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“I know.” She pushed the last of her salad greens around to get them coated in dressing, then speared them up on her fork.
“What’s your reason for not going down to get a salad or sandwich? I’m hoping it’s as fun as your reason for keeping warm Diet Coke in your office.”
Fun. People almost never used that word to describe her, and Jason using it made her smiley inside. “It’s not. Fun, I mean. Or convoluted, which is the other way to describe my soda reasoning. But when it gets to be early afternoon and I’ve not eaten lunch yet and I have a pile of work on my desk, it seems easier to keep working than to quit and feed myself. After all, dinner’s getting closer.”
“Well, I’m a three-squares-a-day kind of guy. Usually I pack my lunch. You’re lucky.”
“Yes.” She closed the lid of her salad container and picked up the roll. “Want to share?”
“No, that’s all yours.”
“Thanks.” She didn’t have a knife, so she used the back of a fork to spread the butter around.
He was throwing away his trash when a flash on her phone screen distracted them both. He probably recognized the icon, and she didn’t want to deal with it right now, or hear his questions, so she slapped her hand on the phone and flipped it over, screen side down.
“I know what that is,” he said. “You don’t have to hide it.”
“It’s not important,” she lied. The paucity of responses she got in online dating meant that every small response took on a magnitude that far outweighed its actual importance. She knew it, and still that icon called to her. Look at me! I might be the one!
“I’d want to look at it,” he said, not moving from his spot near her desk. They were both staring at the Hello Kitty on the back of her phone.
“It’s either a message agreeing to meet me for drinks tonight, or it’s not. It’s a binary answer, so nothing to get too worked up over.” As soon has Jason left her office, she would flip that phone over and learn which it was. But right now, she used her hands to put the last of the roll in her mouth. Giving them something to do other than flip the phone over.
“It’s not really binary,” he said, probably just needling her. “Maybe the fellow is offering you drinks tomorrow night. Or dinner. Or meeting for coffee on Sunday.”
“Coffee this Sunday would be okay. That’s open on my schedule. No drinks tomorrow night. And I don’t know the man well enough to commit the time necessary for dinner. I have a grant application to finish and not a lot of time left to do so.”
“Wait.” Realization dawned on his face. “Do you have times set aside when you’ll go on dates and, if it’s not one of those times, you won’t go?”
“I’m busy. I assume the men are busy, too. I’m respectful of their time, and I hope they’re respectful of mine.”
“Respect isn’t an exciting way to start a relationship. Shouldn’t you want your heart to flutter or tingle or whatever romantic nonsense it is that people talk about?”
She tilted her head to get a different view of him as he was sitting back down in the chair. He’d talked about online dating being fun, how it was about getting to meet new people. It had never occurred to her that he might be looking for love at first sight or some sort of off the charts chemistry. Who besides her parents did that in real life?
And look where that had gotten her parents.
“Tingles would be nice, but respect is a better start. No matter how much you want in someone’s pants, the morning after will be awkward without respect.”
Something she said must have surprised him, because he blinked a couple times, then barked out a laugh. “Mornings after are generally awkward. And, if we’re being frank, being in someone’s pants doesn’t necessarily mean a morning after.”
It was her turn to laugh and she giggled. “This is not a work-related or even lunch-related conversation.”
“No,” he said with a big smile, “but it has everything to do with the guy who messaged you, and he’s who I’m really curious about.”
“Ha,” she said, perhaps even with a smile. “There’s no way I’m going to talk about Waterski25. It’s not happening.”
“What’s your profile name?”
“No,” she said, unable to stop herself from smiling.
“I’ll tell you what mine is.”
“No.” She was still smiling.
“Do you have a good profile picture? Did you fill out the ‘last read’ section down at the bottom? Where did you say that you hang out?”
“No, no and no.” Her voice sounded girlish and flirty, even to her own ears, but she was having fun and didn’t know how to sound serious again, not with Jason teasing her.
“No, you don’t have a good profile picture?”
