I took a deep breath. Operation Find-a-Bride Sabotage was in full effect.
Chapter 5
The next day after work I pushed open Will’s door in time to swipe his phone from his hand.
“What did you do that for?” he asked, staring at his empty palm.
“You were about to order pizza, right?”
“Maybe not. Maybe I was going to call my mom.”
“You were ordering pizza. You’re still in work clothes, which means you were going to order pizza, change, sit on the couch, and wait for dinner to show up.”
“Fine, I was ordering pizza.”
“Change, make sure you put on running shoes, then we’ll have dinner.”
“I don’t want to run.”
“It’s because I’m faster than you, right?”
He gave me a “whatever” look. “You’re so lame. Fine. We’ll run.”
I didn’t bother to hide my smile. Will didn’t have any hang-ups about losing to a woman, but it would gall him to let any trash talk go unchallenged. “You know you’re super predictable, right? All I have to do is say I’m going to beat you at something to get you to do it.”
“That’s not true.”
“Really? How come you’re about to go put on your running shoes?”
He dropped onto the sofa. “I’m not.”
“I know. Because you hate losing.”
He shot up off the sofa and headed down the hallway, shutting his door on my laughter.
“Meet you back here in ten,” I yelled.
I headed back to my place and changed into shorts but hesitated over my choice of shirt. Normally I threw on one of my old college T-shirts, but this time I slipped on the dark purple tank my old UT roommate, Katie, had sent me for my birthday. She’d explained something about the fabric being high tech, but at the moment, I only cared that it did me more favors than my usual raggedy running gear.
I backtracked to Will’s and found him dressed in shorts and a worn-out Cowboys T-shirt. He stood at the sink, filling a water bottle, another full one already on the counter next to him, and I admired the view for a minute, his broad shoulders sloping into well-defined arms. He turned when I shut the door, then he capped the bottle he held and tossed it at me. “One for you.”
It was one of the things I loved about him—he was always taking care of me in little ways. I just wished it wasn’t because of his big-brother mind-set. I caught the water but held up the squeeze bottle I’d brought with me. “Thanks, but I’m covered.”
“Not really. Since when do you go running in shiny space clothes?” He eyed my fitted tank top like I’d literally stepped off a UFO.
“Since Katie gave it to me for my birthday. It’s not even shiny,” I said, suddenly self-conscious when I’d felt super cute only minutes before. It was the same stretchy-looking stuff most athletic clothes were made of, not shiny at all.
“It’s shiny compared to this,” he said, plucking at his T-shirt.
“Well, it’s not a space shirt. Wait, maybe it is. According to Katie, it’s made of polymers and microbial fiber weaves. But I like it. It’s comfortable.” I smoothed it out, even though it was designed to fit so it would never wrinkle. But self-consciousness always made me fidgety with my hands, and they wouldn’t stay still.
“Sorry,” he said. “I sounded rude. I meant that I’m used to your Longhorns shirts, and now I feel like a slob. I didn’t mean to make you feel dumb. But I’m going to look like a real hobo running beside you out there. You look good.”
“Beside me?” I repeated, hoping the heat in my cheeks at his compliment didn’t actually make them pink. “You’ll be a mile behind me and fading fast.” I willed the heat to die down. He was only saying it because he was trying to make me feel better. But he’d commented on my appearance for a second time in the last couple days, and it was a start.
He straightened and headed toward the door. “Put up or shut up, Becker. Let’s hit the trail.”
An hour later, he was panting right behind me as I reached the bench that marked the end of our five-mile run.
“You were holding back for me,” he said, dropping his hands to his knees and drawing a deep breath.
“You did all right,” I said. “You kept up.”
“Yeah, but I’m dying,” he said around a couple of gasps, “and you’re not even winded.”
“Ohhhhhh, is that why you’re bent over like that? Because I deflated your ego and now there’s nothing to keep you upright?”
