“Golfing?”
“No judgment about what the couple likes to do together,” she said, her hands out wide. “I guess we can put a dollar limit on it, or just agree that creativity is better than extravagance.”
“I can get behind that. Now can we shake on it?”
She nodded, once and hard, then pushed herself away from her desk. She was tall and slim, and her legs looked a million miles long. She was wearing a pencil skirt, not pants. Hmm, she surprised him again. He rose to meet her as she came around the side of her desk, her hand out for a shake.
Their hands slipped together. Her fingers were longer than he’d thought they’d be, which was a silly thought because of course she would have long, elegant fingers. Everything about her was long and elegant. Then she tightened her hand and he responded. She had a grip he could feel all the way up to his shoulder, strong and assertive. Three solid shakes and when she pulled her hand back, the nail from one of her fingers trailing across the center of his palm as she did so.
“So now that that’s settled, should we get some coffee?”
“Yes.” He hadn’t slept well last night, so he’d already had two cups that morning, but his answer to coffee with Marsie was always yes.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE PLACE SHE met Trevor for their second date was nice. Dark, but in a cozy, Paris-nightclub way with red couches, and chairs that she sank into when she sat down. She was practically submerged in the cushions and had to shove herself up using the arms when Trevor came through the curtains around the front door.
“Hey,” she said, leaning in for a hug. He didn’t kiss her cheek, or even try to, which was okay. She’d worn a red bra, just in case, but she wasn’t feeling it yet. Maybe after this date.
Hopefully after this date.
“Hello,” he said, lifting up her arms and looking her over. “You look beautiful.”
“Thanks. Work clothes. I didn’t have time to change. I’ve got a grant application due and those are always last minute, even when you try to make sure they aren’t.”
He dropped her hands. If Jason had done that on a date, he would have held them a little longer, searching for his mysterious spark. “I get work and clothes. I’m lucky that I don’t end up at dates in scrubs. It’s been a close call several times.”
“Ha. I’m sure. Should we get a drink?”
“Yes. I need one. It’s been a day.”
“Sit down.” She gestured to the chair she’d just heaved herself out of. “I’ll get you something. Preference?”
“Red, please. Pinot, if they’ve got one.”
“Of course. And I’ll get some snacks.” She headed to the bar, then turned around to look back at him. “Be careful of that chair. It will eat you alive.”
“Warning taken. Thanks.”
She returned to their seats, a glass of wine in each hand and an order of fries placed at the bar. His glass clicked against the small table between the seats. She held on to hers as she sat on the couch running perpendicular to his chair. Their knees could touch, if the night was going to go that way. But right now, she kept her knees firmly pointed the other way.
Maybe she was overthinking it. No, she was definitely overthinking it. Concentrating too much on the possibility of three months and bragging rights and what Jason would think of for a romantic, creative date.
She needed to be thinking more about Trevor, the man who was in front of her right now. Though she still didn’t move her knees so they were touching his.
“Why such a terrible day?” she asked, pushing Jason and their bet out of her head.
“Did you hear about the big wreck on the highway?”
“Yeah, but wasn’t that rush hour this morning?”
“Right at the end of my shift, and there were so many people going in to all the area hospitals. I was at the hospital late, helping out. So of course it took me forever to fall asleep, and then I slept too hard.” He took a sip of his wine, holding it in his mouth and clearly appreciating both the flavor and the feel of it.
Then he swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bounced. “I was nearly late for our date. And I was looking forward to it. Being late would have been terrible. A bad ending to a stressful day.”
“Well, I’m glad you weren’t late.” She took a long sip of her own wine, enjoying the way the alcohol slipped down the back of her throat and warmed her all the way down to her stomach. “I was looking forward to the date, too.”
The red bra had lace along the back and a bow in the front. She’d put it on because she had really liked Trevor when they’d met for coffee. He’d been smart and interesting. He was well-educated. He had a job she respected.
But now that they were sitting here, wine in hand, she was wondering what she had been thinking about with the bra. She tried to imagine kissing him and couldn’t get any further in her mind than the lean in.
Probably because she didn’t know him well enough. Jason and his stupid spark was messing with her brain.
“What’s your schedule like? If that accident was early this morning, then do you always work the night shift?” Would she want to date someone who only ever worked the night shift? Would they ever see each other? Could that go anywhere?
Marsie Penny, you are overthinking this.
“No. We work rotating schedules. So I’m not always on nights.” His wine swished around his glass as he shrugged. “But I do work nights and weekends frequently. Holidays, too. It’s the life of an ER doc. It makes dating hard and the nurses more attractive than they should be.”
“So ER wasn’t a joke?”
“Not in that regard. It’s the schedule and the adrenaline that get you, even when you know that getting your bread where you get your butter isn’t smart.”
She laughed. “That’s an interesting phrase.”
“It was my grandma’s. Sound advice.” He took another sip of wine and eyed her over the edge. “Not that I’m the type of guy to ogle nurses. Just in case you’re wondering and that would be a strike against me.”