“Oh, get out of here.” Her chair rolled as she pushed a hand against his hip. “We each have lots of work to do, and I hope to have a date tonight.”
“Okay, okay, okay,” he said, backing away. “Next time, I’m bringing doughnuts and you’re showing me your profile picture.”
“I’ll take the doughnuts, but no way on the profile picture. And no questions about my online dating profile.”
“Come on. I’ll answer any of your questions about online dating. We can compare notes.”
“Get outta here.” She waved him away. And, with a flick of his hand at his forehead, Jason went.
He really did have a cute butt. And the cargo pants he always wore hugged that cute butt nicely.
She shouldn’t be looking at his cute butt. He didn’t fit her algorithm. She didn’t have to look at his profile to know that.
* * *
JASON WAS SMILING as he walked out of Marsie’s office. If someone had told him yesterday that prim and starchy Marsie Penny would use the words “someone’s pants” while at work, he would have asked when pot had become legal in North Carolina. Right now, he just wished he was still in her office, flirting and joking, rather than walking out to put together a bookshelf in some guy’s office.
At least he knew she had long fingers. He’d felt every inch of her hand when she’d put her palm against him and gave him a slight push. Elegant fingers, just like she was elegant in every other aspect.
He shook his hand. He never thought he’d describe a woman’s hand as elegant, but here he was. Unfortunately, his heart hadn’t fluttered. He had a date tomorrow night, and the few chats he and Willow had exchanged weren’t nearly as interesting as his talks with Marsie.
Maybe Willow would be more interesting in person. Her picture was cute, which was a good start for a heart flutter.
CHAPTER FIVE
MARSIE STOOD ON the street outside Raleigh Times and waited for her date. It was a Wednesday night, so the streets were quiet. Only a few groups of people and several couples had to walk around her, and not a single one of the bike-bars—made up of fifteen or so people bicycling and drinking in tandem around a bar—had passed her to yell.
She pulled her cardigan tighter around her shoulders, wishing she’d remembered her coat. The weather was warm for mid-January, but that didn’t mean warm. With working on the grant, she hadn’t had time to run home and change, so she’d switched out her suit jacket for a pretty light pink cardigan with a subtle sequin design in the hopes that she’d look less formal. The cardigan wasn’t as warm as her jacket had been. And in what world was a sheath dress less overdressed simply because she was wearing a cardigan and not a matching jacket, she didn’t know. But she was sticking with her story, because otherwise she’d feel self-conscious for looking like a banker while waiting for a date at a bar.
Everyone who passed her on the streets was wearing jeans. She should have made time to run home.
No, she had a grant to apply for. She should keep a date outfit in her office. Then she could look breezy casual at a moment’s notice. A trio of women passed in tight jeans, a variety of patterns and shapes to blouses visible through open coats, and high heels, giving Marsie the idea that she should put a couple different outfits in her office. Maybe she would go on a second date and need something else to wear. Or her one outfit wouldn’t be appropriate. She should be prepared. She’d go shopping with Beck this weekend. Beck would have ideas.
Her feet were starting to hurt. Pumps and a sheath dress. There was no way she looked like a fun date. God, even if she had changed her profile information from the boring description of her accomplishments to the light, offhand paragraph about nothing, she was boring at her core. She read math books for fun, for Pete’s sake. The grant application was all she could think of right now. There was no way she’d be able to make jokes and be personable.
And the stakes were too high to do anything else. So much pressure. If she wanted to be married and have kids, she needed to start now. She should have started earlier. She shouldn’t have spent so much time building a career.
Except her work was important and interesting. At least to her. It wasn’t interesting to anyone else. She should cancel the date before she bored Waterski25—Everett—to death.
Dammit. She recognized the self-doubt birds chattering in her brain. They showed up on a regular basis, especially when she was trying something new. The last time she’d tried online dating, those birds had followed her around like something out of a horror movie. She’d be sitting at a bar, enjoying her conversation, and the birds would swoop in and comment on some vague look in the man’s eye. That look isn’t interest. It’s his eyes glazing over. He’s bored. He’s glanced at the waitress five times in the past ten minutes. He wants the check. He’s bored.
