Page 23 of Never Let Go

I arched an eyebrow at her, seeing an opportunity here. “Fine, but if I agree to this, both of you leave it alone completely. I’m not talking about you not trying to find me dates through Sight Unseen anymore. I’m saying that if I go on this date and it doesn’t work out, you leave my love life alone from now on. No more telling me I need to get a girlfriend or anything like that.”

She crossed her heart with her fingers. “I promise. As soon as you leave, I’ll call Porter and tell him that he needs to promise too.”

“Okay,” I said reluctantly. “In that case, I’ll do it. One more date.”

She nodded happily, a smile on her lips as she reached for her phone. “I’m calling Porter now. One more date. Thank you, Foster. You won’t regret this.”

I snorted. “I’m going to regret it, but if it gets you both to shut up about whether or not I’m dating, it’s a regret I’m willing to take on. Set it up, and then shut down my profile.”

“If it doesn’t work out, I’ll shut it down,” she said. “Until you tell me it didn’t work out, I’m keeping it active in case we need to set up a second date.”

“You won’t need to, but fine. I guess you can’t shut it down when you’ve got an active account, but as soon as the first date is over, you’re shutting it down.”

She nodded dutifully. “If it doesn’t go well.”

I groaned. “Your optimism is cute, but you’re going to be disappointed, Hope. Just be ready to shut it down, okay?”

“Okay,” she said as I got up. Then she frowned at me. “You haven’t told me about Shelby yet.”

I rolled my eyes at her and didn’t sit down again, but I gave her the highlights. “She’s beautiful, smart, funny, and a little bit shy. She was in the honors dorm with me at Green Lake. Pre-law, if I remember correctly.”

Hope nodded, her gaze a little unfocused as if she was making mental notes. “Okay, let’s start with the first thing you said. Beautiful. What does that mean to you? What does she look like?”

“Long blonde hair down to her waist. These huge blue eyes that are somehow both innocent and intelligent at the same time. Really curvy. She never wore much makeup and I don’t think I ever saw her all dressed up. She’s more of a jeans-and-sneakers kind of girl.”

“Pre-law, huh?”

“Yep.”

“From Seattle?”

“Yeah, I think so. All I know for sure is that she went to college here, but I think I remember something about her parents not living too far away from campus. What is this about?”

“Nothing, I’ve got it from here.” Hope gave me a surprisingly wide grin. “I think I have the perfect girl for you. Be ready to go on a date tonight, Foster. I’m going to set it up as soon as I’ve told your brother about the promise we’ve made.”

I frowned but nodded. “Yeah, okay. Are you sure you’re okay? You really do seem kind of weird today.”

“No, I’m fine. Just excited and a little bit distracted with work.” As I turned to walk to her door, she stopped me. “Just promise me one thing, Foster.”

“What’s that?” I groaned. “I already promised I’d go on the damn date.”

“Yeah, but this is an extension of that,” she said, waiting until I looked at her over my shoulder before she carried on. “Promise me that when you walk into that date tonight, you’ll do it with an open mind.”

I grimaced. “What?”

She gave me a stern look. “I mean it. You can’t decide before you even walk in there that it’s not going to work out, and it sounds like you’ve already done that. So promise me that you’ll give the woman I’m setting you up with a fair chance.”

“Fine.” I exhaled through my nostrils. “I’ll try to go in there not annoyed and not already looking for an out.”

She smiled. “Thank you, and try to enjoy it, okay? I really think this girl could be the one. Tonight might just be the last first date you ever go on, Foster O’Brien.”

“I doubt it,” I grumbled before pasting a fake grin on my lips. “I mean, sure. Of course it could be.”

Hope laughed and waved me out of her office as she picked up her phone to call my brother, and I shook my head as I left and walked down the hall to my own office. I had no idea what had been going on with her back there, but something had definitely been up.

With Hope and Porter though, anything was possible. They were dating now and it was going great, but they were also still best friends and they had been for a long time. That meant that a certain amount of shenanigans was to be expected from them and they always delivered. Inside jokes, side bets, pranks, the list went on and on, so I shook off the suspicion and unease, chalking her behavior up to missing something between the two of them.

As she had promised, I got the notification later that afternoon about the date tonight. It was at another restaurant, and as I looked at the menu she had forwarded, I decided to go with Kane’s advice and ordered a sandwich.