“No, no high-five,” I say, putting her hand down when I walk past her. “He,” I say, pointing at Anthony, who is sitting in the chair with his mouth pressed down on the bite block for the X-rays, “was supposed to be my blind date. He,” I say, pointing at Hunter, who stands there with his arms crossed over his chest, “showed up and duped me by pretending to be him,” I say, pointing back at Anthony, who looks at Sandy and shrugs his shoulders. “Everyone out of the room while I take the X-rays,” I say, and they step out. I follow them out of the room and press the button on the wall outside.
“Holy shit,” Sandy says, looking back at Anthony when she walks back in and then at Hunter. “That’s messed up, even for me.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Hunter finally says. “It’s all his fault.” He points at Anthony. “This guy had a hot date,” he says and then looks at Sandy, “which I really hope was you and not someone else.”
She smiles at him and bats her eyes. “Guilty.”
“It was never my intention to lie to you,” he tells me and then glares back at Anthony. “Asshole.”
“But you did,” I point out.
“Why am I the asshole?” Anthony mumbles.
“Yes,” Hunter finally says, “I lied to you, but it was supposed to be one blind date, and well, it was supposed to be one freaking drink, then I showed up and you were shitfaced.”
“You got shitfaced before your blind date ever got there?” Sandy asks from beside Anthony.
“I wasn’t shitfaced!” I yell. “I was two martinis in.”
“So almost shitfaced,” Anthony says after I take the piece out of his mouth. The glare I give him stops him from talking, and he shakes his head. “Not shitfaced.” Then he looks past me to Hunter, pointing at me. “She wasn’t shitfaced.”
“Then you lost your phone,” Hunter says, “and I had no choice but to return it to you. But I swear I wanted to tell you the whole time.”
“Look, can we just fix my tooth first, and then we can get something to eat and straighten everything out?” Anthony says, and Hunter just glares at him. “Don’t give me that look. I told you to have a drink with her, not two dates.”
“Enough!” I yell. “You”—I point at Hunter—“need to go so I can focus. You”—I point at Sandy—“are going to be my assistant if I need anything, and you …” I point at Anthony. “I’m telling my mom.”
“I’ll wait outside,” Hunter says and walks away before I can argue with him.
“I think he likes you,” Anthony says with a smile, but I glare at him. “You really aren’t going to tell our moms, are you?” He lies back in the chair. “It’s really not fair.”
I take a deep breath and look up at the ceiling and say a little prayer. “That was a dick move.” I hear Sandy say.
I ignore them for the next forty-five minutes while I work on his tooth that got knocked out. “We need to fit you for a fake tooth,”
I tell him, taking my glasses off and putting them down. “Good news is hopefully the root of the tooth will attach to the bone,” I say, getting up and taking off my gloves.
“Phank you,” he says, trying to smile and drooling out of the side of his mouth.
“I want you to come back Monday afternoon and get fitted for the fake tooth, and for the love of god, no more aggressive sex this weekend please,” I tell them, and they both throw their heads back and laugh.
“Is it done?” I hear Hunter say from outside the room.
“Why is he still here?” I say in a whisper, looking down and releasing a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
Anthony laughs, getting up from the chair. “That guy never gives up if he wants something.” He puts his hand around Sandy’s shoulders. “And from the looks of it, he wants you.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t want him,” I say. Grabbing my glasses, I walk out and see him leaning against the wall with his feet crossed at the ankles. Why does he have to be so good looking? Why do his lips have to be so perfect? Why do his biceps have to fill out the shirt so well? Why?
“Laney,” he says, and I turn to him about to snap.
“Can you just please stop,” I tell him, and he stands now. “Just for a second, give me a chance to think.” He goes to say something, but I stop him by holding my hand up. “Please.” My voice goes softer and lower. “It’s just all too much right now. I just …” I shake my head. “I just need to clear my head.”
