by Неизвестный
As he spoke, Danielle was reminded of someone who’d had a similar attitude. She’d worked long hours, and expected everyone else to make the same sacrifices. It was because of the crazy multi-tasking that she’d cracked.
Also, crunching caffeine tablets like candy and drinking illegal energy drinks had certainly contributed.
Carter kept talking about his corporate achievements, wrongly assuming she’d be impressed with his ambition. With each buzzword—growth hacking, responsive design, organic reach, discoverability, millennials—Danielle felt a nausea rising, along with a craving for those sickly sweet canned energy drinks.
She’d pushed her chair back and was preparing to run when the waiter returned with their martinis and appetizers. The waiter’s name was Terry, and he was in on the prank, and possibly some side bets. Terry gave her a forceful glare and used his foot to shove her chair back toward the table. Yes, he had money riding on the date lasting a bit longer.
She gave Waiter-Terry a wide-eyed glare of her own, then grabbed the martini he’d brought and tossed it back in two swallows.
Danielle had never been a drinker, not even in her corporate days, because alcohol made her feel relaxed, and she preferred feeling wound up like a spring. She immediately regretted the martini-guzzling, but wouldn’t let the pain show on her face. Sure, the booze tasted like something you’d use to remove stubborn sticker labels from new stemware, but she was cool. As she struggled to not let her eyes water, she could feel the stares of all her coworkers, watching from their places throughout the dining room. They were all so young. She had to play it cool, or they’d think she was old and uncool.
“Mmm,” she said. “I do love a good martini.”
“Game on,” Carter said, and he downed his martini as well.
The smell of the appetizers made Danielle’s mouth water. The hot food sat between them, looking inviting, so they began to eat.
“These are so good,” Danielle moaned over the appetizers. “I’ve never had these without charred black bits.”
Carter wasn’t as excited by the jalapeño cheese-poppers. He’d been hoping for more of a fine dining experience, but he did enjoy seeing the joy on Danielle’s face.
When she ate a jalapeño cheese-popper, her cheeks flushed, and Carter noticed she did a cute thing where she waved her hands like fans, as though that would reduce the mouth-burn from the capsicum in the peppers.
Everything his blind date did, from the way she ate deep-fried appetizers, to the way she looked at him out of the corner of her eyes as she sipped her next martini, was captivating. He’d never met anyone like her.
He couldn’t look away from Danielle, who was now shoveling cheese-and-bacon-covered potato skins into her mouth like the world was running out of potatoes.
He loved watching her eat. She was hungry, for cheesy potato skins, and for life. She was an enthusiastic, lusty woman, and watching her enjoy the appetizers thrilled and scared him. His life was all restraint and order, and this dangerous woman posed a threat.
They finished the appetizers, and started their main courses. Danielle made sex noises over the hot food, and they both laughed. Carter got more comfortable and relaxed, even without touching his next martini. They talked about the food and the weather that day, then exchanged stories about their nieces and nephews.
Danielle found it strange that Carter spoke of his nieces and nephews as though she knew exactly who they were, but she chalked that up to him simply loving them so much.
She smiled and leaned in when he told her about his niece, Sadie, who slept with a teddy bear in addition to the family’s pepper grinder. He’d taken her to see The Nutcracker, and when she got home, she decided the pepper grinder was basically the same thing as a nutcracker, and she “luuuuuurved him so much.”
Laughing, Danielle pointed to the pepper grinder on the table and said, “You have to admit, he is handsome.”
Carter stroked his fingers down the side of the tall wooden grinder. “This one’s curvy. Are we sure it’s not a female?”
He met her gaze, and Danielle felt the tender caress along her own curved sides. He felt it too, and kept fondling the pepper mill for a full thirty seconds.
After dinner, Carter signaled to someone and said, “Espresso, if you will.”
Danielle followed his gaze to a clump of resort staff, all of whom were watching and grinning. She broke out in goosebumps. She’d forgotten about the prank, but now the spell was broken. She looked down at her curves, spilling out of the low-cut yellow dress, and yearned for her comfortable loose clothes.
“I guess this is it,” Danielle said as she pushed her chair back and prepared the leave the table. There was nothing left for them, since it wasn’t a real date.
“Don’t you dare run off,” he teased.
She ran her hand over her amber hair. “Thank you for being such a good sport. I’ll pay for my half of the meal, of course.”
“No. I’ll pay. I’m a rich jerk, remember?”
“Thank you.” She pushed her chair back another inch.
“Are you ready for the next part, Elle? I thought we could go for a walk.”
“You’re still calling me Elle,” she said.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
She gave him a perplexed look, then got to her feet. She gave Carter a wave goodbye and went off in search of her co-workers.
6.
After Danielle left the table, Carter sipped his espresso and paid the bill, but made no move to leave the restaurant.
He thought she was simply off freshening up for the next phase of their date. Carter used his time to check his phone for messages. He had over two hundred unopened emails.
He started powering into them, burning through a hundred in record time. He didn’t even type out full sentences as responses. He just wrote YES or NO or OK.
