by Nella Tyler
“He’s nice,” Brady said, smiling broadly. “You like him. Lots.” I laughed.
“I think you like him lots, too,” I suggested. Brady thought about that for a moment and then nodded. I sighed and steered the shopping cart around the display that I’d almost run into, trying to keep my thoughts strictly on the task at hand. But of course, my mind started to wander again, especially as I started to unload my purchases onto the belt. I inched forward, waiting for the elderly couple—one with the cart, one with a walker—to clear out of the checkout line ahead of me.
“See Mr. Zeke soon?” I glanced at my son, trying to understand his question.
“You want to see Mr. Zeke again soon?” Brady nodded. I could have laughed or cried; my son thought that Zeke was one of the best things since sliced bread—thanks in no small part to the very apt gifts that Zeke had given him—and I had to make a decision that would either risk breaking his little heart weeks or months down the line when he found out that things hadn’t worked out between Zeke and I, or one that would disappoint him almost as much when he learned the same thing sooner.
“I’ll see what I can do, little bug,” I told my son, hoping that he would forget about the well-to-do businessman before I had to be accountable for my promise. “He’s very busy, though, so you may not see him for a while.” Brady shrugged; for him, a while was any length of time that wasn’t five minutes into the future—as far as he was concerned, it was something to look forward to, but not to anticipate. The elderly couple finally coordinated themselves and moved away from the register and I pushed the cart into place, smiling at the cashier with more happiness than I actually felt in the moment. I promised myself that I would make a decision soon. I couldn’t put it off any longer and I knew it.
Chapter Thirty Two
Zeke
“Hey, Trevor,” I said, turning to look at my assistant as he came into my office.
“Yes?” Trevor sat down across the desk from me and I turned my chair away from my computer.
“I need you to do something for me,” I started.
“That is normally why you ask me to step into your office,” he pointed out. I rolled my eyes.
“My dating coach—Natalie. You remember that she has a three-year-old son, right?”
“I remember,” he confirmed.
“She mentioned that he really likes me a lot—and I have no reason to doubt her. Can you come up with some date ideas that would be good for a three-year-old to come with us on?” Trevor gave me a sharp look. “What?”
“It’s not my job to have an opinion,” he told me with a shrug.
“Just say it, Trevor.”
“Should you be getting your coach’s kid involved in your dates with her? That sounds pretty…personal,” he said, giving me a look.
“It’s not that personal,” I insisted. “She has a kid, I know about the kid, the kid likes me. She can save some money on a babysitter.” I shrugged. “Besides, lots of women my age already have kids—why shouldn’t I get some experience handling them on a date?” Trevor held my gaze steadily for a few moments and then looked down at his tablet.
“Well, there are a few things that might be toddler-friendly,” he said, tapping the screen a few times to pull something up. “The aquarium has a couple of touch-tanks that are kid-friendly, and of course little kids like aquariums in general.” He scrolled for a moment. “The zoo is a good option, too.”
“His mom takes him to the zoo a lot,” I countered. “I don’t want to turn something that she does with her son into a professional-type thing. Not fair to her.” Trevor shrugged.
“There’s a giant playground, separated by age, on the other end of the city,” he suggested. “Ball pits, jungle gyms, climbing nets…the whole thing.”
“Add that one to the list,” I told him. “See if there are any kid-friendly plays or anything like that going on, too.” Trevor nodded.
“I’ll look at magicians and stuff, too—see what I can do. A three-year-old isn’t going to have much of an attention span, though. Probably best to focus on something that’s active.”
“Good point,” I said, thinking of how much Brady had enjoyed running around the park: feeding the ducks, playing on the playground, and being chased with water guns. “Get to work on that.” Trevor made a note and nodded again.
“Oh, I meant to tell you,” he said, looking up from his tablet. “Katie from the agency called, and she wants you to give her the particulars of what you want for your first few dates.”