She waved him off. “We’re too early for me to worry about that. You can reassure me later, if needed.”
“Oh—” he raised a brow “—is that so?”
“I like to think I don’t need reassurance. Or that I don’t date the type of man who would need to give me any.” Jason wouldn’t feel the need to give any. Maybe that was his thing about spark—once he’d decided on it, he would stick to it. And the woman who caught his spark would know she had it, and know it was a fire that wouldn’t burn out.
Trevor’s eyes were clearly more interested than they had been, even when he’d admired her looks. Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the coziness of the bar. Whatever it was, she’d walked into a line of questioning that she wasn’t comfortable with. Not yet. Not with Trevor.
“Did you always want to be an ER doc?” she asked, to quickly change the subject.
She could tell that he noticed and thought about saying something, but decided against it. “No. I had surgery in mind. More prestige, you know.”
“I know all about searching for prestige,” she said with a nod. “I’ve done the same.”
With more sips of wine and the addition of truffle fries, Marsie and Trevor settled in to an easy conversation about their career paths. When his phone rang, she realized that an hour had passed like a blink of an eye.
And she still didn’t want to kiss him.
She couldn’t put her finger on why, especially because she could put all ten of her fingers on reasons she should want to kiss him—and have reasons left over.
“It’s the hospital,” Trevor said. “I’m sorry for the interruption, but I really need to take this.”
“Of course,” she said, moving her knees out of the way so he could stand up. As he walked to the front
door, she realized she’d been carefully moving her knees out of the way so he didn’t brush against them.
“Dammit,” she said under her breath as he passed through the curtains and out the door to take his call. “He’s even courteous enough to step outside for the phone call.”
Maybe, if she was lucky, he was feeling the same way about her and there wouldn’t be an awkward dodge of his mouth when he walked her to her car.
She dug around in her purse for the phone, surprised to see that she had a series of five text messages from Beck.
Neil’s moving out
Tonight, apparently
He’s not even packing. He says he’ll come back for the stuff he wants when I’m not here
But he must have been planning it for weeks. Has an apartment lined up and everything
I’m not ready for this
Shit. Trevor came back through the curtains, shaking his head. He stopped when he looked at her. “You look almost like someone punched you in the gut. Something wrong?”
“My best friend texted me. Her husband is moving out.”
“Is it a surprise?”
“Not that it’s happening. That’s been coming for a while. That he’s moving out tonight, yes.”
“Do you need to go?” Trevor hadn’t sat down. Both their wineglasses were on the small table between their two seats, mostly empty. The fries were gone. The date was either over, or they were going to settle in for longer.
Marsie looked down at her phone. I’m not ready for this rang with desperation and pain. “Yes. I think so. I don’t think she should be alone.”
“Go, then.” He held out his hand. When she put her hand in his, he pulled her up to her feet. “I’ll cover the wine and food. It’s nice that you’re a good friend.”
“We should do this again.” Despite her hesitation about kissing him, she meant it. Trevor was everything she was looking for in a partner. As she talked with him, she could feel his algorithm score inching to 10. Perfect man, perfect score.
Except when he dropped her hand, she didn’t miss the feel of it on hers. She wouldn’t carry the memory of his skin with her.
Spark. Damn Jason for making her think she needed it. She’d go on a third date with Trevor, and he would still be perfect. A fourth. A fifth. The desire to kiss him would come. It had to. He was too perfect for it not to.
“I’d like that. I’ll send you a text and we can arrange something. Let’s not wait too long.” His smile was warm and affectionate. His eyes were a deep black that women probably thought they could get lost in. Marsie could, too, if she tried.
“Let’s not wait to plan it. Your next free night,” she insisted, as much for herself as for him.
With a smile and a wave, Marsie turned away and walked to her car without looking back. When Jason asked her about the date, she would not admit to the lack of spark.
* * *
BECK’S HOUSE WAS completely dark when Marsie pulled her car into the driveway, and she wondered if her friend had gone to bed to cry out the pain. With some misgivings, she grabbed her purse and got out of the car. At the front door, she rang the bell. If Beck didn’t answer within two rings, Marsie would go home and call her friend tomorrow.
Night had settled down on North Carolina, though the streetlights were doing their best to push the black away. Despite her winter coat, a chill ran up her spine. She’d always thought Beck and Neil were forever. Life changed in uncomfortable ways.
Marsie pushed the bell again and checked her watch. She’d wait five minutes.
She had waited four when the door opened. Beck hadn’t turned on her porch light, or the entryway light, but there was enough light from the streetlights for Marsie to see that her cheeks were tearstained and her eyes swollen.
“Do you want company?” she asked her friend.
“I don’t know. I stood by the front door for a long time, knowing you were on the other side and trying to decide if I wanted to see you.” Beck’s eyes closed for several long seconds. “I can’t stand being with myself right now. I don’t know why you would want to be with me. Neil doesn’t.”
“You’re my friend,” Marsie said simply.
“Neil’s my husband.”