The birds only sang one song, and they trilled that tune nonstop. She almost wished that the birds would pick on something other than whether she could carry on sparkling conversation. But wishing for them to warble a melody about her looks seemed like a death wish.
A girl had to be careful what she wished for.
Her phone buzzed in her purse. As she dug it out, she wondered if Everett had texted to cancel their date. Marsie’s self-confidence from work today had completely disappeared, and she wanted nothing more than to change into pajamas, curl up on her couch and binge watch something on HBO. To her surprised relief, the message was from Beck.
First date!!! :-) :-) It will be fun. Even if this
waterski guy isn’t for you, someone will be.
Marsie slipped her phone back in her purse. She was still smiling when a handsome man with wavy brown hair and a Roman nose walked up to her, his hand out in greeting.
“Marsie, I assume,” the man—Everett—said.
“Yes, hello.” The night was chill, but her date’s hand was warm, so that was a good start. And he looked like his profile picture. Another good start.
“Shall we,” he said, opening the door so that they could go inside the bar.
Raleigh Times was loud, as always. No matter how many people were in the building, the high ceiling and hard textures surrounding them meant sounds echoed. She and Everett would have to lean in to each other if they wanted to have any hope of hearing what the other person said.
A hostess took them to a small table near the window. If she were boring, he could entertain himself watching the people walk past them on the street. Or, she tried to yell over the birds in her head, if he were boring then she could watch the people walk past them.
Of course, Beck would tell her that dating wasn’t awful, and Marsie might have a great time and no one would need to stare at pedestrians because this could be the start of something amazing. Jason would tell her this was fun.
Since he was fun, it probably was. For him.
With that pep talk set to replay in the back of her head, she picked up the menu and looked for something to drink.
“You look like you came from work,” he said, scanning the food menu. “Do you want to get snacks, too? Or is this drinks only until further notice?”
Everett was attractive, and she hadn’t gotten any stayaway!!! vibes from him. He’d scored a 75 straight out of the gate in her algorithm, though she’d had to fudge the numbers a bit during their emails to bump him up to the 90 needed for her to agree to the date. So that was a strike against him. She ran through a quick calculation in her head and decided that her marginal utility from this guy was still going up.
“Snacks would be great.” What the hell. She was being open to new things. She wanted a relationship. And she was hungry.
They talked about the menu, what would be good to share and what they were each getting to drink. When the waitress came by, Everett ordered the chicken strips and lettuce wraps, then said, “I’ll have the Big Boss IPA and the lady will have the Mother Earth Lager.”
The waitress smiled at both of them, said, “Drinks will be out shortly,” and left.
“I could have ordered my own drink,” Marsie said. She wasn’t sure which bothered her more, that he’d ordered her drink or that he’d referred to her as “the lady.”
Everett’s eyes lifted in surprise. “Didn’t mean any offense. I respect women and feminism and all that good stuff, of course. But you look like the kind of woman who likes a man to take care of her.”
She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “Really?” She had a PhD in economics and ran national studies on health care. She owned her own home, didn’t have any student loans and her car was paid for.
Of course, she reminded herself, there was no way he would know all that. So, in the interest of research and improving her algorithm, she lifted the corners of her lips and asked, “What about me says I like a man who takes care of me?”
For all the education that he had listed on his profile and as smart as his emails had seemed, to Marsie’s surprise, Everett was stupid enough to answer the question. “Your profile has a lot of exclamation marks. And the pink sweater confirms it.”
“Here’re your drinks,” the waitress said, sweeping between them and setting two glasses of beer on the table.
“Is that...” She didn’t know where to begin to question what he was saying, because all of it was ridiculous. “Is that what you really think?”
Her date took a long drink from his beer, leaving a little mustache of foam on his top lip. “I’m an old-fashioned guy.”
Marsie sipped from her own drink. Too much alcohol would only loosen her sense of propriety, and she hadn’t gotten this far in her career by letting her emotions get the better of her. Professors had waited, biting their nails, all through her grad school career, for any excuse to say she was too emotional to apply the logic and rationality needed for economics.