“Fine,” he says and looks at Anthony. “Make sure she gets home.” He turns and walks by me, stopping next to me, his voice going low. “I’m sorry I lied to you, but I had the best day today,” he says and bends his head to kiss my cheek. I don’t say anything; I just stand here and let his kiss linger on my cheek.
“What the puck did you do?” Anthony says, and I look at him confused. “He looks like you just kicked his puppy and threw away his kitten.”
Sandy laughs from beside him. “That’s a vivid picture.”
I shake my head. “You guys don’t have to stay. I have some work I was putting off that I’m going to finish, and then I’ll call an Uber.”
“Are you sure?” Sandy says.
“If Hunter finds out I left without driving you home, I’m going to have to order a whole set of new teeth,” Anthony says.
“I won’t tell him if you don’t,” I tell him, looking at Sandy. “I’m going to write you a script for painkillers. Once everything starts wearing off, he might be in some pain.” She just nods and then looks at Anthony.
“She’s fine,” she says, and Anthony looks at her. “She just needs to process things, and it’s not going to be easy to do it sitting here with the one person whose fault this is,” Sandy says.
“This isn’t my fault,” he says, and Sandy crosses her arms over her chest. “Okay, it might be a little my fault for not being honest with her, but …” She raises her eyebrow, and he stops saying whatever he was going to say and then looks down. “Fine, we’ll leave her be, but I swear to god if he finds out …”
“He won’t find out,” Sandy says. She finally convinces him to leave, and I lock the office front door after them. Going back to my office, I start on the charts I was putting off.
My mind wanders every time I try to write something down. After two hours of staring into space and writing and then erasing everything, I give up, tossing my pen on my desk just as my cell phone rings. I look down and see that it’s Mom. I think about not answering, but I know if I don’t, she might send out a search party for me.
“Hello?” I say, answering.
“Oh my god, I’m so, so, so sorry,” she starts out saying, and I hear her breathing heavily. “Maureen just called me.”
“Who is Maureen?” I ask her, confused, leaning back into the chair.
“Anthony’s mother!” she shrieks. “Anthony called her and gave her the heads-up.”
“This is your lesson to never set me up again,” I tell her, laughing instead of crying. “You are never to set me up again.”
“Define never,” my mother counters. “I mean, we shouldn’t scratch it off the table right away.”
“Mom, you set me up with a guy who sent another guy in his place,” I point out. “So, it’s safe to say that it means I’m never going on another one of your blind dates again. Ever.”
“Fine,” she finally says, breathing out, “but this isn’t my fault.”
“It’s no one’s fault. Let’s just chalk it up to one of those funny things we will laugh about in ten years from now,” I say, leaning back in my chair.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asks seriously. “This other boy … He didn’t take advantage of you, did he?”
“Mom,” I say, laughing, “he is definitely no boy, and no, he didn’t. When he got to the Garden, I was two almost three martinis in.”
“Oh my god,” she says, gasping in shock. “You didn’t take advantage of him, did you?”
“Mom!” I shriek. “For heaven’s sake.”
“No is no, Laney. Male
or female,” she points out.
“No one took advantage of anyone. He paid the bill and took me to the best Mexican restaurant I’ve ever been to. I have to take you there soon,” I tell her, and we chitchat for the next five minutes about our family brunch tomorrow.
“Okay, I have to go and start preparing. Your aunt Martha is coming, and we all know how bitchy she is,” she tells me. I laugh. Since she married Dad, she has hated Aunt Martha. “Last time, I saw her taking her finger and dragging it across the fireplace mantel looking for dust, that hag.”
“I’m sure she didn’t,” I tell her, rolling my eyes.
“She so did,” my mother says. “Anyway, I have to go. See you tomorrow and dress to impress.”
“NO BLIND DATES, MOM!” I yell, but it doesn’t matter since the line beeps. “Fucking hell.”
I get up, grab my bag, and walk out of the office, locking the door behind me. The sun has long since gone down, and the night has settled in. I turn to walk down the steps and startle when I see a person sitting on the bottom step. “Hunter?” I ask.
