One Last First Date

by Kate O'Keeffe

  Still holding the milk carton, I sunk to the floor, defeated. Eventually, my lips stopped feeling like large slabs of rubber, my eyes stopped watering, and my mouth began to feel less like my tongue had taken over, swelling to twice its actual size.

  This was so much harder than I thought it would be!

  To add insult to injury, my cat, Zig, wandered past me and flicked me with his tail. How to kick a girl when she’s down, Zig.

  Little Miss Know-It-All’s chirpy voice blasted out from my laptop, telling me to julienne a carrot. I sighed. Zig must have stepped on the keyboard. I pushed myself up off the floor. Zig was licking between the f and g keys, purring his fluffy head off. Great, shrimp paste and now cat slobber; my favorite combination.

  By five thirty-seven I was on the phone to Bailey—one of only two of my friends who could actually cook (Paige being the other, but she was out of town for the weekend)—with the spring rolls looking more like a Jackson Pollock painting, the sticky rice not sticking, but the fragrant rice so stuck I couldn’t get it out of the pan without the use of a power tool or two.

  “You’ve got to help me, Bailey. It’s not working, and he’ll be here in less than an hour and a half. Please.” I’d resorted to pleading now.

  I heard her yawn down the phone. “I’m really tired. I only just locked the café up at four.”

  “Please, please, please!” I knew I sounded pathetic, but she was all I had and this date had to go well.

  Bailey laughed. “Sure. I’ll be over in fifteen.”

  “You are an angel.”

  By the time she arrived, I had managed to make the cucumber salad, tasted it, and was actually impressed by my efforts. But then there was no cooking involved in making a salad, was there? Simply cutting and compiling. Probably where my culinary talents lie. Maybe I could consider becoming one of those raw foodists? The salad even looked pretty in the bowl. I hoped Parker would think so, because at this rate, a pretty cucumber salad was the sum total of our dinner for tonight.

  The intercom rang, and I buzzed Bailey up. She burst into laughter at my disheveled appearance when I opened the door. Self-consciously, I wiped the hair away from my face. I closed the door behind her as she struggled for breath. “Oh, honey. I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes. “Have you seen yourself?”

  I’d had no time for anything but cooking, let alone looking at my own reflection. “That bad, huh?”

  Bailey nodded. I walked to the bathroom. She was right. Not only did I have food in my hair, my mascara had run from my watering eyes, I had smudges of curry paste on my cheek, and even some julienned carrot in my hair. Absentmindedly, I plucked the carrot out and chewed it.

  When I got back to the kitchen, looking considerably more like a human being than a walking culinary disaster, Bailey was surveying the meal, aka the now squalid state of my kitchen, aka the culinary disaster zone.

  “So.” She rubbed her chin. “Is there anything here that’s salvageable?”

  With pride, I told her about the cucumber salad.

  “That might not be enough for dinner though, right?” She lifted the pot lid on the stove. “Is that a Thai red curry?”

  “It sure is.” I was encouraged. If it looked and smelled like a red curry, it couldn’t be all bad. Could it?

  She dipped her finger in to taste it.

  I leaped across the kitchen. “No! Don’t!”

  Too late, she sucked on her finger. Like mine before, her eyes bulged as her face turned pink. “Milk,” she croaked, fanning her face.

  I poured her a glass and watched as she drank it down, slowly returning to her normal color. “So that’s a little on the spicy side.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that. It didn’t taste right, so I added more. Can we save it?”

  She thought for a moment. “Have you got any more coconut cream?”

  “Yes!” I opened my pantry and dug around in the cans until I found one. “Here.”

  “Okay, we’ll pour some of this . . . actually, we’ll pour all of this into the sauce and see if that fixes it.”

  I let out a breath and smiled. With Bailey and her incredible cooking skills here, everything was going to be all right.

  She opened the can, poured the coconut milk in, and gave it a stir. She shot me a nervous glance before dipping her pinky in once more. “Here goes.” She tasted the sauce, pulled a face, and said, “We may need to start again.”

  “Start again? I was just about to add the chicken. Little Miss Know-It-All said to add that at the end.”

