Chasing Love

by Natalie Ann

  He wasn’t so sure of that. “So a few times now you’ve called this a date?”

  “Well, by definition a date is an appointment between two people to meet or go out. I’d say this is a date.”

  “I thought a date meant romance,” he said, laughing.

  “There is that too,” she said seriously. He’d been joking, but he could see she wasn’t.

  “What?” he said. He needed this clarified quickly before he put his foot in his mouth again.

  “You’re single. I’m single. We’ve known each other forever. We’re here on a date. Why not see if there is a possibility of some romance?”

  “I don’t know how to do romance,” he said. He’d been told that enough also.

  “The funny thing is, I do,” she said.

  She still wasn’t smiling or laughing. Still being serious. Was he crazy to even consider this? “What about Brian?”

  “What about him?” she asked, frowning now.

  “He’s my best friend.”

  “And he’s my brother,” she said back. “He knows I date. I’m guessing he is aware you do too.”

  “But he doesn’t know we’d be dating each other.”

  “Does that mean you’re calling this a date too?” she asked. This time her smile almost lit up the room. Had he been reading her wrong for years? Did she feel some of the things he did? Or the better question was…why did she feel it about him?

  “How about we call it a possibility?”

  “I can do that,” she said, picking up her glass of ice tea and raising it. “To possibilities.”

  6

  First Moves

  Several days later, Meena was wondering what Troy thought about possibilities because it sure the hell wasn’t the same thing she did.

  They’d finished their date; he’d given her a hug in the parking lot and a kiss on the cheek.

  Correction. She’d given him a hug and he hugged her back. She went with her gut and placed her lips to his cheek, he did the same.

  She figured if she left it to him, they would have said goodbye and climbed in their cars, then gone on their way staying ten feet apart the whole time.

  In the past four days, she hadn’t talked to him once. How the heck do you toast possibilities if you don’t talk to that person?

  She wanted to reach out to him a few times but stopped herself.

  Yes, he knew she was outgoing—definitely more than him—but she didn’t want to be the one to make all the first moves.

  Then she realized if she was going to get anywhere, she had to. She’d pushed for that dinner date and it seemed she was going to have to push for even more.

  “What do you have planned for tonight?” her client asked her.

  She was trimming Sarah’s hair now after touching up the color at her roots and putting toner on the highlights. She liked this style right now. Darker at the roots and blending to lighter on the ends. It was easy maintenance for many and could be done a variety of ways.

  “Not much. I’ve got some paperwork to deal with and maybe I’ll just relax with a good chick flick.”

  “That sounds like the perfect night in the middle of the winter. I think my kids are out with friends tonight too, so I should be able to convince my hubby for a date night.”

  Meena guessed Sarah was in her early forties. She couldn’t even imagine having grown kids and thinking that might be the only way to get a date night on a Friday night.

  Then she remembered she was single and couldn’t even get a date night. What a pathetic existence she had from what she was living a few years ago.

  She finished up Sarah’s blowout and walked her up front, then went back to her office and pulled out her phone. It was time to take charge again.

  It was time to be the woman everyone thought she was.

  So what is your definition of possibilities? she typed before she could stop herself and hit send to Troy.

  Troy heard his phone go off, glanced down and saw it was Meena, and as much as he was dying to read it, he couldn’t. He was in the middle of a meeting with his sales manager and trying to figure out what the guy was doing to him. Causing his ulcer to erupt, that’s what!

  “I don’t understand why you want the staff to do that when they’re on a call,” Troy said to Bob.

  “I think they should try to sell more services. Sell maintenance plans,” Bob said.

  “They’re there fixing something. That’s what they’re trained to do. Now you want them to be salespeople?” Troy said, trying to hide the shock from his voice.

  If he had been asked to do that, he’d probably leave. If he wanted to be a salesperson he wouldn’t have decided to work with his hands.

  “It’s not like you think,” Bob argued.

  “It’s exactly like I think. Someone calls because their furnace isn’t working in the middle of the winter. We’re charging over a hundred dollars an hour for labor, extra if it’s after hours or an emergency and they need someone right away, then you figure in parts and you want the men to sell them more. You’re nuts. Most people are just praying their wallet holds up to their repair bill.”

  He felt they charged fair for the area. Smaller businesses might charge more or less an hour, but he had the fleet to service people the day they called. They just might have to get serviced after hours and pay more. He had to pay more to his employees for that, so he had to pass the cost on.

  “Service contracts. We want them to buy service contracts,” Bob said.

  “Then why can’t we send them surveys or emails asking them to do it with all the information on the prices, rather than having the guys learn one more thing?”

  “Because most people delete an email. I’m telling you, Troy. You have to pitch it when they’re getting the work done. When the customer is feeling the pain to their pocketbook and they don’t want to have to feel it again.”

  “I don’t know, Bob.”

  “Troy,” Bob said, sighing. “Your father never wanted to do this either. Not for homeowners. But we started it with businesses and if you look at the numbers, it’s so worth it.”