“Do you know the dangers of a single woman walking in the dark in a deserted area?” he asks, standing up.
“I have no idea, but I’m sure you do,” I say, crossing my arms across my chest. “I wasn’t going to walk anywhere. I was going to sit on the stoop and call for an Uber.”
“Every four seconds, a theft happens,” he says, standing. With him standing on the bottom step and me standing at the top step, we are at eye level. “Every nineteen seconds, a crime happens.”
“Okay, fine,” I tell him, but he doesn’t stop.
“Every twenty-nine seconds, someone is assaulted,” he says, leaning forward just a touch more. I smell him, his woodsy smell surrounding me. His eyes, a dark gray now that the sun has gone down. “Every two and a half minutes, a sexual assault occurs.”
“Okay,” I say, finally throwing my hands up. “Fine!” I shout. “I get it. Stranger danger.”
He shakes his head, trying to hide his smile. “I’m sorry,” he says softly. “Can we start over? My name is Hunter. I’m rude and condescending.”
“You forgot irritating,” I tell him, looking down and then back up. “I’m Laney,” I say, holding out my hand, but he doesn’t take it. Instead, he grabs my face in his hands and leans in close.
“Say my name, Laney.” His voice is soft, and my hands go to his waist to stop myself from tilting forward.
“Hunter,” I say almost in a whisper, but it sounds more like a question.
“My name may have been a lie,” he says, licking his lips. I’m literally holding my breath as he continues. “But nothing we did was a lie. The talk on the beach, the breakfast, the food trucks.”
“I left my phone in your car on purpose,” I finally tell him the truth. When he walked around the car after we left Guadalupe’s, I took my phone out of my purse and slid it between the seats.
His lips curve into a smile, and although I don’t know him that well, I know that if the lights were on, his eyes would be sparkling. “I stalked your Facebook and Instagram in the middle of the night,” he says, and now, I’m the one who is surprised.
I throw my head back and laugh, his hands dropping and going to my waist. I wrap my hands around his neck, pushing myself forward. “You were smitten with me?”
“Yeah, I guess you can say that,” he says, and then the smile leaves his lips, his fingers gripping me. “Today while you held my hand, the only thing I could think about was kissing you. When you took your thumb and put it in your mouth, I wanted to throw you over my shoulder and drag you somewhere no one could see because I wanted to taste you. The only thing I could think about”—his voice goes low—“was tasting you.” He doesn’t say anything else. He just leans in, and slowly, ever so fucking slowly, his lips meet mine. My arms go limp around his shoulders, and my back arches toward him. My lips part, and his tongue slides in. I moan into his mouth as our tongues slowly twirl. His hands never leave my hips, and when he finally leaves my lips, we are both breathless.
“Do you want to have dinner with me?” he asks, and I just nod as he turns and reaches for my hand. I follow him to the car, and the whole time, the smile never leaves my face.
Chapter Eight
Hunter
When I walked out of the dentist office, I sat in my car and played the whole day over in my head, knowing I fucked up bad.
I started the car and pulled out of her parking lot, but I only made it across the street before my car turned around and went back. This time, I parked across the street from her building. She asked me to leave, but she didn’t tell me that I couldn’t follow her or make sure she got home safely. I watched the door open and saw Anthony walk out with his arm around Sandy’s shoulders and get into Sandy’s car. Fury filled me that he left her all alone and didn’t make sure she got home okay.
I picked up my phone right away, calling him. “You’re sitting across the street, aren’t you?” He answers his phone. “Look, she wanted space, and I knew you would be lurking in the shadows so …”
“She hates me,” I say, watching the door the whole time. “You owe me.”
“I believe I’m paid up in full,” he says, laughing.
“How do you think that?” I ask him.
“I saw the way you looked at her. I haven’t seen hearts in your eyes before.” He laughs, and I roll my eyes. “It suits you.”
“I don’t have hearts in my eyes,” I tell him, hanging up on him and cutting off his laughter.