I shrieked as he grabbed me and hauled me against him to pin me again. “Don’t poke the bear when he’s way bigger than you,” he said over my giggles. I reached up and tugged on his arm hair, and he let go. “Ow!”
“Dear bear, don’t toy with the mouse when she’s a dirty fighter,” I said, grinning.
He reached over and tousled my hair. “You’ve never been a mouse.”
I smoothed my hair back, tucking an escapee from my ponytail behind my ear and trying to hide the tremor in my hand. Why was it shaking? Hurt. His words hurt. “I’ve lost fifty pounds. When do I get to be a mouse?”
His deep-thought wrinkles appeared before his eyes widened. “I wasn’t talking about size. I meant disposition. Like that you’ve never been quiet as a mouse?”
“Wait. Now I’m giant and loud? Does that make me Bigfoot?”
“I mean you’re not quiet, like timid. And why do you keep fixating on your size?”
Ha. Said the guy who dated tiny blondes.
“You’re a fine size. A good size,” he said. “And you’re not loud. But you’re not mousy.”
I crossed my arms. No more letting him wave away situations with “You know what I meant,” implied or otherwise. “If you get to be a bear, and I’m not a mouse, then what am I? I want to be a cheetah.”
“You can’t be a cheetah.”
“You aren’t the boss of what animal I am, dummy.”
“Maybe not, but I picked to be a bear first, and bears are in the forest. Cheetahs are in Africa. Why would a cheetah and a bear be hanging out in a metaphor together?”
It was hard not to laugh at the childishness we were slipping into. Will was fighting a smile. The telltale twitch at the corner of his mouth gave him away.
“Stop interrupting,” he said. “You have to be a forest animal. And since I’m a bear, you must be a—”
“Deer,” I said. “I want to be a deer.”
“Not a deer. You’re a fox.”
I had my phone out of my armband before it even dawned on him what he’d said. I held it up and clicked record. “Repeat that, Will. I want it on tape, forever, that you said I’m a fox.”
“You’re a fox,” he said and then heard it and burst out laughing.
“That’s totally going to be my ring tone for you now, you saying over and over that I’m a fox.”
He shook his head and started on a slow jog toward our apartments. But he didn’t argue that I was a fox, and I floated home behind him.
“See you in a few?” he called when I passed his door.
“Make it thirty, and come down to my place with your laptop. I’ll make you real dinner, and we’ll see if you got any matches yet.”
“It’s barely been a day. Of course there aren’t any matches.”
“It’s cute how much you don’t know,” I called over my shoulder as I opened my door. “My place in thirty; laptop or no dinner.”
When he walked in a half hour later, he had his laptop under his arm, and the stir-fry I had thrown together was almost done. I’d pulled on my favorite jeans and a silky top, going for casual sophistication. The important part was the sophistication.
He set his laptop on my coffee table and sniffed. “What is that? It smells good.”
“Eye of newt. It’s the next big thing after Paleo and South Beach.”
“So, chicken?”
“Chicken,” I confirmed. “Plus healthy stuff that grew in the ground.”
“Weird.”
“
Shut up. Let’s see your matches.”
He opened his laptop and squinted at his inbox. He had perfect vision, but he always did that squint when he was about to dive into something new. “Seven,” he said, and surprise laced his voice.
“I was right, right, right,” I sang while I did a touchdown-style dance in the kitchen. But I couldn’t fully enjoy the moment. A pit of worry opened in my stomach. What if there was a perfect match for him in those seven? I mean, seven. It was one of those lucky numbers. Maybe it meant something that it had shown up as a bundle of seven. A touch of nausea bubbled up. Why couldn’t it be a meaningless number like—
“Eight. Another one just came in. This is crazy.”
“And I’m . . .” I trailed off so he could fill in the blank.
“Right. You’re right. And that wasn’t obnoxious at all.”
