The Dating Plan

by Sara Desai

  “So you hook up with strangers?” Liam asked in a hushed whisper as the cashier rang up their order. “Were you with someone last night?”

  “Yes. His name is Max.” She pulled out her phone. “I have a selfie of us together.” She held it up for the cashier to see, keeping the screen away from Liam’s line of vision.

  “Oh, he’s gorgeous,” the cashier said. “He’s got the nicest eyes.”

  “Let me see.” Liam felt his protective instincts rise. “Who is he? Max who?”

  “He doesn’t have a last name.”

  “Jesus Christ, Daisy,” he spluttered. “Does Sanjay know you do this? What about your dad?”

  “They know all about Max,” Daisy said. “In fact, my dad took a picture of us cuddled together in bed the night before he left on his trip, and the cutest one of Max on my pillow. I bought Max some pajamas but he refused to wear them. He likes to sleep au naturel.”

  Bile rose in Liam’s throat. “And your dad took . . . pictures?”

  “Photography is his new hobby. He took some great shots when I was giving Max a bath . . .”

  “Stop.” Liam held up a hand. “Just . . . I can’t. I don’t know what’s happened to you, but it ends now. We’re engaged and that means no more random hookups, no pornographic pictures, and no flashing pictures of strangers in the nude.”

  “Amina doesn’t mind. She’s my second cousin.” Daisy introduced them before turning her phone around. “And this is Max.”

  Liam was a heartbeat away from shutting his eyes when his brain registered the picture of a fluffy white dog on a pink duvet.

  His tension left him in a rush. “Max is a dog.”

  “He’s a Westie. Layla got him for me as an emotional support dog at a bad time in my life.”

  Liam bit back the urge to ask Daisy about a time so bad she’d needed extra love. It was her business, and he could only hope she would tell him when she was ready so he could offer his support. “That wasn’t funny.”

  “Amina and I were amused.”

  “I heard you were engaged.” Amina’s gaze flicked to Liam and she blushed. “He’s almost as cute as Max.” They had a brief conversation in Urdu that Liam couldn’t follow, but from the way Amina’s eyes kept shifting his way, he knew it was about him.

  “You should add some raita,” Daisy suggested when Liam handed his credit card to Amina. “Maybe two or three bowls—yogurt and cucumber are the perfect way to soothe the burn.”

  “I don’t need raita,” Liam scoffed. “I have a tongue of steel.” He flipped his card over his fingers—a party trick he’d learned in high school—making Amina giggle.

  “This promises to be an interesting date,” Daisy said after he’d paid for his meal. “First, you try to seduce my second cousin, then you’re going to burn your mouth out of stubborn pride. What other surprises do you have in store for me?”

  Liam gave her a slow smile. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”

  After waiting only five minutes, they were seated at their table. Liam munched on the free poppadums while Daisy chatted with the waiter. He’d forgotten how well the Patels were connected. It had been the same with Sanjay. It was a rare occasion that they were out and didn’t meet someone his friend knew.

  “I took the liberty of ordering you a Kingfisher beer,” Daisy said after she finished her conversation. “This date will be a waste of time if you can’t talk.”

  He lifted an eyebrow in censure. “So, what should we discuss since we’ve already talked about the first half of the dating plan?”

  “The second half of the dating plan.”

  Liam pulled out his phone and sent her the spreadsheet he’d amended while they’d waited in line. “I’ve sent my changes to you so you can have a visual of what I do and do not like.”

  Daisy studied her phone, eyes narrowing. “I don’t appreciate all my hard work being defaced with juvenile comments.” She read off the screen. “‘Seriously?’ ‘Yawn.’ ‘Snoozefest.’ ‘WTF.’ ‘OK Boomer.’ And my personal favorite, ‘Kill me now.’”

  “I tried to be creative.” He took a crunchy poppadum off the plate and nibbled the edge.

  “I thought I was very accommodating,” Daisy said. “I even allowed you to have a sports night. But Magowan’s Infinite Mirror Maze? Alcatraz?” She drew in a ragged breath. “We’re supposed to be going on dates to get to know each other. How can we talk if we’re focused on solving a maze? And who takes a date to Alcatraz?”