  Bailey arched her eyebrows. “Who is Little Miss Know-It-All?”

  I gestured toward my laptop. “The bossy chef on my video. I officially hate her.”

  Bailey nodded, as though it was thoroughly reasonable to get angry with a person I’ve never met on a screen.

  “You get the chicken out and I’ll chop it up. Do you have any ingredients left over?”

  I shook my head, furrowing my brow. “I used it all up.”

  “What time is Parker here?”

  “Seven.”

  She glanced at her watch. “Okay, so we have twenty-eight or so minutes.”

  “What?” My eyes shot to the wall clock. “Twenty-eight minutes? Are you serious?” My tummy did a flip-flop. “I’m not dressed, I have to wash this goop out of my hair, and the rice is . . . well, it doesn’t look like rice anymore, that’s for sure.” I rubbed the back of my neck. This was not going to plan.

  Bailey lifted the lid on the rice pot. “You’re right with the rice, honey.” She turned the pot upside down, and the rice stayed firmly and resolutely stuck to the bottom. Not even a solitary grain made its escape. “You could build furniture with that.”

  Despite my increasing stress levels, I let out a giggle. And then another. They must have been catching, because before too long, Bailey was laughing, too. We laughed and we laughed, holding our sides and gasping for breath.

  Eventually, wondering if I’d ever be able to stop after almost wetting my pants, we calmed down. I glanced at the clock: we had wasted a good four minutes laughing, four minutes I needed to be cooking or getting ready!

  “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you go and get all glammed up and I’ll pop down to The Thai Elephant and buy a red chicken curry? I know it’s not what you’d planned, but it’s better than the alternative.”

  My eyes softened. “You’re amazing, do you know that?”

  Bailey grinned at me. “If you could get me a Parker who thinks that, too, I’ll be set.” She pulled on her jacket. “Now, I’ll go and get the curry.” She looked at the spring roll disaster on the counter. “Did you want an appetizer, too?”

  “They’re meant to be vegetarian spring rolls. I tried to roll them up, but the rice pastry kept tearing.”

  Nigella Lawson I was quite clearly not.

  “I’ll get some of those, too. What were you planning on doing for dessert?”

  I plucked the mango from the fruit bowl and handed it to her. “Sliced mango with sticky rice.” I glanced at the pot of rice cement. “I’m pretty sure even I could manage to slice this baby, but maybe you could pick up the sticky rice?”

  She smiled. “That sounds like a good idea to me.”

  I handed her my credit card and thanked her profusely before I dived into the shower to wash off some of the goop hardening in my hair and make myself twelfth date ready.

  At exactly seven, the intercom buzzed, and I yelled in a panic for Bailey to let Parker in. “Tell him I’ll be out in a couple of minutes, okay?”

  “No worries.”

  I slipped on my black pencil skirt and sleeveless top, saying a silent prayer of thanks to my past self I’d already laid out my outfit for the evening. I pushed my feet into my heels and surveyed myself in my full-length mirror. This is it, the night we tell each other how we feel, and . . . other things. My tummy flip-flopped.

  I heard Bailey letting Parker into my apartment. One final check in the mirror and I opened my bedroom door and walked o
ut into the living room. “Hi, Parker.”

  He was holding a single red rose—so The Bachelor romantic—and dressed as he always did when I saw him, in khaki pants and a crisply ironed polo shirt. He pecked me on the cheek. “Hi, Cassie. You look beautiful and something smells delicious.”

  Bailey and I shared a look. “Thanks,” I said, taking the proffered rose.

  “Well, that’s my cue to leave.” Bailey collected her purse from the table, which I noticed she had set beautifully, complete with napkins and a lit candle in the center. She’d placed the steaming hot curry, my cucumber salad, and rice in bowls on the table, no sign of any telltale takeout packaging to be seen.

  I mouthed an indebted “Thank you” to her, and she winked back. “Great to meet you, Parker. See you soon, Cassie. Have a fun night!”

  With Bailey gone, I poured Parker a drink and we sat down to the meal.

  “This looks amazing. You have hidden talents, Ms. Dunhill.”