But I didn’t care about his eye roll because my stomach had cleared up when I realized that the seven matches wasn’t a sign. I was going to have to rein that in quick though. I developed a bunch of superstitions around Will when I was a teenager, like if I smoothed my ponytail in front of my left shoulder he would give me his special smile, or that for every one of his discarded gum wrappers I could rescue from the trash can, it would equal a date he’d ask me on when I turned eighteen and graduated high school. It was tricky to get the gum wrappers out of the garbage without getting caught and having kids accuse me of being a trash digger or, worse, getting busted by Dave or Will wanting to know what I was up to. So each wrapper I got required a lot of effort, and to my smitten fifteen-year-old brain, that kind of risk and effort should have translated into a date when I was old enough, for sure.
When that didn’t happen at eighteen, I pushed the deadline to twenty-one. When I turned twenty-two, I finally threw away the dozens of gum wrappers I’d been hanging on to.
That was young, dumb Hannah, the girl. Older, wiser Hannah, the woman, had a relationship track record and a life that looked like an adult’s from the outside, and I didn’t feel like slipping into stupid schoolgirl habits.
I turned back to the stove and gave the skillet a few good shakes, letting that substitute for the shakes I wanted to give myself. “Time to eat,” I said, scooping up two heaping bowlfuls of stir-fry and depositing Will’s in front of him.
He shook his head at it. “It looks pretty, and it smells nice, but there’s a part of me that is sad every time I’m eating something that isn’t pizza.”
“It’s all the same stuff you’d find on top of your pizza,” I pointed out. “Peppers, onions, protein. It’s just tasty chicken protein instead of greasy pepperoni protein. Now eat, and let’s look at these girls. Show me candidate numero uno.”
He pulled up honeygirl42. Her message said, “Hi. I saw on your profile that you like jazz. I love it too. I’d love to know what else we have in common.” It was hard to concentrate on honeygirl42 with Will’s shoulder brushing mine every few seconds as he breathed.
“She’s cute,” he said.
“Pass.” Girls who liked jazz fell into two categories: pretentious and boring or quirky and interesting. Pretentious and boring jazz lovers were totally safe to date Will, but they did not name themselves honeygirl. She had to go.
“Why? She looks like a good fit.”
“Nope. She named herself honeygirl42. How boring are you to be the forty-second person to think of that screen name?”
“But she’s cute.”
“Remember that thing where we’re going to listen to me because I’m the actual woman here and therefore understand women better? It’s time to do that thing now. Really. Pass on her. You can always come back to her later.” He most definitely could not come back to her later. Or ever.
“Fine, Hanny. You pick. Let’s see what you got.”
Part of me loved hearing his nickname for me. He only gave nicknames to people close to him, and I liked being in that circle.
I scrolled through the remaining matches and stopped at the fourth one, a plain-looking woman with the handle “janeingit.” I had to think about that one for a long time before I could see it: Jane-ing it. As in a joking reference to herself as a Plain Jane? If so, it was too clever and made her a threat.
Contestant number five looked like a much better bet. She was also ordinary looking and had the screen name Dallasgirl. Boring. I read her profile, looking for any flashes of humor that might send up a red flag, but she was still as boring as her screen name by the time I finished. But she liked jazz, and she was going to be one of the pretentious jazz fans. “Perfect.”
Will quirked an eyebrow at me after he skimmed her info. “Really? Because I don’t see it.”
“Why? Because she’s not a supermodel? Don’t be that guy, Will.”
“Whatever,” he said, giving me an absent-minded bump with his shoulder, our shorthand for knock it off. “It’s the whole package. What are you seeing in her profile that makes you think I should start here?”
“Look at her message. She says you look like a thoughtful guy, and she’s a thinker too. She says maybe you should trade ideas sometime. Come on. You know an idea-driven person is going to make for fascinating conversation. There’s no way you’re going to run out of things to talk about. You should go for this. The whole point is to do something totally opposite your usual dating pattern, right?” I pointed at the screen. “Meet totally opposite.”
“Fine.” He yanked the computer onto his lap. “Tell me what to say, Girl Whisperer.”
