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MASON
“Hales, if you’re not ready in sixty seconds, I’m going without you,” I yell toward my best friend’s bedroom. Her door isn’t fully closed and I can hear her rustling around in there. I don’t know what’s taking her so long, but I can’t afford for her to make us late.
“I’m almost ready!” she yells back. “Be patient!”
I sigh and check the time on my phone. We’ve got twelve minutes until the speed dating event starts, and it takes ten minutes to get there. I don’t want to be the guy who rushes in at the last second. You’ve got to make a good first impression at these kinds of things.
While I’m waiting for Haley to finish getting ready, I check my reflection in the round vintage mirror on her wall. I look frustrated about the delay, but fine other than that. I’ve got on a nice shirt and my beard is just the right amount of scruffy. I feel good about my chances of meeting someone tonight who I can potentially bring to the family Christmas party later this month.
As the one who proposed the pact with my brothers that we should all find dates for the party, the pressure is on. I mean, justimaginethe shit I’ll get from them if I show up solo. They’ll never let me live that down. And although I know it’s not a competition, let’s be honest—I don’t want to show up with someone just to bring a date. The ideal scenario would be to actually bring someone I’m crazy about.
I check my watch again and the last of my patience vanishes. Cursing under my breath, I stride over to Haley’s bedroom door. “Hales, what the hell is taking you so—”
Her door flies open before I can finish my sentence.
“I’m ready,” she says. “Let’s go.”
But suddenly I’m incapable of saying or doing a thing. Because the person standing in front of me isn’t the Haley I know. The Haley I know—the girl who’s been my best friend since first grade—never wears dresses or heels or makeup. She doesn’t curl her hair. And she definitely doesn’t show off her figure.
Jesus, I didn’t even know she had curves like that.
“Wow,” says Haley, and bursts out laughing. “Mason, you should see your face. Your mouth is literally hanging open.”
I quickly close it. Clear my throat. Rub a hand over my jaw. “You, uh—you look nice.”
“Thank you. You look nice, too.” Her eyes quickly skim over my outfit. “Although I think it would look better if you undid the top button of your shirt.”
Before I can do it myself, she’s reaching out and unbuttoning it for me. And although we’ve had our fair share of platonic physical contact over the years, this is the first time that it’s made my skin go hot under her touch. As she undoes the top button of my shirt, my gaze drops to her lips. I can tell she just put on some of her favorite chapstick, because her lips look soft as hell and I can smell the faint scent of coconut and pear.
“There,” she says, done. As she steps away from me, I realize I’m hard. Fuck.
“Let’s go,” I say, hastily moving toward her apartment door.
Her heels tap rapidly as she rushes to catch up with me. Outside her apartment, as I wait for her to lock her door, I take three steps across the hallway and double check to make sure I locked my own. This is how it’s always been with us, keeping our lives as closely entwined as possible. But in all the years that we’ve been best friends, I’ve never once considered her more than just a friend. So that hard-on that I’m sporting right now? It needs to go. Those curves of hers might be luscious, but reacting like this is all kinds of wrong.
* * *
The speed-dating event is at a bar that doesn’t usually open this early. The place is all decked out for the holidays, with poinsettias all over the place and string lights and other stuff hanging everywhere. Just after Haley and I check in, a woman in a fuzzy Santa hat calls for everyone’s attention and tells the women to each choose a seat from the designated area.
As the women get settled, the event organizer goes over the rules. Three minutes per mini-date, no exchanging of personal information for safety’s sake, be respectful and have fun, that sort of stuff.
“Any questions?” she asks, the pom-pom of her Santa hat swaying as she looks around the room.
One woman raises her hand. “If we meet someone that wereallyhit it off with, can we leave early?”
The event organizer laughs. “As much as I hope you all do find someone you really hit it off with, no. Please stay until the end.”
Then the event is underway. The group of us guys are free to grab a seat across from whoever we want to get to know first. A few of the guys make beelines to women they’ve obviously had their eyes on. The rest of us begin to fill in the remaining seats.
I let the other guys go ahead of me, figuring it doesn’t really matter who I talk to first because I’ll get a chance to talk to all of the women. But when I glance over at Haley, I see how nervous she looks to be here, and suddenly my feet are taking me in her direction.
She smiles as I approach her table. “Hey.”
“Mind if I sit?” I ask.
“Be my guest. Actually, this is great. We can practice on each other.”