  I beamed at him, ignoring a pang of guilt. Should I tell him I was a disaster in the kitchen and it was all Bailey—and The Thai Elephant? I settled for, “Thanks.” My eye began to twitch.

  We served ourselves the food and chatted about our weeks. We hadn’t seen one another since I’d been to Napier, so I had a lot to tell him about the retreat and working on the new project.

  “You’re a great cook,” he commented between mouthfuls. “This tastes just as good as that place down the road from here. What’s it called?”

  “Which place are you talking about?” More eye twitching. I didn’t make eye contact with him, focusing on my dinner instead.

  “Something about an Elephant. I’ve only been there a couple of times. We should go sometime.”

  “Sounds like a great idea!” I replied a little too enthusiastically.

  “I’m going to keep you on.” He smiled at me, his eyes twinkling.

  I almost cracked and told him the truth. We’ll laugh about it together one day . . . when we’re married.

  “Tell me, how was the bowling?” he asked.

  “It was so great. My team won! We totally smashed the opposition. Very satisfying.”

  He grinned at me. “It sounds like it. You like bowling, do you?”

  “I love it.”

  He shrugged. “Each to their own.”

  I drew my eyebrows together. “You don’t like to bowl?” He had taken a new mouthful, so I waited for him to swallow.

  “What’s to like? It’s just throwing a heavy ball at a bunch of white things at the end of an alley. It might be fun every now and then, but it’s hardly a sport, is it?”

  I nearly choked on my curry. Hardly a sport? If my dad could hear him, he’d be spinning in his grave! And he’s not even dead. “Umm, I guess.” I pushed my dinner around my plate. “Are you saying you wouldn’t go bowling with me?”

  “Well—” He paused when he looked into my eyes. “You know what? If you like it, I’m certain I would, too.”

  “You mean you’ve never bowled?” I was incredulous. How could you live in the twenty-first century and never have been ten-pin bowling?

  “My family was more chess and tennis, I suppose. And golf. We all love golf.”

  In comparison with golf, tennis, and chess, bowling suddenly seemed pretty lowbrow. My eyes got huge. “You played golf as a family when you were a kid?” Who did that?

  “Of course. My parents are avid golfers, and they wanted to bring us up to love it, too. I got my first set of clubs when I was four years old.”

  I smiled at the mental image. “I bet you were very cute. Did you wear plus fours?”

  He laughed. “No. There’s a dress code, of course, but no plus fours.”

  After dinner, we kicked off our shoes and sat cuddling up on the sofa together. It felt so right. I just knew those magical three words were about to leave his lips, changing my life forever. I decided to come clean about dinner—well, at least partially.

  “Parker, I need to tell you something. Bailey, my friend, was here to help me out in the kitchen. She’s a great cook, and so we didn’t end up eating pizza, I called her to ask her to help me when things didn’t quite . . . go to plan.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  I turned and looked at him. “Sorry.”

  He gave me a kiss. “Don’t apologize. It’s so great you tried to make me this dinner. It’s just another thing to adore about you.”

  I smiled as warmth spread across my chest. Parker adored me? Adoring someone is very much like loving them, isn’t it?

  “How come Bailey’s such a good cook?” He wrapped his arms around me as I lay against him.

  “She runs the best café in the city.”

  “Alessandro’s?”

  I pushed myself back up to face him. “No. The Cozy Cottage Café, of course!” How could he think Alessandro’s was the best café in Auckland? Their coffee was middling at best, their muffins were dry, and they didn’t even do flourless chocolate and raspberry cake.

  “I’ve never been to that one. Where is it?”

  “Heaven.”

  He chuckled. “That good, huh?”

  “Oh, yes. Marissa, Paige, and I go there all the time. It’s our special place.”

  “Are boys allowed?” he teased.

  I crinkled my forehead. “Well—”

  “Oh, I see. It’s out of bounds, is it?” He tickled my tummy, causing me to break into peals of laughter. I’m really very ticklish.

  “Okay, okay!” I conceded.

  “Okay what?”

  “Okay, I’ll take you to my café.”

