The Dating Proposal

by Lauren Blakely

  She’s perfectly playful, and that’s what I want. When I prepped her for the segment, I told her to feel free to ad-lib, to poke fun at me, and to have a good time. That’s what she’s doing, and it feels natural.

  “Fine, so no lobster when I take you out, but let’s help Jason. Does it mean anything or nothing?”

  “In all seriousness, what it means is something awesome. Are you ready for it?”

  I dig in my heels, wiggling my fingers for her to serve it up. “I’m ready. We’re ready. Give it to us.”

  “It means she likes you enough to not be embarrassed eating in front of you. A lobster is a big, messy production. Take it as a good sign that she’s into you.”

  I pump a fist. “Woot woot. She’s into you, Jason.”

  McKenna holds up a finger. “But don’t take it as a sign she wants to get busy.”

  “Fair enough. All right, McKenna. You ready for one more question?”

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  “Patrick from Seattle is curious: how do you get back into dating after a long-term relationship went kaput?”

  “Ah, you’re speaking my language, Patrick. I hear you. I get you. And there’s one thing you need to do.”

  “Tell us what that is.”

  She meets my gaze. Her blue-gold eyes are tinged with a hint of sadness, but also a strength that’s incredibly alluring. She’s had the shit kicked out of her by love, but she’s back in the saddle. That’s bold, and bold is hot.

  “You have to put yourself out there,” she says. “And you do that by saying yes to things. Going to a class, or learning a new skill. In my case, I asked my friends to set me up with any single guys they knew.”

  “Did you have any basic requirements?”

  “Just kindness. I think there’s a mistaken notion that women want a man with a big wallet or a hot body, and hey, there’s nothing wrong with either. But kindness matters more.”

  So few people say that, and I couldn't agree more. Still, my viewers want me to be entertaining, so I do bicep curls, mouthing But a hot bod is a nice bonus, as she continues.

  “But I simply said to my friends, ‘Set me up.’ Here’s a hint—women love to set up friends on dates. Patrick, if you work in an office, let the married women know. And trust me, they’ll have dates galore for you.”

  I turn back to the camera. “There you go, Patrick. You heard the woman. Put yourself out there. Boom!”

  When the segment ends and the cameras go dark, Bruce strides in, all dapper in a three-piece suit with gelled-back hair that screams Mad Men.

  “Hey, Dating Wizard, that was fabulous,” he croons to McKenna, dropping a kiss to her cheek.

  “I’m so glad you liked it.”

  “Liked it? I loved it. Loved it like I love the surf-and-turf special at Ruth’s Chris Steak House. And now, for some reason, I’m craving lobster. Thanks for that.”

  I laugh. “You should go indulge, but don’t expect anything from the shellfish.”

  He shakes a finger at me. “I expect nothing, Turkey Legs. That way I’m pleasantly surprised when I get anything.”

  I jump in, explaining his ways to McKenna. “By the way, a nickname means he likes you.”

  “Then I’m happy to be known as Pumpkin Pie and to keep working with you, Turkey Legs. Also, nice to meet you, Bruce,” McKenna chimes in.

  “It’s a complete delight to meet you,” Bruce says, then turns to me. “By the way, I heard from Zander Kendrick’s manager. Says he’d be up for an interview soon. He’ll call you to set it up.”

  I pump a fist, then look at McKenna. “Zander Kendrick is a game designer. I’ve been trying to get an interview with him for ages.”

  “That’s awesome,” she says. “Good for both of you.”

  Bruce tips his imaginary hat and exits. When he’s gone, she says, “I like him. He’s old-school and cool.”

  “You like old-school?”

  “I like hot new fashion and old retro tunes and meeting people in person. I’m eclectic.”

  “Let’s go play an old game in person, then,” I say, and usher her out of the studio, grateful that my time with her isn’t ending.

  And hopeful, too, that the time ahead is as good as all the other times with her have been.

  18

  McKenna

  In the game room at the store, Chris hands me a black plastic guitar. I strap it over my shoulder, and my neckline slides. Darn it. I fiddle with the hemline, pulling it back into place.