“Cool,” I said. I smiled slightly, but to my surprise I didn’t actually feel all that excited by the idea. “I’ll give her a call in a few. Is there anything else on my calendar we need to discuss?” Trevor consulted his tablet for a moment, scrolling through items.
“You’ve got a meeting tomorrow before lunch, and the next day you’ve got that proposal for the Friends of the Forest benefit, but everything’s ready for those.”
“Snacks arranged for the meeting?” Trevor nodded.
“Bringing in coffee and donuts, standard fare,” he said with a shrug. “It’s just before lunch, so I didn’t think anything heavy would be a good idea.”
“See if you can’t arrange for fresh fruit, too—Isabel is on a diet, if I remember right.”
“I’ll make it happen,” he told me. He rose and I gestured that he could go, turning back to my computer. I knew I wasn’t going to actually work; I was too preoccupied. Katie is going to start setting me up on dates. There was something about that fact that bothered me, even though it was the goal: meeting women I could form a relationship with and potentially marry. But if I meet other women…and if I meet someone I can actually date and eventually marry…I won’t have any reason to keep seeing Natalie.
I sighed. I had decided during our last date that I needed to get Natalie out of my head. I needed to find someone who I could actually invest my emotions in. I knew that Natalie wasn’t that person—she had made it clear that we could never have more than a professional relationship to each other. But somehow, as long as I was still practicing, I could ignore the fact that I would eventually stop seeing her. Once I found someone that I wanted to date seriously, I wouldn’t be getting coaching anymore, and I’d have to say goodbye to her. “I’m an idiot,” I muttered to myself in the silence of my office.
I scrolled up and down the screen on my computer, looking at but not seeing the contents of the page in front of me. The real problem, at the end of the day, was that I genuinely, truly liked Natalie. Above and beyond what we were to each other as coach and client, even beyond just the fact of having had sex with her, I liked her. She was smart, funny, and charming. I smiled to myself, remembering the way she’d been during our last date together. I knew that she felt ambivalent about taking the concert tickets from me, but I’d really wanted to make an impression on her, to mend fences after the fight we’d had before. I wanted her to think of me fondly—and I knew that I wanted her to really and truly like me.
I liked Brady, too, although I never expected to be able to do more than tolerate him on the few practice dates he came on with Natalie and me. I had liked playing with him. He was an adorable child and obviously precocious for his age—I’d thought more than once when I’d been around him that his big, expressive eyes took in everything like sponges. He was the cutest kid I’d ever been around—not that I’d been around many—and if I stopped seeing Natalie, I wasn’t going to see any more of Brady, either. Once I’m not in coaching anymore, I could be her friend. I could see her socially. But even as I had that thought, I pushed it aside. I couldn’t just be Natalie’s friend, not after having sex with her. If I saw her socially, it would just lead to me wanting to date her for real, which would make all my efforts with the agency beside the point.
I considered my problem carefully while I continued to pretend like I was working. Fortunately, I was a little bit ahead of the game on the tasks I had in line for the day. I couldn’t be with Natalie the way I wanted to be�
�that much was obvious. She didn’t want to overstep that boundary again, and I respected that. But I couldn’t get her out of my head, either. She was so smart, so funny, and so much fun to be around, even when she was coaching me and giving me feedback on how I could be better. You could steer them in the direction of picking someone like Natalie, I thought. At first it seemed wrong. I should let Katie pick people that she thought would match me well—she was the expert, after all. But I knew what I wanted. I knew what I liked. I wanted and liked Natalie. If I could steer Katie in that direction, then she would have me matched up with someone I could be with in a shorter period of time.
I picked up my phone and found the agency’s number in my contact list. I took a deep breath and considered what I should say, to steer Katie towards the right type of woman. After a couple of minutes, I tapped call and waited.
“Hello?” I smiled to myself.
“Hey, Katie—this is Zeke Baxter. You told my assistant Trevor you wanted me to call in?”