I stay in the car till the sun goes down. Seeing that her office has no lights on, I get out of my car and walk across the street to sit on her steps. I’m just going to make sure she’s okay, I keep telling myself. It’s just to make sure she’s safe.
I wasn’t expecting her to come out when she did, and I wasn’t expecting her to give me a chance to explain. I wasn’t expecting her to agree to have dinner with me. I swung by Five Guys to grab us burgers and then made my way back to her condo. Except when we got there, I got out and opened the trunk to grab a blanket. I handed her the blanket while she looked at me in confusion. With the food in one hand, my other hand grabbed hers, and I walked across the street to the beach. We walked on the dimly lit beach until we were almost at the shore.
“Hold this.” I put the bag of takeout in her hands, grabbing the blanket and opening it on the beach. “I know this wasn’t what you were expecting, but …” I start to say, and she smiles.
“I love beach picnics,” she says, bending down and unsnapping her shoes. She steps on the blanket and sits down cross-legged. She reaches into the bag and grabs one foil-wrapped burger. “Your number two,” she says, handing me my burger and then grabbing her own. She tears the brown bag down the middle and spills the fries on it. We eat as we discuss the food we had today.
“So that was Anthony?” she says, looking at me once she finishes her burger and makes a ball of her wrapper.
“That was Anthony,” I tell her. “That was his Tinder date.”
“Oh, Sandy is Tinder’s best client.” She laughs and stretches her legs out in front of her, leaning back on her arms.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” I say, putting my feet out and crossing them at the ankles. “Anthony takes great pride in swiping left and right.”
She laughs, throwing her head back, and I look at her. “Today was an okay day,” she says, “minus the whole sex swing fiasco.”
“Well, if he hadn’t broken his tooth, I would still be trying to figure out how to tell you my real name,” I say, looking down and seeing her yawning. “Let’s get you home,” I say, getting up and grabbing the bag of garbage. She gets up, dusting off her bottom, and then bends to grab the blanket, shaking it and then folding it.
I walk her upstairs, stopping in front of her door. She takes out her keys and turns to me. I lean forward and push her against the door, my hands on either side of her head “Do you want to have lunch tomorrow?” I ask her as I lean closer to her, our f
aces almost touching.
“I’m having lunch with my family,” she says, placing her hands on my chest. I feel the heat seeping through the cotton. “Do you want to come?” she asks breathlessly.
“Sure,” I say, and even I don’t believe the word that came out of my mouth. But after seeing the smile she gave me when I did, I would do it over and over again. I lean forward, listening to her gasp once and then hold her breath. I lick my lips, looking into her eyes, and then slowly lower my lips to hers. Soft, sweet, perfect. I step back before I take the kiss deeper, before I put my hands on her face and devour her or kick open the door and literally taste every single inch of her.
“Lock up,” I tell her, watching her chest rise and fall. She takes her hand holding the keys and places it on the middle of her chest. “Call me later.”
I turn to walk away and hear her voice. “You didn’t give me your number.”
One step down with my hand on the railing, I look at her, smiling. “Check your contacts.” I wink at her and walk down the stairs before she sees that my cock is ready to come out and play.
I hear her door slam shut right before I get into the car, so I turn it on and pull out to head to my house. The phone rings, and I press the connect button on the screen. “Hello?”
“Seriously?” Her voice fills the car. “You put yourself under serial killer.” She laughs, and I hear cupboards slamming.
“Oh, you figured it out, did you?” I say, laughing, then I hear glasses clink together. “What are you doing?”
“I’m unloading my dishwasher,” she says and then stops talking and making noise. “So, listen, about tomorrow, I know that meeting the parents two dates in is crazy, so I will let you off the hook.”
“Laney,” I say, turning onto my street, “we are two adults dating. It would happen eventually.”
“What?” she whispers, and I keep talking so she doesn’t say anything else.
“What time is lunch tomorrow?” I ask her, grabbing my phone and switching it over from Bluetooth.
Mixed Up Love Page 6