  Chris moves in closer, whispering, “Nice try. It’s only slightly distracting when you do that.”

  I hide a wild grin at the compliment, even as hot tingles sweep down my arms. “Far be it from me to distract my tutor.”

  He shoots me a grin that’s equal parts sexy and sweet.

  Chris turns on the Xbox and hits the on button on my guitar.

  The game whirs on—a dark-pink mountaintop set against a black night sky appears on the gigantic television screen hanging on the wall in front of us. Chris moves closer to me and taps a few buttons on my guitar to click past various screens. His nearness is heady, and he smells like sunshine and ocean breezes.

  I bet he tastes like sunshine and his hair feels like a warm breeze.

  Since I haven’t played in a while, we review the basics, how to play the green, red, and yellow notes on the easy level of the game. How to hit them at just the right time. How to hit the strum bar at the same time too. I butcher my way through “Slow Ride” and “Hit Me with Your Best Shot,” getting booed by the virtual audience and tossed offstage. I dig in like a batter at the plate; eyes fixed on the screen; feet planted firmly; index, middle, and ring fingers poised over the keys. Chris walks behind me, adjusts the strap a bit, moving the guitar a little lower. His right hand hovers over mine, flipping my concentration upside down and inside out. I’m not used to this feeling, electricity meets longing, and I don’t know what to do with it either. The last time I felt this way was in another lifetime, when Todd and I were planning a wedding and a future together.

  For a sliver of a moment, I’m back in time, remembering our relationship. Todd was the same in those last few months as he was when I met him—charming, funny, philosophical. There were no signs, no indication that his eye would wander, that his heart would leap over the fence and run away without even waving goodbye.

  The only sign, I suppose, was his Diet Coke trickery. He knew about my first sip fixation, but he would always ruin it for me by opening the can himself and taking a hit with a devilish little smirk.

  But if that was it, how can I read anything into anything? Or something into nothing?

  That’s why I can’t trust signs.

  Or feelings.

  Or flirtations.

  It’s safer to date for fun.

  And this right now? This is fun.

  Even though it’s not a date, not a date, not a date.

  “Okay, you want my top tip?”

  At Chris’s question, I return to the present. And this is where I want to be. Here, with this wickedly handsome man whose hands are on mine, whose body is behind me, and whose lips are near my ear.

  “I do,” I say, a little more breathlessly than I expected.

  “This may sound cheesy, but the real key is to let go. Let go of the need to check where your hands are or to look constantly at the neck of the guitar. Can you let go?”

  I want to let go with you. Give me your top tip for that. Show me how that feels. “I’ll try.”

  “Close your eyes.”

  “Close my eyes?” My tone is tight, a little nervous.

  “Yes, close your eyes. I know it’s going to be really hard for you not to be in control for one second, but trust me.”

  “Oh, ha ha,” I tease. But the thing is, I do trust him. That awareness hits me out of the blue, but it’s a fully-formed realization. I trust him. “I trust you,” I whisper, as I close my eyes.

  “Good. That’s what I need,” he replies, his voice soft and a li
ttle tender. “Try to feel where your fingers are. Here’s the green note.” He places his finger down on top of my index finger, playing the green note.

  Sparks zip down my chest.

  “Here’s the red.” He presses his middle finger against mine, playing the red note now, and the pleasure ricochets through my body, on a mad dash to fill me with silver-and-gold sensations, all from his touch.

  “And here’s the yellow.” He keeps his ring finger against mine, playing the yellow note. His scent floods my nostrils. The muscles on his arms bump up against my softer parts. His lips near my neck, so incredibly close, are thrilling.

  I feel. Dear God, do I feel.

  I feel a zing and a zip and a whole lot of tingles and shivers.

  I want to lean into him. I want him to wrap his arms around me and hold me tighter as he teaches me to play. I want contact. I want it so badly, I don’t know how I’ll ever play a song because I am living and breathing only one thing right now—the wish to be closer to him, my back curved against his front, his arms wrapped tight around me, our bodies entwined. I’m a tuning fork, vibrating hotly from his touch.