  “I’ve always wanted to see the inside of the world’s most infamous prison. What if I wind up there one day?”

  Daisy snatched a poppadum off the plate and bit into it with an angry crunch. “It’s closed.”

  “Then it won’t be hard to escape.”

  “What about the textile exhibition that’s going on right now?” she asked. “Or the Nerd Nite talk on metagrobology? I thought you liked puzzles.”

  “I liked doing puzzles with you because you could finish them before I could even find the corner pieces,” Liam said. “Now my interests veer toward drinking, dancing, sports, motorcycles, gaming, and sex.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “We discussed sex.”

  “I’d like to discuss it some more,” he said. “Talking about sex is my second favorite thing next to actually having sex.”

  Daisy sighed. “We agreed on sports. I’ll put that in as Date #3.”

  “Date #3 has to be meeting my family,” he said. “I have relatives who came here for my grandfather’s funeral and they’ll be leaving soon. It’s probably best if you meet everyone at once.”

  Her face softened. “Of course. I’ll put that in. Sports will be Date #4. We should try to get tickets to see a hockey game at the SAP Center. My aunt and uncle and their boys have season tickets and we can arrange to accidentally bump into them, like we just bumped into Amina.”

  “Go Sharks!” Liam pumped his fist in the air. “I’ll handle the tickets.”

  Daisy’s lips curled in a smile. “And since you got what you want, how about a lecture on tamale-making for Date #5?”

  Liam shook his head. “No tamales.”

  “But it would be so interesting. Did you know that San Francisco residents ate twenty-five thousand tamales a week in 1890?”

  God, he loved this. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine himself back in the Patel kitchen as Daisy told him all sorts of weird and wonderful facts. Even now, he could remember the height of the world’s tallest man, and the size of the world’s biggest ball of string.

  “I’d eat twenty-five thousand tamales right now if it meant we didn’t have to go to the lecture. How about going to a bar for Date #5 instead, and then a motorcycle ride for Date #6?”

  “I don’t know anything about riding.” She bit her bottom lip. “And I don’t do that kind of stuff anymore.”

  “Exciting stuff?”

  “Risky stuff. I like to play it safe.”

  Liam wanted to know why she’d given up the fun things she used to do with her father, but this wasn’t the time to ask. Still, there was nothing he loved more, and he desperately wanted to share it with her.

  “What if I take you to a motorcycle shop and you can quiz my friend Hamish about safety and bike mechanics, wind velocity, and safety gear? If you’re still not comfortable after that, I’ll go with you to listen to one hundred years of tamale-making history.”

  Her face lit up with a smile. “One hundred and thirty-one to be exact, and I agree to both #5 and #6. For Date #7, we’ll be meeting my family and my dad to get their approval. And Date #8 isn’t really a date, but it can be our wedding. I’ll book a time at city hall.”

  “Vegas,” Liam said firmly. “I can’t do city hall, even for a fake wedding. It’s not me. If I’m spending a small fortune on an outfit and I’m carrying a big-ass sword, I want to get married somewhere it will be
appreciated. And I want an Elvis.”

  “An Elvis?” she repeated.

  “He’ll be in full costume, and after he says ‘You may kiss the bride,’ he’ll break out his guitar and sing ‘A Big Hunk o’ Love.’” He sighed and gazed into the distance. “Men have wedding fantasies, too.”

  Daisy’s eyes widened. “Seriously?”

  “No.” He fought back his laughter. Sometimes Daisy was so literal, it was almost too easy to wind her up. “I think ‘Just Pretend’ or ‘Return to Sender’ might be more appropriate.”

  Daisy stared at him, her expression blank, but he knew what was going on behind those narrowed eyes. She was amused, but afraid to show it.

  “‘Heartbreak Hotel’?” He was determined to make her smile. “‘Crying in the Chapel’? ‘Jailhouse Rock’?” He pushed a little harder. “Or how about ‘Hard Headed Woman’?”

