by Nella Tyler
We walked towards the store that Natalie wanted to go to first: she was right that I was less than thrilled to walk into a store that carried nothing but clothes, toys, and games for young kids, but I also knew that if I wanted to get her to think about herself, I was going to have to let her think about Brady first. “Oh, Brady loves these,” Natalie said, coming to a stop in the middle of one of the aisles. She picked up a toy, turning to show it to me. It was some kind of construction toy with stick-together pieces that apparently made a variety of different things. “He’ll play with them for hours if I let him.”
“Well, obviously there’s a lot to get out of it,” I said, looking at the different end products the pieces could be made into. “Want to get him that kit?” Natalie looked at it and considered; I could almost imagine her weighing the appropriateness of letting me buy something for her kid.
“I think he’s already got this one,” she said after a moment, putting it back on the shelf. I resisted the urge to laugh.
We wandered around, talking about our favorite toys from when we were kids. “I had this art kit that one of my aunts got me when I was like…four or five, I think?” Natalie picked up and put down a similar type of kit, smiling to herself. “It had these little blobs of clay in it, and I made a huge, enormous mess of it. My parents were horrified.”
“Mine was an erector set deal,” I told her. “I must have begged them to buy me the same kit at least five times because I kept losing pieces. Of course, they kept turning up in the most bizarre places.” She laughed and nodded.
“That I can definitely imagine,” she said with a little grin. “I’m trying to get Brady in the habit of cleaning up when he’s done playing, but if I don’t remind him to put his toys away, they just stay wherever they were when he lost interest.”
“Sounds like a little boy, all right,” I agreed. “I can at least comfort you with the idea that once he’s old enough to start liking girls, he’ll figure out how to keep things neat.”
“Oh God, I don’t want to think about him liking girls,” she said, shaking her head. “That is going to be an interesting time in my life, I’m sure.”
I finally got her to let me buy a few little things—some toy cars, a tee shirt, and a water gun—for Brady, and we left the store together, walking out into the crowded mall. “I let you choose the first place, so I get to choose the second one—that’s fair, right?” I held her gaze until I could see the signs of her giving in.
“Fine,” she agreed. “But you can’t actually make me let you buy me anything,” she told me tartly.
I steered her towards a store called Lush—which I’d heard from Trevor was a sure bet for a date. I’d looked it up before I’d committed to the idea of shopping there in my mind; it was a boutique-style store with bath products, soaps, perfumes, and other things like that. “Here we go,” I said, taking Natalie’s wrist and keeping her from stopping short before we went in.
“This seems a little personal,” she said doubtfully as we stepped into the tiny little shop.
“It smells nice in here, though, doesn’t it? And it’s not like I’m going to expect you to use anything you buy here in front of me.” I grinned at her and caught the attention of one of the employees.
“Have either of you been to Lush before?” Both Natalie and I shook our heads, and the girl—twenty-something, with dyed-black hair and bright red lipstick—led us around the store, asking Natalie about her skin type, her fragrance preferences, all kinds of questions that I wouldn’t have known the answer to about myself, much less about anyone else. She convinced Natalie to let her demonstrate some of the different products and I hung back to watch, grinning to myself as the clerk did a better job of convincing her to buy things than I possibly could have, no matter how long or how hard I argued.
By the time we came out of the shop, I’d bought $70 worth of products—shampoo, conditioner, a body scrub, and a “bath bomb,” whatever that was, along with other odds and ends. “You totally set me up with that one,” Natalie told me, idly stroking her arm where the clerk had demonstrated some kind of lotion.
“Of course I did,” I told her, grinning. “You can’t tell me you’re not going to enjoy having a nice bath with all this stuff.” She rolled her eyes, though she was smiling just as much as I was.
“That’s if I get the opportunity to use it,” she told me tartly. “Brady doesn’t give me a nice, long hour to myself all that often.”
We moved on through the mall, going from one shop to another. I wasn’t able to convince Natalie to pick anything out from the shoe store we went into or the knickknack store we browsed, but we talked about things she liked, things I liked. I noticed that we had a lot in common while we were in a store that sold accessories—jewelry and handbags mostly. I spotted a necklace on a display and made a mental note of it, even while I stayed at Natalie’s side to watch her looking at earrings. “I know you told me all about your qualifications,” I said, moving just a little bit closer to her, “but you’ve got to have like—actual dating experience, right? I don’t think we’ve ever really talked about that.” She looked up at me through her eyelashes.
“I probably should have expected you’d ask something like that,” she said, smiling wryly.
“Well, I mean—obviously you’re qualified, I’m not questioning that,” I told her. “I’m just curious about how you got into this line of business.”
She shrugged. “I got into this after my divorce,” she told me, looking a little uncertain. I nodded, not saying anything, trying to get her to say more than that. “You’re not going to say that a divorced person probably isn’t the best source for dating advice?” She raised an eyebrow.
“No—in fact, I think you’re probably a better choice than someone who’s never been married,” I pointed out. “You know what doesn’t work just as much as you know what does.”