  “What you want is to feel the notes, not look at them.”

  I played arcade games for fun when I was a kid, and for release when I was left curbside by my ex. But I never imagined video games as foreplay. Here with Chris, every single second feels like a slow burn. Like we’re giving in to whatever flirtation we’ve been having. Like he’s going to turn me around, place his hands on my cheeks, and pull me in for a kiss, the kind that makes the world fall away.

  Is that how he’d kiss? Like my sailboat in the moonlight?

  He leans in even closer and whispers in my ear, “You can open your eyes now and play.”

  I inhale deeply and let my eyes float open. I feel wobbly from the way he’s touched me, from the way I’ve let my thoughts spin into a dark and dangerous place of possibility.

  I press start on Poison’s “Talk Dirty to Me.” I hit the green notes, then the red notes, then the yellow ones. Then the next set and the next. I even nail a long note, then another, then a whole sequence of star-power notes, and I give in to the game. I channel all my desire into the playing, and I’m jamming here, the pseudo-music taking my mind off the fact that I want Chris to talk dirty to me.

  The last note sounds, and the crowd on the screen goes wild. I raise my hands in the air. Victory. A thrill rushes through me. “I rock!”

  Chris smiles big and wide, the teacher proud of his student. “Fast learner are you,” he says in Yoda’s voice.

  “You’re a Star Wars geek too.”

  “You know it,” he says proudly. “You want to play some more?”

  I nod vigorously and then spend the next hour knocking out several more songs and even making it through my very first guitar battle, where I own the guitarist from Rage Against the Machine after two tries. By the time we turn off the game, I’m feeling pretty energized, and I also don’t want this time with him to end.

  I draw on my newfound mantra: put yourself out there.

  It’s not a date I’m about to suggest.

  But even so, I go for it with gusto. “Do you want to grab a bite to eat? There’s a great taco shop around here. I don’t know if the quesadillas are orgasmic, but some might say they’re swoon-worthy.”

  He grins, and it lights up his face. “Let’s go get some swoon-worthy quesadillas.”

  I take him to a hole-in-the-wall taqueria with orange Formica booths and countertops and a menu that’s half-English, half-Spanish. We order chicken quesadillas to share, and he asks if I want a Diet Coke.

  My eyes widen. “It’s like you’re speaking my secret language.”

  He taps his temple. “I listen, woman. I definitely listen.”

  He turns back to the woman at the counter and orders two sodas.

  “I can’t let you caffeinate alone,” Chris says to me.

  “How gallant of you to join me in the caffeination quest.”

  The woman gives us the cans and glasses, and we carry them to the table.

  After we sit, he slides one can toward me. Then the second one. His eyes twinkle with mischief. “Would you like to open both cans?”

  I squeal inside with delight. “You, sir, are a gallant knight indeed.” I sigh forlornly. “But I can’t. I want you to enjoy the fun too.”

  He lifts a brow. “Let’s do it together.”

  And like the dorks that we are, we crack open our cans at the same time, chuckling as we take our first sip, then pour them into glasses.

  “So, have you always been a knight in shining armor?” I ask, keeping up with our little routine.

  “Sir Galahad McCormick—that’s what they called me in high school.”

  “Speaking of, where’d you grow up? You have to be a California native. You’ve mastered the whole dark-blond-and-beautiful look.”

  There’s that smile again. Magnetic and adorable. “Beautiful?”

  “Oh please. I’ve already complimented you fifty ways to Friday since the day we met. You’re hot. There. Full stop.”

  He tilts his head, staring at me as if he’s drinking me in. “You’re beautiful. Full stop.”

  My heart trampolines in my chest, and a smile threatens to take over my whole face. Before I start tap-dancing and singing in the rain, he picks up the thread.

  “I’m from Brooklyn, of all places, but I hate the cold, so I got the hell out of town for college.”

  “Where was that? When you double-majored,” I add, so he knows I definitely listen too.

  “I went to Stanford.”