Too bright for the dismal science.
Those professors had never acknowledged that fear was an emotion, too.
Another bitter sip of beer down her throat and Marsie was ready for more conversation. “Tell me, what does it mean when you say you’re an ‘an old-fashioned guy’?”
Apparently, “old-fashioned” meant he would open his arms out wide and knock over his empty beer glass. He righted the glass without pausing a beat, then launched into a long explanation about men’s roles in the world and women’s roles in the world and how women wanted a man who would do all the planning and thinking for the household, while they took care of the “love.”
Marsie smiled up at the waitress as she set the food on the table and her date ordered another beer. Everett wasn’t the man for her, but she was hungry, so she might as well get dinner out of the date.
Food on the table, Marsie unwrapped her flatware and placed the napkin on her lap. Then she turned to her date. “And what about a woman like me?”
“A woman like you?” Everett asked, reaching for a chicken strip.
Marsie scooped some filling into a piece of lettuce and popped her food in her mouth. “If you remember from my profile, I have a PhD. I run large research projects for a living. Your education was one of the things that attracted me to your profile. And I assume you to mine.”
He appeared to give what she said serious thought while he finished chewing. Then he shrugged. “A woman like you is also not married, and you want to be. Independence isn’t really what you want. And your strategy hasn’t been working for you so far.”
Clearly. She picked up her napkin and wiped off her hands, then set the napkin on the table. Tonight, she would have to review where in her algorithm she could have caught “self-important asshole” and saved herself from this date. She wasn’t hungry enough for lettuce wraps to listen to a man telling her that she didn’t want independence.
And she was independent enough not to need to be here any longer. “I’ll be right back.” She didn’t wait for him to ask questions, but scooted back from the table and headed for the bathroom, purse in hand. On her way, she stopped at the bar and paid their tab.
Everett was almost finished with his second beer when she returned. Hers was half drunk. She had only a couple bites of her lettuce wraps. His chicken strips were gone. He looked up as she stood over the table.
“Everett, I won’t lie and say that I had a nice time, but I had an educational time and that’s important, too.”
“What?” He wiped mustard sauce off his lips. “Aren’t you going to finish your beer? Bad manners not to finish a beer someone else is paying for.”
“Well, then, we’re both lucky that you finished your beers, because I’ve already paid the tab. You’re welcome to finish both my beer and my lettuce wraps. I’ve some nice frozen dinners at home. I think I’ll eat those.”
Everett’s faced screwed up, reminding Marsie of a baby about to cry. “You’ll never get a man with that attitude.”
“You might be right,” she agreed. “And I’m okay with that. Have a nice evening.”
Marsie walked out of that date with a smile on her face. Not only had she learned something, but she also had a good story to tell Jason the next time they grabbed coffee.
CHAPTER SIX
MARSIE WAS WAITING for Beck at the mall entrance to Nordstrom, purse in hand and credit card ready to be blown. “Shopping, huh,” her friend said as she approached. “We’re not usually shopping buddies.”
“I don’t have shopping buddies,” Marsie said, giving her friend a quick hug. She knew what brands of clothing looked good on her, what sizes she wore in those brands and usually just ordered online. No shopping or buddies needed. “But I’m in a desperate situation.”
She didn’t realize how rude those words could sound until they were out of her mouth, but her friend didn’t seem to notice.
As they walked into the department store, Marsie gave Beck a rundown of her first date, including the boring cream sheath dress and silly pink cardigan with sparkles. “I felt out of place. I need something more casual. Flirty. Maybe a couple different outfits. I want to look cute.”
Marsie put a lot of thought into what she wore to work. Nothing too feminine, but nothing that looked too masculine, either. She had to strike a balance.
It would be much easier to be a dude and wear a nice pair of slacks, button-down shirt and boring striped tie.
“This doesn’t have to do with the things that jerk said about you never finding anyone, did it? I mean, I think you generally look cute. Serious, but you are serious, so why shouldn’t you look it?”