“I think you’re going to have to meet a lot of women to find the one.” Mainly because I needed to buy time by sending him out with lots of women who were absolutely wrong for him. “So I think if you’re serious about wife-ing it up, you need to be efficient and get to the date sooner than later so you don’t spend time getting to know someone online only to find out you have no chemistry.”
It was the exact opposite of how I would do it myself. If a guy couldn’t make me laugh or think, any physical chemistry we might have might as well be sparklers in a rain gutter. But I didn’t want to risk him building a good foundation with any of these girls before he met them. Nothing would ruin my plans faster than him finding something real. I was his something real. “You should probably come up with a standard cut-to-the-chase open, like an invitation to lunch right away or something.”
“How about, ‘The nerdy side of me believes in chemistry. Should we just cut to the chase and see if we have any over lunch?’”
“Wow. I had no idea how badly you really needed my help. I’m so embarrassed for you.”
“You just lost all future nacho privileges.”
“I take it back. That was pretty genius, but you should probably try something like, ‘I believe in chemistry—let’s skip the IMs and just meet.’ I even kept your science joke.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Yes.”
He hauled me half onto his lap, holding my arms hostage while he demanded, “Loser says what?”
All I had to do to free myself was say, “What.” It was a joke Dave and Will had played on each other and me a hundred times. A thousand, even. But it didn’t feel good to be so close to his fresh cotton scent, the strong bars of his arms confining me. Not like this. “Let me go,” I said.
Will kept me right where I was. “Loser says what,” he repeated.
I shoved against him harder, squirming to be let go. When his hold tightened, I reached up and grabbed arm hair again, yanking and not feeling the least bit bad when he sucked his breath in and released me. “Geez, Hannah. Relax.”
I pushed myself up from the sofa and stormed to the kitchen for a drink and a chance to calm myself. I took three long swallows of water before I felt like responding. “I’m not a kid anymore, Will. You can’t just manhandle me like that. You should grow up and knock it off.”
“All right, all right,” he said. “Didn’t know it bugged you so much.”
If he’d looked offended or hurt, I might have kicked him out of the apartment. Ins
tead he said, “Hey. I’m sorry. Really.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, setting my empty glass on the counter. “I don’t care if you tease me, but maybe don’t do it like I’m twelve, okay?” This whole balance was much harder to walk than I’d thought it would be. This was so confusing. I sat back down beside him and latched on to something I was more sure about. “You should tell her that you’re a spontaneous guy and would like to meet her over lunch instead of through a computer screen.”
“Sounds good to me,” he said, turning back to the screen to type out something to Dallasgirl, then clicked back to his matches. “Who else?”
“Uh . . . Don’t you want to see how it goes with Dallasgirl?”
“Yep. And a few others too. We’re doing this on an efficiency model. It’s already Tuesday, so I want to set up at least three dates this week. Next week we can shoot for five.”
Even the thought of trying to keep track of so many women made my head spin until I saw how to spin the situation itself to my advantage. “Let’s check out the rest of these profiles. But remember that women appreciate honesty, so be open at some point during each lunch and let them know you’re dating several people.”
“Wouldn’t that make you mad if a guy said that to you?”
It would put me off and make me think he was tone deaf and kind of cocky. So basically it was the perfect thing to tell him to say. “It would make me mad if I found out he wasn’t honest about playing the field. Definitely tell them.” His look suggested that I was trying to redefine the theory of relativity. “Doubt me if this fails. Until it fails, believe me. Deal?”
“Deal,” he said, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe he was agreeing to this. That made two of us.
Two more women had sent him messages since we’d sat down, and after throwing them into the pool, we fished out one who struck me as adventurous to the point of craziness and a pretty girl whose snoozefest of a profile made me sure she would bore him senseless with discussions about her collection of mailbox photos. She liked mailboxes. A lot. She was the perfect girl for Will if I didn’t want him to fall in love. With anyone besides me, anyway.
Always Will Page 4