  “Stanford?” My jaw drops. “You went to Stanford?”

  He laughs. “What? Just because I’m not wearing a pocket protector or a business suit?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. I was just surprised. I guess because you’re so laid back. You’re the video game guy; you’re hip. You don’t seem like a Stanford guy. You’re more Berkeley.”

  “Despite them being our rivals, I’ll take it as a compliment. But it’s all true—I studied software design and business.”

  “What’d you do after graduation?”

  “I landed a job designing video games,” he says as the waitress brings us the quesadillas. Chris thanks her, and she leaves. “I did that for a few years and then decided I wanted to do my own thing. I started consulting, doing business strategy and whatnot for companies in the gaming space. I was asked to speak at conferences, then started video blogging, then the video blog turned into a TV show. And here we are now.”

  I kick my foot back and forth under the table, enjoying his story. “And here we are now indeed.”

  “And you, McKenna Bell?”

  I tell him my story, that I grew up in Sherman Oaks, went to college at UCLA, spent a few years at the fashion brand Sandy Summers, then launched The Fashion Hound with Andy’s help. “Now I’m here, somehow giving dating advice on your show. Life is weird. And it’s all because a cat broke my hard drive.”

  “I owe that cat a drink,” he says then takes a bite of quesadilla.

  “I’ll let him know you’re game for a boys’ night out.” I take a bite of my own.

  He smiles, then his face turns serious. “So, how did your second date go? Did the dude break down and cry, curl up in a fetal position, or ask you to change his diaper?”

  “Eww!” I cringe, shrinking away. “That’s horrible.”

  “If you think that’s horrible, consider yourself lucky. I’ve heard some hair-curling stories from the single mom who lives down the hall from me.”

  “There was no diaper changing. That’s a hard pass,” I say, then fill him in on Dan Duran and his notion of a woman’s role in the home.

  “I suppose it would be a bad idea, then, for me to tell you that if we dated, I’d expect you to cook all the meals and do all the cleaning?”

  He’s so straight-faced as he says it that I grab my napkin, ball it up, and toss it at him. He catches it easily as I answer him, “And
just for that, you’re in charge of all chores if we date.”

  “Fine, I accept. But only if I get to pick the restaurants we go to.”

  “You’re so controlling in our fake-dating world. Where would you take me?”

  He stares up at the ceiling as if deep in thought, then his eyes meet mine. “Besides all the finest taquerias and coolest French fry establishments, I’d take you to karaoke and comedy clubs and arcades. But I’d also go shopping with you, if that was what you wanted. And I wouldn’t complain or sit on my phone the whole time. I’d dutifully check out every outfit, and I’d enjoy every second of it.”

  The zip returns, and it’s multiplied. It’s quadrupled. It’s a supersonic burst of delight winging through me. “This is not fair. You’re making it too fun to fake-date you.”

  “It would be fun,” he says, and the air goes quiet and still.

  Is he testing the waters? Is he trying to say we should truly put ourselves out there? I don’t know that we’re going there, but I know I want to dip a toe in.

  “It would be fun. It’s always been fun with you,” I say.

  He smiles back at me, his sea-green eyes sparkling, reminding me of a secluded island cove. I don’t seem able to break the gaze, nor does he, and now it’s more intense, stealing my breath away. He looks at me as if he wants to know me, wants to see inside me.

  It’s exhilarating, but so damn risky, so I tap the brakes. “The only issue with putting ourselves out there is that we work together.”

  He nods, a bit solemnly. “It’s true. That makes everything risky.”

  “And then there are those pesky trust issues. I know I sound like I’m making light of them, but they’re weighty.”

  He nods. “Yeah, they can be. For both of us, I presume. Do you think you’ll always have your concerns?”

  I shrug, a little sad. “I hope not. What about you?”

  “I probably should let go of them, but I don’t have the time to focus on that right now. Work has to come first. Know what I mean?”

  “I do.”

  His hand slinks closer to me. “But if we dated, I’d try to. If we dated, I’d just want to have fun, since I know that’s what you want.”