“I need a man to give me a chance to be something other than serious. You think I’m funny and fun, right?”
“Yeah, but I’ve had years to get to know you.”
Marsie stopped short, right in front of the escalator and turned to face her friend. Hurt must have been evident on her face, because Beck’s face fell. “Marsie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. Some people are easy to get to know. They’re fun and easy and you feel like you have a connection the first time you shake hands.”
Jason. She’d been charmed the first time she’d met him. And the second time, when she’d been moving in to her new office and he’d come to help her hang some pictures and put together a bookshelf. He’d told silly stories about his ancient dog the entire time. She still remembered the one about his dog getting into a plate of cookies that his mother had made him, including the detail about the dog getting caught, looking guilty with cookie crumbs on his lips, and—while being scolded—bending over to lick the last bit of cookie off the plate.
“You’re not one of those people,” her friend continued. “You’re still waters that run deep.”
Marsie turned away from Beck to get on the escalator, not feeling the least bit better, even though her friend was trying.
“Well, I’ll bet my date thought he was one of the charmers.” She tried to throw some lightness into her voice, but given how tightly she was holding the banister, she doubted she was fooling anyone.
“I’ll bet your date is one of those people he thinks you should be looking for.”
“Fun and charming?” Marsie stepped off the escalator and turned to the sea of blouses, not even sure what she was looking for. At least when she opened the dating site and flipped through the photos of men, she had her algorithm to give her some guidance.
“No.” Beck shook her head. “What about this top?”
Marsie shook her head. Her friend was holding up a pink blouse with dark pink flowers and lace and so much fabric it looked like her high school home economics teacher could take the thing apart and remake it into a dress.
“It’s fun and flirty,” Beck said as she shoved it back onto the rack. “And you like pink.”
“I’m too tall. I’d look like a giant wearing a flowered blanket. That’s not cute.”
She pulled a cream sweater off the rack. Sparkly threads ran through the neck of the top, getting denser near the hem so that the bottom of the sweater was more gold than cream. “This one looks nice.”
“Yeah. Are you going to try it on?”
“I guess I should.” She draped the top over her arm. Hangers clicked against each other and the metal rack as they flipped through more clothes.
“What did you mean when you said you think my date thought he was the type of person I should be looking for?”
Judging by the searching look Beck gave her, her friend knew her too well to believe the casual tone Marsie was trying for, but she didn’t comment on it. She turned back down to the clothes. “You’re looking for a specific education and a specific type of job and a man who not only has a couple books listed under ‘last read,’ but that they’re books you approve of. You’re looking for you.”
They wove through the next set of racks to a new location that looked promising. Marsie still only had the one sweater over her arm.
“Are you telling me opposites attract? I don’t believe that at all.” Her parents were proof that opposites might attract, but they detracted just as fast.
“This is the top for you.” Beck held up her find and Marsie laughed. The shirt was a pretty metallic blue jacquard, but it couldn’t decide how it wanted to be a mix of both edgy and romantic.
“It should either be off the shoulder or have ruffles or have a high neck or an eye-catching collar. It can’t have all the above. Too bad, because it’s a pretty fabric.”
“It’s silk,” Beck said, putting the top back on the rack.
“So it’s probably more than I want to spend.”
Her friend checked the tags. “Three hundred and fifty dollars.”
“If I make it to the sex date with a man, I’ll consider spending that much on a top, but not when I’ve not even kissed a guy. And not on that top,” she said with a vigorous shake of her head.
“Wait? Which one’s the sex date?” Beck was still holding the top. She looked at it, shook her head and hung the blouse back on the rack. “Never mind. You have too many rules. I want to finish talking about opposites attract.”
“What’s there to talk about? Dating someone different from you seems very exciting. Then the sex wears off, and you’re left staring at someone you have nothing in common with while picking at your dinner. Which they made, so it’s nothing you like.”
“Your parents must really hate each other. Everything you’ve ever said about them makes me think that’s them talking.”