  “We could lose our shirts on it,” he argued.

  “What I’m proposing is a maintenance service contract. There is no loss. Our guys go in and clean the furnace or AC. The homeowner schedules it on off times of the year. Times when maybe we aren’t as busy ourselves. If we’re cleaning once a year, there is less of a chance of a major breakdown and homeowners paying extra for emergency calls. They’d still have to pay if there was a problem that was discovered during routine maintenance. I’m telling you, most homeowners will think it’s a deal.”

  “Let me think about it this weekend and then I want to talk to the guys in general and get an idea of their thoughts.”

  “That works,” Bob said. “Try to be open-minded about it. You’re running a business now and you need to think that way. You’ve got a lot of employees that depend on their job, so you have to change with the times to keep the business profitable.”

  “The business is damn profitable and you know it.” There was the burning in his stomach again.

  “That didn’t come off the right way,” Bob said. “Think it over and let’s talk about it again on Monday.”

  Bob left and Troy took a deep breath. This was the part of the business he hated. He knew he wouldn’t want to do that out on a call, but maybe other guys wouldn’t mind. And maybe there was a way to make it optional. Or give an incentive.

  More things for him to think about that he didn’t want to.

  Instead, he pulled his phone closer and read the text from Meena. Of all times to get asked that question.

  He’d been thinking about her a lot for days.

  He’d been wanting to reach out to her.

  He’d picked his phone up twice to do it.

  Then it was rotten timing, as the phone was in his hand, he’d get a text from Brian and stop.

  He tried to put himself in Brian’s shoes. He tried to think of how he�
��d feel if Stephanie were younger than him and Brian had been interested in her.

  The problem was, he couldn’t see it in his mind and therefore didn’t know how he’d feel.

  The last thing he wanted to do was broach it with Brian though. Not when he didn’t know where things might go with Meena. Brian was always the person he talked to about these issues, which was another thing that sucked about this.

  But by waiting, she was getting impatient. He was actually surprised it’d taken her this long to text him.

  He typed back. Possibilities...cold shoulders...an angry woman...missed opportunities.

  He could see the dots on his phone that she was typing back at that moment. When a smiley face appeared, he laughed. The dots were still there, then he read. You’ve got a sense of humor. Who would have known?

  Maybe you could find out more on date two? he typed back.

  Your turn to choose, he read.

  He really didn’t feel like going out tonight. It was cold. He was tired. And he was stressed.

  Damn it, he was boring. He was too young to be making excuses to not go out, especially when a sexy woman was interested in him.

  Pizza at my place, he threw out there.

  Perfect. Give me your address and time and I’ll see you there.

  He gave her that information and tossed his phone back on his desk. The desk he hated sitting behind every day.

  Working at Pulse four days ago was the first time he’d done any work with his hands since he’d owned the business. He didn’t realize how much he missed it.

  How much his life had changed when his father died.

  He didn’t need Bob reminding him he had over a hundred employees relying on him now. He felt that stress himself.

  Talk about stress, he just added to it by making a second date with his best friend’s sister.

  7

  In a Routine

  Troy wondered what he could have possibly been thinking.

  Meena Dawson was on the way to his house right now to have pizza with him.

  There was no way out of this. It was a date. The dinner earlier in the week could have been stretched out as a thank you dinner, but this wasn’t that. This was him inviting her to his house to share a meal in his kitchen.

  She’d never been to his house before. He’d only lived here less than two years. Before that, he was in an apartment and it was easy maintenance for him. Or no maintenance at all.

  He’d been working alongside his father, trying not only to learn the ropes of the business, but also what his father’s employees did on a daily basis. Coming home and worrying about shoveling snow or mowing the lawn was the last thing he wanted to worry about.

  But then came Sabrina.

  They’d dated for a few years. They’d met out in a bar one night and hit it off. Which was surprising for him because he never really hit it off with anyone before. Nor did he make a habit of going out to bars drinking.

  But Brian was celebrating opening his own firm and what was he supposed to do, tell his best friend he was too tired to go out and have a drink with him?

  He and Sabrina had transitioned from dating to living together. She’d been hinting about marriage all along, but at twenty-nine, he was getting sick of it. He never said he wanted to get married and always changed the subject when it came up.

  She’d finally cornered him about it one night after they started house hunting. He agreed the apartment was just too small, but he was in a routine and routines were his thing.

  Moving to a house was something he didn’t want to consider, but if it would stop the marriage talks, he agreed. He’d buy the house though and she’d have very little input in it.

  That might have been the last straw for her. She’d never even moved in. Before he closed on the house he thought was perfect for him, but lacking for her, she’d finally said, “So when am I getting my diamond?”

  When he said he wasn’t ready, she said she was fed up with waiting around. That she wanted to go out and have fun and all he did was work. There was some guy she worked with and he’d been flirting with her and she decided it was time to explore that if Troy wasn’t going to commit.