“Hey, Zeke! Good to hear from you,” Katie said. “And yes, I did. Based on Natalie’s reports, I think you’re just about ready to start dating for real, so I wanted to get some feedback from you in regards to what kind of women I should line up for you.” I bit my bottom lip, thinking.
“Isn’t the whole point of a matchmaking service that you know better than me who I should be with?” If I deferred a little bit, I thought—hoped—that she’d keep my preferences in mind a little more thoroughly.
“Well, I know what the profiles say,” she explained, “but we want to take what you think into consideration, as well.”
“That’s good to hear,” I said, keeping my voice as neutral as possible. “So is this like—a questionnaire or is it more free-form?”
“Kind of in-between,” she replied. “I’ll ask you a few general questions, and you tell me what sounds ideal, and we’ll try and select those women who match both what you want and what your profile and Natalie’s reports say would be most compatible.”
“Let’s get started then,” I told her. “What’s the first question?”
“Do you tend to have any preferences in terms of hair color, eye color, skin tone, things like that?” I pictured Natalie in my mind.
“I definitely tend to prefer brunettes,” I said. “Though of course if there’s a blonde or a redhead who’s a better match personality-wise, I’m sure she’ll be beautiful.
“We all have preferences,” Katie told me, her voice encouraging. “I tend to like redheads, myself.”
I chuckled. “Going for that elusive recessive genetics?”
Katie snorted. “There was a boy who stole my heart in elementary school—very red haired, down to the freckles and blue eyes. Stuck with me. Any preference in terms of eye color or skin tone?”
“None on skin tone,” I said, not wanting to make my preferences too obvious. “But I do love dark eyes.”
“Okay,” Katie said. “Any personality traits that you know you’re fond of?”
“Hmm,” I replied. “I definitely want someone who’s strong and independent-minded. A sense of humor is a must, of course—I can’t be serious all the time. Someone who takes their work seriously, but knows how to cut loose.” I considered how to capture the traits I liked the best in Natalie. How would I describe her to my friends if I were dating her? “Someone who’s educated and intelligent, but she doesn’t have to have a PhD or anything. At least some college, though.”
“Any particular major?” I thought about it. It would be too telling to specify Psychology—I knew that Natalie had been in that field of study.
“No particular major,” I said. “Just some level of college education.”
“Okay,” Katie said. “What about interests?”
“Music is a big one,” I replied. “Movies. I’d prefer someone who likes to be a little active, who likes to get out and do things. Going to the park, bowling, things like that.”
“Someone who’s social?”
I nodded, even though Katie couldn’t see me. “Exactly. Someone who wants to do more than just go out to dinner and go home.”
“Okay, I’ve got that noted,” she said. “Do you have a preference on someone who’s got kids or not?”
“I am okay with someone who has kids, especially at my age,” I said, smiling to myself. “I mean, after all—I don’t want to limit the field for no reason, right?”
“Very good of you,” she said, and I could hear amusement in her voice. “There are some guys who very specifically want a woman who has no kids already—so the question made its way onto the list for that reason. Any other things you want to add?” I thought about the question and tried to think of anything that I could say that might push her in a direction closer to the type of person Natalie was.
“I think that covers it,” I said. “If I think of anything, can I call you back?”
“Of course,” she said. “We can refine your guidelines any time you want.” I finished up the conversation with her and told Katie that I looked forward to meeting the women she set me up with. I could only hope that I could find someone as good as Natalie who would actually be interested in having a relationship with me.
Chapter Thirty Three
Natalie
I pulled into the parking lot of the library where Zeke had told me to meet him and glanced in my rearview mirror to make sure that Brady was awake in the backseat. “Ready to have some fun, bug?” Brady grinned, looking up into the mirror at me.
“Mr. Zeke?”
