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Look at that, I was already thinking of this project as a we kind of thing—specifically a me and Murphy kind of thing.
“Fill out what you’re comfortable with and give it to the next person, please.” I passed the pad to the woman closest to me. “Murphy and I will set up a database and get in contact with you for our next meeting. Hopefully, we can split into smaller groups based on interest. Exploration vs. needing help finding a prospect vs. just gathering information for the future. It would be nice if there was a way that we could match people with interested guys, assuming there are any.”
“Pretty sure we have one right in our midst.” One of the women in back laughed behind her hand.
“Murphy’s just here to help. Practice on someone else.” I flashed a quick smile. “But that’s down the line. First, we’ll try to set up a few smaller groups. Leave your email addresses and I’ll contact everyone when we have another date to get together.”
“And possibly somewhere else you will be meeting.” Macy delivered refills to a couple of people and shot me a smile of her own. It was as sincere as mine had been. “Just saying.”
That was a worry for another day.
I tucked Latte against my hip as he started to stir and rose to my feet. “Thanks for coming, everyone. Maybe we can find a way for this to be beneficial for all of us.” I glanced at Murphy and my smile grew. “Thanks for your help.”
“Anytime.” He nodded at Latte. “Looks like you have a friend for life.”
“We’re buds.” I lifted him to my face and kissed his wet little nose, laughing as he lapped at my face. “Best buds, right?”
Murphy slipped his hands in his pockets. “I better take him with me. Since food and all.”
“Oh, I can watch him for a while. We’ll be meeting in a—”
“Vee.”
I sighed as Macy’s voice intruded into my happy puppy bubble. Reluctantly, I handed the puppy back to Murphy. Latte looked at me forlornly, but he quickly scrabbled up Murphy’s sweatshirt to snuggle up in the hood scrunched behind his neck.
Murphy let out a wry laugh as he tried to crane his neck to look at the puppy, and I swear, my already compromised ovaries made themselves known.
And how.
This guy was father material. Forget that, he was excellent boyfriend material. One of the good ones. I’d stake my blueberry tarts on it.
And I didn’t want to wait for someone else to figure that out before I’d had my chance.
“Thanks again. Truly. You don’t know how much you helped.”
“No problem.” He slid a glance at the chattering women. “It was fun.”
I laughed. “Sure it was. I’ll see you in a couple hours? I want to help out here for a bit since I created some chaos with this meeting.”
“No problem. I’ll make dinner. So, bring your appetite.”
I watched him walk out with the puppy snuggled in the folds of his hood. No problem there. No sirree.
“He didn’t even buy anything,” Macy said with disgust as she crossed through the passthrough to head into the back room. “Am I running a business or a damn charity here? Sometimes I don’t know.”
A minute later, she poked her head back out. “Vee? We’re low on petit fours again.”
Because the women I’d met with had cleared her out. It had been a good night for Macy too, no matter how she groused.
“Coming.” I said some quick goodbyes to the women and grabbed an apron so I could get to work.
If luck was on my side, maybe coming was in my sorta near future after all, and not from cyber—
Oh, fuck. I dropped my apron and fumbled out the phone I hadn’t touched in forever. I owed Cabin Fortress a note.
And an apology.
But I couldn’t tell him about Murphy. Not yet. Nothing had happened, not really. I liked them both.