“That’s a very enlightened viewpoint,” she said with a little smile. “I always hesitate to tell any of my clients about the divorce because a lot of them…” She shrugged. “They’d just say that it’s proof that I don’t know what I’m talking about—I couldn’t even keep my own relationship going.”
“It’s a two-way street, though,” I said, frowning. “One person on their own can’t hold up an entire relationship.”
“But they can screw it up,” Natalie countered. A look like regret flickered across her face and she shook her head again. “Anyway, that’s my big, dark secret: I am a divorced single mom.” I laughed and looked at the necklace on display again.
“Come over here with me,” I told her, taking her hand and tugging her towards the display. “I want to see something.” I looked at the clerk hovering nearby and gestured to the necklace I’d had my eye on.
“Oh—come on, Zeke, no…” Natalie said, as the clerk lifted the necklace off of the display and handed it to me. I held it up next to her face and smiled.
“These are the same color—the exact same color—as your eyes,” I told her, nodding at the clerk to bring the mirror closer to us. “See?”
“That doesn’t—that’s not a reason…” Natalie glanced at the mirror; the blue-green color of the stones in the necklace was as beautiful, as clear, and as shining as her eyes.
“We’ll take this,” I told the clerk. I handed it to the woman before Natalie could see the price tag on it; it wasn’t the most expensive piece of jewelry I’d ever bought, but I knew that if she found out the price, she would have argued even harder against me buying it for her. I turned to look at her once more. “It’s my practice date, right?” I raised an eyebrow.
“You’re not supposed to…” I shook my head, still grinning.
“Your own boss told me that I can spend as much or as little as I want on my dates with you,” I reminded her. “And, you absolutely need that necklace.” Natalie took a deep breath and exhaled slowly; I had to admit, it was exciting to see her so flustered, so out of her element.
“Fine,” she said after
a moment. “But I’m not promising to ever wear it—and you don’t get any bonus points for an expensive gift.”
I laughed. “It would be a shame, but once it’s in your keeping, you can do what you want with it.” She gave me another long look and shook her head.
“Let’s go to the food court, before you decide to buy the earrings and bracelet and outfit to go with that.”
Chapter Fifteen
Natalie
I still felt shaken up by the time we got to the food court, but I was mostly able to hold onto my composure. “I have no idea how much you spent on that necklace, but I am buying food—and there is nothing you can do to make me change my mind,” I told Zeke firmly.
“I’ll allow it,” he said, grinning with that triumphant gleam in his eyes that was somehow both irritating and endearing. I had no idea how much the necklace had cost, but I knew it had to be expensive; it wouldn’t have been on a display like the one he’d found it on if it was a cheap piece of costume jewelry.
We browsed the different selections for a few moments before deciding to get a few tacos and chips at the Mexican stand, and I tried to think of a way to get this particular date back on the rails it had jumped the moment he had talked me into letting him buy things for me.
“So, since we talked about my dating life,” I began as we sat down with our snacks, “tell me about yours.”
“Isn’t it in my profile?” Zeke paused to take a bite of his taco and I shrugged.
“I’d like to hear from you—what you think, what your experience has been, all that. Much more valuable than the dry facts.” He chewed, swallowed, and laughed.
“There really isn’t a whole lot to say about it,” he said with a sigh. “The last time I went on dates with anyone, I was in college—good God, it’s been almost ten years!”
“That’s a long time to go without,” I said, keeping my voice carefully neutral.
“I didn’t really…entirely…go without,” he told me, shrugging slightly. “I mean, I had women who would go with me to events or things like that—strictly in the professional sense—and sometimes lines would get blurred, but I haven’t been in a relationship with anyone since sometime towards the end of college.”
“Why do you think that is?” I snagged a chip and dipped it into the guacamole.
“Things just never seemed to work out with my college dates,” he said with another shrug. “I’d go on a date with a girl, think it was going well, and then never hear from her again. Or it just wouldn’t click somehow.” He took another bite of his taco. “So after a while, I decided to just throw myself into my work, and deal with finding someone ‘later.’” I smiled, I hoped sympathetically.
“Always more time ‘later,’ isn’t there?” I started in on my own taco, chewing thoroughly as I thought about Zeke. It was hard to believe that a guy like him—smart, talented, successful, and objectively hot—would find it hard to get a date with anyone, but if he’d had trouble with making anything stick, relationship-wise, I could see how he’d eventually stop even trying.
“Always,” he said, grinning. “Until, of course, you wake up and realize that you’re thirty and most of the women you could comfortably date are already settled down.”
“Not most of them,” I countered. “Or at least, they’re not settled down anymore.” I thought about my own situation; I’d gotten married right out of college, had a kid within a few years, and then my marriage had ended almost as quickly as it had started. “Lots more women like me out there, who had one try at settling down and didn’t quite end up staying with it.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that, though,” Zeke pointed out. “You gave it a try—I haven’t even managed that yet.” He wiped his fingers on a napkin and sat back in his seat slightly. “I’m just hoping that I haven’t left it too late.”