“Yep, he wanted us all to go somewhere together,” I told him—as I had told Brady when Zeke had let me know he had a date in mind for the three of us. I was a little wary, but since I hadn’t made the decision yet of how to tell Katie to take me off the case—or even decided whether or not I could make myself do it—I had gone along with it. There was no point in being prejudiced towards anything Zeke had in mind until I figured out how I was going to handle the situation. Katie said she was going to start setting him up with matches soon, I reminded myself. Maybe the problem will just go away altogether. Maybe if you wait long enough, he’ll meet someone, and then… Of course, then he wouldn’t be interested in me at all anymore, which would sting, but at least I wouldn’t have to make a decision and risk my career.
“Where we going?” That was a question I didn’t know the answer to. Zeke had told me that he wanted me to meet him at the library, and he’d take Brady and me to the location of our date—it was supposed to be a surprise.
“We’re going to go somewhere fun,” I said simply. I didn’t know for sure if Brady would find whatever place Zeke decided to take us fun—but Zeke had a good track record of picking dates that my son would like when he asked me to bring Brady along with me, so I was hopeful.
I got out of the car and went around to the back to get Brady out of his car seat. I had maybe ten minutes before the meeting time that Zeke had specified. I unbuckled the latches on the seat and lifted Brady out of it, stepping back from the door. “Remember little man: when I set you down you stay right next to me, right?” Brady nodded his acceptance of that condition, and I set him carefully down on the ground at my feet. I closed the door and locked up the car, and reached out for my son’s hand to walk to the library’s entrance with him. Normally, people were pretty careful in the library parking lot—but I didn’t want to risk the one time someone came careening around the corner.
I gave Brady my keys to amuse himself with and sat down on a bench outside of the library entrance to wait for Zeke to arrive, racking my brain to try and figure out where he would take us. I didn’t think it would be the mini-golf course—that would be too obvious and not a surprise at all. Laser tag would be a bit dangerous for my toddler son, and I knew Zeke had too much sense for that. It must be something that he thinks Brady would have fun at, but what?
Before I could come up with any real theories, Zeke appeared, grinning. “I’m not late, am I?”
“Nope,” I said, smiling at h
im as Brady rushed back to me, looking up at Zeke with a mixture of excitement and shyness. “I got here early; I wanted to make sure I had Brady under control a bit before we went anywhere.”
“How’s it going, Brady?” Zeke crouched down a few feet away from my son, getting to his eye level. “Been taking care of your mom?”
“Mm-hmm!” He grinned at Zeke. “How are you?”
“I’m very well,” Zeke replied. He didn’t rise up, but looked at me from his position close to the ground. “I think you’ll really like the place we’re going.”
“Where is that, by the way?” Zeke grinned even more broadly and looked at my son, one eyebrow raised.
“Do you like getting messy, Brady?”
“Yes!” Brady’s eyes went wide with excitement and he took a step closer to Zeke, looking fascinated.
“Then you’re going to have a lot of fun where we’re going to go.” He turned to me again. “I’m glad you’re not in anything you can’t get wet or messy,” he told me, looking me up and down.
“You did say to dress casual,” I pointed out. “I took that seriously.” I could feel myself tingling with anticipation and tried to push down the sensation; this wasn’t a normal date with someone I wanted to be involved with. This was nothing more than a practice date. I had to remain at least a little bit professional while I was still working with Zeke—it was the only way that I could keep my head above water in the situation.
“Let’s head out then,” he said, rising up out of his crouch. “I just realized: Brady needs to use a car seat, doesn’t he?” I nodded. “Can I help you grab it? I’ll be driving us to our destination, if you don’t mind.” I knew I probably shouldn’t agree to that condition, but it was easier—especially with Brady in tow—to go along with it.
In a matter of minutes, the car seat was out of my car and mounted in the backseat of Zeke’s SUV, and Brady was amusing himself with my keys and a plastic car toy that Zeke had for him. You can’t keep letting him buy Brady presents, you need to put a stop to that, I told myself, even as I climbed into the front passenger seat. But it was going to be much easier to keep Brady in a good mood with a toy to amuse him than it would have been with just my keys.