  He couldn’t help it. His father had died. He was gutted over it. He had a ton of responsibility and going out and drinking and partying wasn’t on the top of his list of things to do. Even before his father died, it wasn’t a priority for him.

  He’d already been sour over her attitude on how his family handled the title changes of the business and giving Stephanie her cut. How Sabrina wasn’t there for him on an emotional level either.

  How she had nothing good to say when Meena showed up to show the support that he’d been hoping to get from Sabrina.

  It wasn’t a month from his father’s death that Sabrina posed the engagement question, and then packed up the things from their apartment and left.

  He closed on this house and moved in all by himself almost a month after they’d split. And he’d never been happier Sabrina hadn’t set foot in it.

  But now, the one woman he always dreamed of was coming to his house for a meal and he had no clue what to do.

  The doorbell rang and he walked forward to open it, the cold wind hitting him in the face, Meena’s red hair blowing all around like a kite caught up in the sky and getting tangled in its string. She grabbed ahold of it with one hand and calmed it like a pro.

  “Hey, there,” she said. She was always so upbeat and cheerful.

  “You found my place okay, I see.”

  “It’s not that hard to find. I’m surprised you moved here.”

  He lived in Guilderland now. A suburb outside of Albany. A close drive to work but not one of the neighboring towns that had a lot of activities. Guilderland might be considered the boring outlying town. Not as many restaurants, not a lot of nightlife or much to do. Why bother when Albany was a few miles away?

  He liked this area though. He grew up in Colonie, which had more going on, but was equally as close to Albany. It just wasn’t where he wanted to be right now.

  “It’s a nice area.”

  “It is,” she said. “You still like living in developments, I see.”

  He was smack dab in the middle of one, but this one was new and the house was only a year old when he bought it. Low maintenance and it was what he wanted.

  Was it bigger than he needed? Yeah, it was. But in the back of his mind, he knew at some point in his life he’d settle down. If he could ever find someone to put up with his ways...or lack of them. And as for snow removal or lawn care, he’d hired someone.

  “I’m sure you’re downtown somewhere where all the action is,” he said.

  “Actually, I’m not. I’m renting a house at the moment. I didn’t want the apartment living again. I had enough of that the past few years.”

  Which begged the question he’d been dying to know. “Why don’t you come on in and have a seat and I’ll order the pizza. Tell me though, why did you move back here?”

  She shrugged and handed her long coat over. Her clothing wasn’t bold and bright now either. Dark purple leggings and a matching long sweater. She looked comfortable and cozy and with her red hair, her own form of trendy. “It was time for a change. I did what I needed to there.”

  He smiled at her. “You know, if your hair was green, you’d look like a long and lean eggplant right now.”

  She laughed. “Thanks, I think.” His eyes were still looking her over and she finally asked, “Why are you looking at me that way?”

  “You’re not so bold anymore with your clothing choices. Another thing you decided was time for a change?” he asked.

  “Little by little I realized I might have looked a bit ridiculous. When I was younger it was a nice shock factor. Then I got to Redken and saw that I didn’t stand out so much. That there were people wilder than me, or classier. I’d never be able to pull off classy, but those that were wild made me sit back and think what others thought of me.”

  “You never used
to care what others thought of you before.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Anyway, one day when I first started working, I heard a client tell a girl next to me that Coco Chanel once said ‘Take one thing off before you leave the house each day’ or something like that. I had no idea what it meant.”

  He burst out laughing. “Really?”

  “The next morning before I left, I stopped and pulled off a scarf that I’d had on and realized I looked better without it. So before I left each day I did the same thing. Got dressed, then looked at myself before I left and made sure I removed one thing. Now I’m back to being simple.”

  “I don’t know that you could ever be simple a day in your life.”

  Meena smiled at Troy when he laughed at her. She was glad he didn’t push the issue of why she moved back here. She really didn’t have much of an answer other than what she’d said. There was no way she was telling him the truth.

  That once she found out he was single, it was time to make her move.

  She’d already started to change her clothing style years ago. Or more like toned it down. She was still a thrift store shopper and still liked to have her own style, but it wasn’t loud, crazy, or bold anymore. She left her hair to do that.

  If she was honest with herself, she decided that her hair was going to be her biggest accessory. That and the small diamonds she had in her ears. She might have a lot of them in her ears, but it wasn’t like the large hoops and feathers she used to wear.

  She looked around Troy’s house. It really suited him.

  Not one ounce of color though. That was probably why it suited him. All the walls were a light gray tone from what she could see. It was an open layout so no hiding anywhere.

  “Come into the kitchen,” he said just now. “We can figure out our pizza order.”

  “And you can show me around your house,” she said.

  “Sure,” he said.

  His kitchen was white and gray. Not even one accent color anywhere. They walked upstairs and she got a glimpse into his bedroom. It was at least blue, but still pretty simple with a king-sized bed and a large TV on the wall. His master bath was white and gray too.