  “‘Don’t Be Cruel.’” Her lips quivering at the corners, Daisy picked up her phone and tapped on the screen. “One Vegas wedding plus one Elvis. Song: TBA. I’ll send you the final spreadsheet.”

  “Your cold, detached, and calculating approach to dating is a huge turn on,” Liam said dryly. “You’re lucky we’re in a public place. I can barely contain myself.”

  Their food arrived and Daisy tucked in to her dosas. Liam studied his plate and frowned at the unfamiliar presentation. “Is this—”

  “Pork vindaloo. Extra hot. Just the way you wanted it.”

  Liam scooped up a mouthful of pork, taking a moment to savor the rich, delicate flavors on his tongue.

  “Delicious,” he said. “And not too hot at all. I might even ask for some extra cayenne.”

  Daisy stared at him, her lips quivering at the corners. “Wait for it . . .”

  Liam lifted his fork for another bite, but even after the warning, he was totally unprepared for the flaming inferno in his mouth.

  He gasped, sweat beading on his forehead, pain screaming across his tongue. “Water!”

  “Water won’t help you.” Daisy pushed her raita across the table, clearly trying to contain her laughter. “You need yogurt.”

  Liam grabbed the bowl and gulped down the yogurt in frantic slurps.

  “It’s a dip. Not a drink.” Laughing now, she snapped a picture of him. “How’s the asbestos tongue now?”

  “What the fuck was that?” He was at once embarrassed and angry with himself for his stubborn pride.

  “Extra hot. Just the way you ordered it. Instead of being so stubborn, you should listen to people who know what they’re talking about. It doesn’t make you less of a man.”

  “That’s not what my father thought,” he said, half to himself. His father never took advice if he thought he could do something himself, whether it was filing false tax returns with the IRS, forging applications for disability benefits, or screwing investors out of their hard-earned cash.

  His father also never thought his youngest son was his own flesh and blood. Liam was worthless, stupid, no good, and most definitely less of a man.

  He pushed his plate away and soothed his tongue with the remaining spoons of raita. What the hell was wrong with him? He didn’t think about the past, and he never talked about his father. “I don’t need advice,” he said abruptly.

  It had taken him a long time to move past his father’s emotional abuse, to learn to disregard people’s opinions and rely only on himself, to actually feel the confidence he projected to the outside world. But sitting here in front of the smartest, prettiest, sexiest woman he’d ever known—a woman he would never be worthy of having except in a world of pretend dates and fake marriages—he wasn’t feeling it at all.

  Daisy paused mid bite and frowned. “I just didn’t want you to burn your mouth.”

  “I know what I want,” he snapped. “And I wanted it like that.”

  Her mouth firmed into a straight line and she shrugged. “Okay.”

  They ate in uncomfortable silence for the next few minutes. Liam mentally cursed himself, and his father, and the chef who had made the dish so spicy he had needed to be warned.

  “I’m an ass,” he said finally.

  Daisy looked up, a pained expression on her face. “I won’t disagree with you.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Apology accepted,” she said stiffly.

  “My dad passed away a few years ago, but just thinking about him . . .” He hesitated, not wanting to wind himself up again, but desperately needing to clear the air. “Triggers me.”

  Her face softened. “I can’t even imagine how hard it must be. I know a little about what he was like.”

  Of course she did. She’d been there when his mom had brought him over to her house, his arm in a cast, his face swollen from the worst beating he’d ever had. He’d seen her on the stairs while their parents talked, her bare feet peeking out of her pink nightdress, a stuffed rabbit in her arms. He’d found the rabbit on his bed when her father had taken him up to Sanjay’s room, and it had been a great comfort in the darkest hours of the night.

  He took another bite of his vindaloo, savored the punishing burn. “I’ve ruined our second date,” he said, his eyes watering.

  Daisy offered him his beer. “It’s okay. Talking about triggers and personal issues was one of the objectives for our dates. We’re just ahead of schedule.”

  He waved away the glass. “I’m going to eat the entire dish. No raita. No beer. I deserve the pain.”

