Page 27 of Never Let Go

He arched his sandy eyebrows at me. “Did she ask if you wanted to make out?”

“No, but I might’ve said yes if she did.” I straightened up and wiped my brow, unable to stop the stupid grin that spread on my face whenever I thought about last night. “It’s not just that, though. I’m sure she has her own little quirks just like those other women did. The difference is that with her, I want to find out what they are.”

“Why?” He frowned. “Shouldn’t you be hoping that she’s quirk-free?”

I scoffed. “No one is quirk-free.”

“I’m quirk-free.” A smug smile appeared on his lips. “Maybe I should sign up to Sight Unseen and see if I can find my perfect match faster than you did.”

I laughed. “You’re quirk-free, huh? What about the sarcasm? The competitiveness?”

“Those aren’t quirks,” he retorted and lifted his arm to flex his bicep like Popeye. “They’re strengths. I’ve got a lot of those, which is why I’d find my perfect match faster.”

“Have at it, bro.” I motioned toward the door. “Come back to the office with me right now and I’ll get you all signed up and have you on your first date by tonight.”

Kane’s face scrunched up, eyes dark with disapproval. “Now why would I want to do that when I’m not actually looking for my perfect match?”

“What, are you scared?”

He scoffed. “Scared of finding the one? You bet I am, Foster. You might be happy about finding your elusive one, but not all of us are ready to settle down.”

The one? I threw my hands up ahead of me and shook my head. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’ve only had one date with this girl and we got along well, but that doesn’t mean she’s the one.”

His brow furrowed as he gave me a disbelieving look. “Do you want her to be the one? I thought that was the point of all this.”

“If she is the one, then fine. All I’m saying is not to get ahead of ourselves. She’s nice, is all. A great girl, but the point of all this is for me to date. That’s it. I’m not looking to get married by the weekend.”

He shook his head and pointed at my chest. “You better figure that out and be honest with your great girl about it. Women don’t join programs like that one for a good time. That’s what bars are for.”

I laughed but inclined my head. I did need to figure it out, but I wasn’t going to let it freak me out. At this juncture, I knew a lot of guys who would’ve had a mini-meltdown and headed out to sow their wild oats just to prove they still could, but I wasn’t one of them.

While I’d never admit it to Kane in as many words, I was ready to see where this went. I didn’t know if she was the one and I didn’t know if I was ready for that kind of intensity in a relationship, but my understanding after working with soulmates for so long was that when it hit you, you not only knew, but you wanted it to be that way.

One date wasn’t enough to make that call, but I wasn’t going to let fear of it working out keep me from playing the game. Instead, I grabbed a shower, said goodbye to Kane, went back to work, and strode directly to Hope’s office.

I hadn’t seen her this morning because she’d had back-to-back meetings, but she’d texted me to come by to fill her in, and she’d added a bunch of please emojis, so I couldn’t really ignore her. Plus, I didn’t want to.

Hope had come through for me with Amanda in a big way, and I owed it to her to tell her that. As I pushed open her door, I heard her voice and it sounded like she was on the phone, but as soon as she saw me, her eyes went wide with excitement and she motioned me in.

“Uh huh. Okay. Yes, I’ll come check it out, but we require all our partners to be able to guarantee us complete darkness from beginning to end. There has to be no chance of the clients seeing each other either coming or going, during the date or after.”

I shared an exasperated grin with her as I sat down across from her desk, relieved as hell that I didn’t have to deal with all the businesses who suddenly wanted to partner with us. After Hope and Porter’s documentary had aired, Sight Unseen had been getting more hits and clients than ever.

When she put word out that we were looking for establishments to outsource the dates to when our previous network had proven to be insufficient to keep up with the influx, she’d been inundated by requests.

I got it. Everyone wanted to catch some of the shine the company was still emitting, but they needed to be realistic, and often, they just weren’t. We’d been contacted by a waterpark once, for heaven’s sake. How our clients were supposed to be safe in a pitch-black waterpark, only the guy who called us knew.

Hope nodded a few more times, made a couple of notes, and then hung up. As she did, her gaze snapped to mine and she grinned. “Well? How was it?”

I shrugged, wanting to play it cool rather than gushing like a damn schoolboy. “It was fine. It went really well.”

“It did? That’s great.” She shot forward in her chair and clapped, eyes still shining with excitement, but unless I was very much mistaken, there was a healthy dose of apprehension there as well. “How was she? Did she seem familiar to you?”

“Familiar?” I frowned. “Familiar how?”

“Like, you know, in that way when you start talking to someone and it feels like you’ve known them forever.”

I flicked my gaze from one of her green eyes to the other. “Uh, sure? The conversation happened easily enough, if that’s what you mean. It didn’t feel forced.”