“It’s different,” Marsie said, though she couldn’t say why, or why Beck should even care. “Let me in. You don’t have to talk to me. I’ll even go up to the guest room and climb in bed, but that way you aren’t alone in this house.”
Beck’s house was far too big to be alone in. It was too big for two people. Beck bought a house where she had plenty of room for kids, Marsie realized with a start. Master bedroom. Guest room. Office for each person. Craft room. Each room for a child filled with something to keep Beck busy and make her forget that she secretly wanted kids and had married a man who didn’t.
Marsie’s heart broke for her friend.
Beck nodded, then opened the door wide enough for Marsie to step through.
“Do you want a glass of wine?” Marsie asked, walking past her friend to the kitchen. She’d been friends with Beck long enough to make herself at home. And Beck was in no condition to think past her own tears.
“No. Yes. I’m afraid to.”
“Oh, honey,” Marsie said, turning around to envelop her friend in a tight hug. “What are you afraid of?”
“Everything. All the decisions I’ve made have turned to shit. I’m afraid if I have wine, it will feel so good that I’ll never stop.”
“I’ll make us cups of tea, then. You usually have some nice herbal teas.”
“Yeah,” her friend said with a sniff. “Because Neil liked them.”
Marsie plastered a cheerful smile on her face and gave her friend’s arms a pat. “He liked them, but he probably didn’t pack them, so we can drink them while we sit in the living room. You can talk or not talk. That’s up to you.”
In the kitchen, Marsie busied herself with getting the tea ready, filling up and turning on the kettle. Getting out some teas that sounded good, though she wasn’t going to ask Beck which one she wanted. Her friend didn’t need to make extra decisions right now. Once the tea was ready, Marsie added extra half-and-half and sugar to both cups—they needed the sweetness—and set them on the counter.
She placed a hand on her friend’s back. “Let’s go to the living room. It’ll be more comfortable than the stools.”
“Your hand is warm,” Beck said.
“It’s the tea. Your hands can be warm, too. Let’s go, sweetie.”
With obvious effort to overcome the weight of her sadness, Beck pressed her palms against the counter and pushed. Then she shuffled to the living room while Marsie followed with the tea.
“Do you want to talk?” she asked once they had settled onto the couch, each curled up in the corner, sharing a blanket, with heads pressed against pillows piled on the back.
“No. There’s nothing to say that you haven’t heard. Neil says I lied to him because I always knew that I wanted kids and that he can’t be married to a liar.”
Marsie blinked slowly at the pain in her friend’s voice. “That’s harsh.”
“Everything about a divorce is harsh. You say nothing but terrible things to each other. Do I mean the things I say about Neil right now?” Beck shrugged, then sipped at her tea, making loud slurps of the hot liquid.
“I think them,” she continued. “And I feel them. Or, at least, I feel the pain and the hurt and anger, so maybe that’s the same thing as feeling those mean things. I don’t know.”
“So it’s really over.”
Beck nodded, fresh tears streaming down her face. “We can’t come back from this. The therapist says a strong relationship can come back from anything with work, but we both have to be willing to work at it.”
“And Neil’s not?”
Was this what it meant to marry someone you didn’t have anything in common with? Only Neil and Beck had always seemed to have so much in common.
Just not the one thing they needed to have in common, apparently—a desire to have kids.
Her friend gave a slight shake of her head. “I don’t think I am. Neil’s right. He married a liar. Deep down, I always knew that I wanted kids and I didn’t say anything. I pressed it down and down and down and told him that I didn’t want to be a mother. I told him that it was fine.”
“Sounds like you lied to yourself as much as you lied to Neil.” Marsie took a sip of her tea, wincing at the sweetness. While she liked her coffee sweet enough to break a tooth, she liked her tea bitter.
“Still makes me a liar. And really, what’s worse than being married to a liar?”
Marsie could tick off on her fingers several things worse than a liar, but that wasn’t what Beck needed to hear right now. She needed a friend to make tea, sit on the couch and nod, not be a know-it-all. So she just made a sympathetic noise in the back of her throat and let her friend continue, uninterrupted.
“Really, do you want to be friends with a liar?”
“I don’t think you’re a liar, Beck,” she answered softly. “I think you loved Neil and you thought you wanted him more than you wanted kids. And, at the time, you probably did. But people change.”
“Did I change, or did I lie? Like you’ve made me tea because I said no wine, but I really want wine. I want all the wine. And all the whiskey. And all the rum.” Beck lifted her head off the cushions and looked at Beck, pain deep in her eyes. “I want to drown myself. Alcohol is more effective than tea. But here I am drinking tea.”
Beck’s tears stuck to the lines they were making down her cheeks, even when she shook her head. “Liar, just like Neil said.”
“Oh, honey, that doesn’t make you a liar.” Marsie reached for her friend’s hand. Even after holding the tea, Beck’s fingers were still cold. “Like you said, divorce makes you say horrible things you don’t even know if you mean.”
Dating by Numbers Page 10