“You’re thirty, not three hundred,” I told him, shaking my head. “You’ve got plenty of time. Most people in our generation are getting settled down later—career first, get themselves settled.” I ate another chip with guacamole and considered. “You’re more the rule than the exception these days.” Zeke chuckled and picked up his second taco.
“Thanks for the pep talk, coach,” he said, grinning. I rolled my eyes.
“It’s not a pep talk,” I told him. “It’s the truth.” He smiled even wider.
“Okay, okay,” he said finally. “I will keep it in mind. Where should we go to next?” I looked down at the food we’d picked out and realized that between the two of us, we’d managed to eat it all. I took another sip of my drink and sat back, looking around at the rest of the crowd in the food court.
“I think we’re just about done—you’ve spent way too much money on me already,” I told him. The idea of the necklace he’d bought me weighed on my mind more than I wanted to admit. He hadn’t been wrong—the gemstones in the necklace definitely matched my eye color—but just because it looked nice on me didn’t mean that he should buy it for me. I didn’t think I would ever wear it; it was too expensive, and I felt way too strange about owning it.
We wandered around the mall a little bit, looking for the entrance we’d met at, and I had to insist again that I didn’t want to go into any of the other shops—Zeke had to have spent easily over two hundred dollars on me already, and the last thing I wanted was for him to find an excuse to spend more. We kept talking all along: about the dating process, about the matchmaking process he was in, about our lives. By the time we reached the entrance and got ready to part ways, I actually had begun to feel at ease again. I could even think of the necklace without feeling like I was being bought.
“You know, I remember you said that we probably shouldn’t practice my goodnight kissing skills again at all,” Zeke said, giving me a mischievous look, “but Brady isn’t here, and I thought—I hoped—that maybe we could try it one last time, just for the sake of it.” For just an instant, I thought that Zeke believed, somehow, that since he’d bought me so many things at the mall, he was entitled to more from me than our practice dates called for.
“Do you remember what we talked about before, about your transactional approach to dating?” I raised an eyebrow. I could feel myself starting to get irritated.
“Oh—of course,” he said, inclining his head towards me. “I’m not asking because I think I should be able to kiss you after buying things for you—you can keep the things I bought no matter what. I bought them because I wanted to buy them.” He smiled. “I asked because the first time I kissed you was really nice, and I wanted to try it again for old time’s sake.” I held his gaze for a moment. In spite of my irritable feelings about Zeke’s high-handed use of our practice date as an excuse to buy things for me, I had to admit that I hadn’t forgotten our kiss, either.
“As long as you’re not doing this because…you think…” I pressed my lips together.
“No, I don’t think you’re some kind of prostitute,” he told me, shaking his head. “You’re an awesome, smart, charming woman who happens to be coaching me to get ready for real dating.” I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
“Okay, let’s do it then,” I said, feeling awkward. Zeke put paid to my twinge of weirdness in an instant; he leaned in towards me, his hands going to my waist and shoulder to hold me in place, and he brushed his lips against mine. I’d kissed him before, so I had thought I would be prepared for a second kiss—even one that was a little more awkward than the first. But as he deepened the kiss, pressing his lips more firmly against mine, tightening his hands on my body—but without moving them anywhere inappropriate—I felt myself starting to respond, forgetting for the moment just how inappropriate what we were doing technically was. I reached up and draped my arms around his shoulders, pushing my body up against his without thinking. I could feel myself warming up from head to toe, something tightening inside of me that I hadn’t felt in months, in years: since things had started to go south with Alex, in fact.
The realization that I was actually getting in
to the kiss jolted me out of the moment and I pulled back, letting my arms fall to my sides. I gathered up the bags that had fallen out of my hands as the blood flooded into my face and took a step back, swallowing down the taste of Zeke’s lips on mine, the taste of his tongue and the feeling of his body. “I really need to go,” I said, pretending to check the time on my phone. “I didn’t think the date would run over—and my sitter has to get home.” I barely glanced in Zeke’s direction as I started towards the door to the mall. “Let me know when you’ve got a next practice date ready,” I told him quickly. I hurried away from the mall, feeling as if I had possibly made the biggest mistake of my life as I turned the corner and found the parking garage where I’d parked.
Chapter Sixteen
Zeke
It was a mistake to kiss her again, I thought to myself as I looked around my office. I hadn’t been able to get Natalie out of my mind ever since our last date. It was worse than it had been before—and before I’d kissed her, it had been difficult as hell to get her out of my mind.
I guessed that I had hoped that kissing her again would somehow take the magic out of it. I had thought somehow in the back of my mind that if she gave me permission to kiss her again and I did so, it would just feel normal, and boring. The reality was that it had been even more exciting than the first time I’d kissed her. I shook my head, trying to clear it of the memories that rose up in spite of how much I tried to push them down. It was too easy to remember the way that she pressed her body against mine, too easy to remember the feeling of her lips against mine, the taste of her. I wanted more; I could tell that she did, too—at least, in that moment. I’d been able to feel it in the way her body tensed against me and taste it on her lips. In that moment—no matter what else had happened between us that night—she had wanted more than just a kiss.