When he reached a message from a woman named Elle, he assumed his pretty blind date was currently sending him a message from wherever she was.
Elle: Sorry I’m taking so long!
He raised his eyebrows at the message. She was texting him from the washroom to apologize for the time she was taking?
He tapped out a message to send back: Don’t forget to wash your hands!
She responded a minute later.
Elle: That’s so sweet of you! Hand washing is definitely the best way to cut down on the transmission of germs and disease.
He was so surprised by her response, he nearly dropped his phone on the floor.
They were talking about the transmission of germs and disease now? This woman was certainly keeping him on his toes.
Carter didn’t know, because he hadn’t been paying attention to the timestamps, that this was real Elle—the one his sister had actually set him up with that night.
The real Elle hadn’t felt well all day, but she’d rested with an afternoon nap and thought she could handle leaving the house.
Elle’s friend Carmen, who was really more of an acquaintance, had been so excited about the setup with her brother. She’d even chosen the restaurant, giggling over the name, and helped Elle choose her outfit—a chevron stripe stretchy dress in shades of amber and pale yellow. The dress didn’t seem right for a winter’s eve date, but Carmen had insisted her brother would love it.
An hour earlier, dressed in her yellow dress, Elle had walked out of her rented luxury townhouse, turned to the left, and gotten sick right into a potted miniature pine tree.
Stomach flu. She crept back inside. Ten minutes passed while she did battle with the porcelain. She messaged Carter to apologize for running late. When he didn’t respond, she phoned the restaurant and asked the staff to relay a message. The woman on the phone had been extremely thorough, and had a charming Canadian accent.
Now Elle lay on her bed, doped up on a concoction from the medicine cabinet, giggling over the new incoming messages from Carter.
The fever was making her delirious, and she suddenly felt a bit… frisky.
; Feverish Elle sent him another text: You sound really sexy right now. You make me want to touch myself.
Carter replied: Are you trying to drive me crazy? Because it’s working. I close my eyes and I see you in that yellow dress, you delicious little bumblebee.
Elle rolled to her side, coughed up something unsexy, blew her nose, then texted back: This little bumblebee is going to sting you.
Carter: You can try to kiss me, but you have to catch me first.
Elle, who could never have guessed he was thinking of another girl, messaged back: I’m going to kiss you, but not on your mouth.
Carter: You really are Trouble with a capital T. That martini is hitting you hard, isn’t it?
Elle wiped the flu sweat from her brow and reached for the bottle of Pepto Bismol. She messaged back: I’m taking another shot right now. I’m a bad girl and you’re not the boss of me, Mr. Big Boss Man.
Carter: Should we… continue this conversation in person?
Elle: If you’re not afraid of catching what I have, come get some right now. I’ll leave the door unlocked. Come find me.
Elle crawled out of bed, stumbled to the front door, and unlocked it. Yes, things were happening fast, and maybe she shouldn’t have taken a triple dose of flu medication, but she’d seen enough photos of Carter to know she wanted him.
She stumbled back to the bed and fell, face-first into the sheets. She wondered, does he even have my address? Then she passed out.
Meanwhile, as the real Elle drooled on luxury sheets, Carter sat at his table in The Snowy Elephant wondering where the ladies’ room was. Some parts of him were excited.
According to these messages, the lovely amber-haired girl he’d been dining with was now waiting for him, the door unlocked.
He looked at the message again.
Elle: If you’re not afraid of catching what I have, come get some right now. I’ll leave the door unlocked.
What a night this would be!
7.
“Okay, you guys, I did the prank,” Danielle said to the lodge staff gathered around her in the kitchen.
The Australian ski instructor was pouting, jealous. If Danielle had known it took dinner with another man to get his attention, she would have done it sooner.
“You sure ate a lot,” said the chef. “How were the jalapeño cheese-poppers?”
“So good!” Her cheeks reddened at the memory of the hot food. The others mistook her red cheeks for blushing, and started teasing her about having a crush on the guy.
“Shut up about that rich jerk,” the Australian ski instructor said angrily. “I bet he can’t even ski. He looks like the type of narcissistic workaholic who spends a perfectly great skiing day in his rented lodge, huddled over a laptop.”
Danielle frowned. Over dinner, Carter had admitted that was what he’d done all day. He planned to do some skiing eventually, after clearing out some emails.
“He’s still a person,” she said, defending him. “Just because he has a bunch of money and doesn’t fight with roommates every night over who gets the good pillow, that doesn’t mean he’s a soulless robot.”
The Australian ski instructor narrowed his handsome eyes at her. “Dani, you didn’t come here to get sucked back into the robot world. Do you really want to be that guy’s trophy wife? Do you want to bear him three children that’ll get sent off to private school with the other golden-haired trophy children, training to become future soulless robots serving corporate America?”
The Canadian bartender elbowed him. “There are more than two choices in the world. And if America’s so awful, why did you leave Australia to come here?” She made a DUH face at him. “Is it because all the wildlife in your upside-down country is trying to eat you or kill you?”
