington with her husband, three kids, and an inordinate amount of yarn. She used to spend her days writing federal grant proposals as a biomedical researcher, but now she writes books.

  Published in 2017, ‘Dating-ish’ is Penny’s 14th novel.

  Come find me-

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