  Daisy laughed. “I didn’t know you were a masochist. Lucky for you, I don’t enjoy seeing you suffer. I ordered extra food in case we needed it.”

  “If this were a real second date, would we have had a third?” He leaned forward, studying her intently for even the faintest sign of forgiveness. “I thought I did pretty well at the beginning. On time. Scintillating conversation. Objectives not just fulfilled, but exceeded because now we’re ahead of schedule. Abject apology when I screwed up—many men have trouble with that—and I was willing to inflict mortal injury to my tongue to make it up to you.”

  “Liam?”

  “Yes?”

  She pushed her plate of dosas toward him. “It doesn’t matter if it isn’t real.”

  But it did matter. More than he cared to admit.

  • 13 •

  DAISY’S Thursday morning was taken up with sprint plans, bug counts, and daydreaming while Andrew droned on during the weekly team meeting.

  Last night’s dinner had almost been a total disaster. She’d let her guard down, and for a while she’d almost forgotten it wasn’t real. Liam’s antics with the sword in the dress shop had made her laugh and she’d enjoyed teasing him in the restaurant. His sudden change in demeanor had been the wake-up call she needed. It would be too easy to fall for Liam, too hard to get hurt again.

  Liam had never once indicated he felt anything more than brotherly affection for her. She was still the nerdy geek who’d spent lunches in the science lab, and Liam was still the guy who’d dated the most beautiful girls in the school. Daisy had watched them from the window when he came to pick up Sanjay, and wondered how it felt to be so thin you could disappear between two blades of grass, and what they would do when faced with a summer of desi weddings where you had to starve yourself at the beginning of the week so you could eat for three straight days.

  Not that she wasn’t attractive—she was comfortable with her body, right down to the chipped front tooth that had come from taking a line drive to the face on the baseball diamond—but she and Liam were from two different worlds. Except for their childhood wounds, they shared nothing but memories, a love for video games, and good taste in black leather boots.

  Stop thinking about him. She shifted in her chair, trying to push away the memory of how warm and solid he’d felt against her when he’d kissed her at the conference, and his sharp intake of breath when she’d kissed him back . . .

&
nbsp; “Daisy.” Josh gave her a nudge. “The meeting’s over.”

  She sighed and pushed the fantasy away. “I need another coffee. Andrew’s talks always put me to sleep.”

  “He told us to stay put. Tyler’s having a meeting with Marketing and Design and he wants us to be here. He said something about another website redesign.”

  “Not again.” She tipped her head back and groaned.

  Mia and Zoe joined them as the rest of the marketing team filed in, taking the empty seats beside Daisy.

  “I hope this doesn’t take long.” Zoe checked her watch. “I have Lily at an emergency day care in the Mission. Our babysitter was sick again. I need to find something else.”

  “I talked to my aunt about Lily,” Daisy said. “She’s an elementary school teacher and she’s off for the summer. She looks after my dog, Max, and she said she’d be happy to help you out until school starts again. I’ll give you her number.”

  “Oh my God. That would be amazing!” Zoe waved a hand in front of her face as her eyes teared. “You can’t imagine the stress. Tyler’s been so good to me, but I feel like I’m taking advantage.”

  “And I’ve got a number for you, too.” Daisy handed a business card to Mia. “I’ve got a cousin who works at an addiction center. They do really good work with addicts and their families. They have a long waiting list but he owed me a favor, so if you’re interested you can give him a call.”

  “I’ve tried pretty much everything to help her,” Mia said. “But I’ll definitely get in touch. You’ve got some family.”

  “I’ve got a lot of family.” Daisy laughed. “Sometimes it’s a good thing, but sometimes they can be too involved.”

  Tyler cleared this throat to quiet the room. He had trimmed his beard, cut his hair, washed his clothes, and even put on a pair of shoes. “I have exciting news. Evolution Ventures has expressed an interest in Organicare. They haven’t offered us funding, but they did a business analysis and suggested that we do a rebrand. Liam Murphy has generously offered us the services of Brad Assard, from Assign Design Consultants to make it happen. I’ll turn the floor over to Brad to outline his plan, and Liam will be joining us later.”