Everybody laughed, and soon the conversation devolved into a pile-on over whose home country was the worst, and therefore had the best people, who could survive such adversity.
Normally, she’d join in the debate with her friends, but Danielle found herself thinking about Carter.
It was a shame she would never see him again.
She excused herself from the group to go find her regular clothes, turned down the hallway leading to the office, and ran smack into Carter’s well-dressed chest.
He had his jacket on, and a woman’s jacket draped over his arm—the borrowed jacket she’d coat-checked when she’d pretended to arrive.
He grinned down at her, his emerald eyes more handsome than ever in the dim light of the hallway.
“You totally tricked me,” he said. “I went into the women’s washroom and all I got were dirty looks.”
“That’ll teach you not to check the sign on the door,” she replied.
“But I did find you.” He stretched his arms out, like he was going to hug her, but placed his palms against the wall on either side of her. “Found you and caught you,” he growled.
Danielle could feel the heat from his body, smell the scent of his aftershave. She was around guys constantly, but Carter was nothing like her male roommates, who smelled like wet goats half the time, thanks to never washing their towels.
Carter leaned in, like he was going for a kiss, but then touched his forehead against hers and stopped there. They locked gazes.
All Danielle’s thoughts about roommates and the particular scent of wet goats drifted away. She had no words. Just a gorgeous, wealthy, hunk of a man with his forehead touching hers. His emerald eyes were so beautiful, so deep. Maybe he wasn’t such a jerk after all.
Time passed, and he didn’t pull his forehead away from hers. Finally, she broke the silence.
“There’s a winter carnival,” she said. “Walking distance from here.”
“That sounds fun, but I’m worried if I take my eyes off you, you’ll disappear.”
She whispered, “I promise I won’t disappear.”
With that, he pulled back and held out the wool jacket for her to slip on.
He led the way through the restaurant, and then they were out the door, in the refreshingly brisk night air.
Eddie, the gap-toothed young man who’d taken over the valet station, gave Danielle a professional nod. She and Eddie had shared unwittingly shared a toothbrush for three weeks, but a casual observer would never guess they even knew each other.
“I don’t need my car yet,” Carter said to Eddie. “We’re going for a walk to this winter carnival I just found out about.”
Eddie pointed to the path leading through the snowy forest. “There’s the shortcut, sir.”
Carter extended his elbow to Danielle, every bit the gentleman. “Shall we?” She took his arm.
It was a crisp, perfect winter night, not too cold or windy. They walked together into the forest, talking about their favorite childhood winter memories, accompanied by the sound of crunching snow under their boots.
8.
Carter and Danielle stepped out of the path in the woods, arriving at the winter carnival.
Compared to the quiet of the snow-blanketed trees, the scene was a riot of blinking colors and movement. The air was layered with the scents of frying miniature donuts, corn dogs, and cotton candy. Barkers called out for all the husbands and boyfriends to try their hand at the games of chance.
As they moved into the crowd, Danielle tripped over a clump of snow and let go of Carter’s elbow. Carter caught her by grabbing her hand in his, like it was the most natural, normal thing in the world.
His hand was warm, and she didn’t dare let go.
They wandered together through the happy crowd, talking about how much they both loved carnivals. They passed by other couples who were sitting on benches, kissing, and when they stopped for a moment on their own bench, Carter leaned in. He seemed about to kiss her, but then shyly turned away.
One of the booth attendants yelled to get their attention. He urged the couple to come to his game, talking it up while tossing foam balls into miniature basketball hoops and telling them how easy it was.
“Those games are
all rigged,” Danielle said.
Carter got up and tugged her toward the booth anyway.
He leaned down and whispered in her ear, “Start picking out your prize now, because I’m going to win it for you.”
He paid the carnival worker for several balls, and handed the first batch to Danielle. She was still quivering from him whispering in her ear, but managed to toss a few balls in the general direction of the hoops. She missed by a country mile. Carter smiled, but didn’t tease her, except for with his eyes.
When it was his turn, he squashed the balls between his palms, compressing them slightly. The worker in the booth frowned at this, but didn’t stop him. Danielle realized it must have been the same tactic the worker had surreptitiously used to demonstrate how “easy” the game was, so what could he say?
Carter sunk three balls in a row, making the game look easy.
“Pick a prize from the middle row,” the booth guy said with a sigh.
“Do you see something you like?” Carter asked.
What she liked was Carter, but she chose a dolphin. The booth worker handed it over with a grumpy look.
Carter pulled out his wallet again and asked the worker, “You only make money when people lose, right?”
The guy looked embarrassed, but admitted, “Yes. The prizes come off my commissions.”
“How much for the whole wall of toys?” He pulled out a handful of bills. “Will this cover it?”
The guy’s eyebrows raised, and he stammered, “Y-y-yes, sir.”
“Let’s make everyone a winner tonight. Don’t tell them ahead of time, but if they play, they win.”
Carter handed over the wad of cash, and the guys shook hands on the deal.
As they walked away, Carmen said, “That was sweet of you.”
“It’s all an act to impress you. I’m a rich jerk, remember? I’m sure Carmen told you.”