  “Good. And I’ll take you to mine.” He extended his hand, and we shook on it.

  “Now, I’d much rather do this than argue about whose café is the better one.” He put his hand under my chin and pulled me in for a kiss. It was a deep, long kiss, that had me melting at the knees.

  When Parker stood up and held his hand out toward me, I knew exactly where this evening was heading. And I was more than happy about it. I reached up and took his hand, gazing into his eyes as I stood up next to him.

  “Did you want to . . . ?” he asked, his voice deep.

  I bit my lip and nodded.

  He smiled back at me. “I do. So much.”

  My mind darted to the state of my bedroom. Even though I had planned for this evening with fresh sheets, candles and a perfectly made bed, I’d virtually exploded in there in my haste to get ready before Parker had arrived. “Give me one second.”

  I rushed into my bedroom and grabbed my speedily discarded jeans, sneakers, and T-shirt from the floor and stuffed them under the bed. I grabbed the matches from the top of my nightstand and lit the candles, almost burning myself, my hands were shaking so much. I smoothed out the bed and checked myself in the mirror. Then I did one final glance around the room to ensure it was up to first-time-sex-with-my-future-husband standards. It was.

  I took a deep breath. This was it. I returned to Parker, who was still standing where I’d left him. He looked as nervous as I felt. Without a word, but with my belly in knots, I led him past the sofa and through my bedroom door.

  “Nice room,” he commented.

  “Thanks.”

  He pulled me into him and kissed me once more, tugging at my top to loosen it. I did the same to him, running my hands up under his top, feeling his firm back.

  “I’ve wanted to do this for so long,” he breathed into my ear.

  “Me too,” I breathed. His . . . err . . . interest pressed up against me confirmed his words.

  We feel onto my bed, pulling our clothes off, hands everywhere, kissing, wanting. And it was amazing. He was so gentle and thoughtful, and loving. Just the way I’d hoped he would be. The perfect first time with my perfect One Last First Date.

  But time was ticking by. We were nearing the end of the date, and yes, things had moved along very nicely, but this needed to get to the next level. A declaration needed to be made. Stat!

  As we lay in my bed together, my mind d
arted to the embarrassing things conversation Will had got us to do during our first meeting with the Marketing team. That had worked so well, all of us having fun with it and getting to know one another better, too. Will was onto something. Maybe it could work with Parker.

  Back up the bus. What was I doing thinking about Will “Poop Boy” Jordan while in bed with Parker?

  I pushed myself up on my elbow and looked into his sleepy eyes. “Tell me something weird about yourself. Something embarrassing.”

  He furrowed his brow. “Something embarrassing?”

  “Yeah, like . . . something you don’t usually tell people.”

  He pushed a stray hair from my face. “Like I had acne as a teenager?”

  “No, something unusual. Here’s something about me: I sing in the shower. Probably really, really badly, even though I secretly suspect a top music producer will happen to hear me from the place next door and offer me a multi-million-dollar record deal.”

  He looked at me with what appeared to be a mixture of surprise, interest, and, quite possibly, a touch of fear. “I see.”

  Undeterred, I replied, “Your turn.”

  “Umm, let me think. Something embarrassing.” I could almost see the cogs whirring in his smart doctor brain. “Well, I guess I got a flat tire a few months ago and didn’t know how to change it.”

  “And?” I led.

  “And phoned my friend Hunter. He changed it for me.”

  Okay, not quite getting it here. “How about something you do when you’re on your own and no one knows about it? Like me singing Taylor Swift songs in the shower.”

  “Well, there is this one thing.”

  My eyes were wide. “Yes?”

  “Even though I’m a doctor and have to use them some of the time, I’m kind of scared of needles.”

  I kissed him on the lips. “That’s what I’m talking about! See? That’s something weird about you.”

  He grinned at me. “Don’t tell anyone. I’ve got a reputation to uphold, you know.”

  “Oh, I won’t, Doctor. I promise.”

  His face changed as our eyes locked. “Cassie, I—” He hesitated.

  This is it. This is the moment.

  I swallowed. “What is it, Parker?”