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‘Very nice smile,’ I admitted. A good smile was always very attractive.
‘If nothing else comes out of it, you’ll have a nice meal and a good conversation and it’ll be a practice run for you. You’ve only been on, what, three, four dates after Craig?’
Since I was planning on moving, which Gayle didn’t know yet, I wasn’t looking for anything serious. I just wanted to try and see how it went… in general. Kinda like practice runs. I sighed and tipped my head back so I was staring at the ceiling when I embarrassingly admitted, ‘Yeah, just four dates. And I kissed none of them. Or none of them kissed me. And it’s been five or six years since I’ve been kissed.’ The second the words left my mouth I wanted to stuff them all back in. Slowly I closed my eyes and hoped Gayle hadn’t heard what I’d just blurted out.
There was silence for quite a few heartbeats, then I heard Gayle close the door to my office and walk towards my desk. I didn’t look at her – the ceiling was, interestingly enough, more… interesting.
‘I think your math is wrong there, Charlie. You broke up with Craig a year ago.’
I groaned and used my arm to hide my face.
She sat down in the chair in front of my desk. ‘Explain.’
I groaned again. ‘I don’t want to talk about this.’
‘Tough shit, we’re talking about it.’
There was a knock at the door and I peeked under my arm, only to see Rick opening the door.
‘Hi Gayle. Charlie, we have a new case, William wants a meeting…’
I’d already jumped up the second I heard the words ‘a new case’ and by the time Rick finished his sentence I was standing right next to him.
‘That was quick.’
‘Ah, I’m sorry, Gayle. Work calls,’ I apologized, made her an exaggerated sad face, then before she could utter a word, grabbed Rick’s arm and pulled him away from my office.
‘How are you today, Rick?’
‘Do I even want to know what’s going on?’
‘You would love to know actually, but I’m not telling you anything. Do we know what the new case is?’
‘A shopping app is having problems with the customers. We’re taking them on. Although not sure where William stands on that yet, so maybe we won’t take them on? His exact words were: we’ll see.’
Linking my arm through his, we headed straight to William’s office. ‘The electric car problem is taking a lot of our time. How many cases do you think we’ll take on at one time?’
‘I have no idea. I’m still trying to figure out how William works and where we stand.’
I hummed, but stayed quiet.
‘Did you hear about the new app?’ he asked.
‘What app?’
‘You know, the new app everyone is talking about. Maybe it’s better than your app. Maybe you should look it up.’
I cocked my head, squinting at him. ‘You kinda lost me. My app? What are you talking about?’
‘We know you’re giving dating another try.’
My steps faltered, I let go of his arm and stopped walking altogether. Rick paused long enough to look back.
I felt heat creeping up to my face.
‘Define we,’ I pressed as an awful feeling swarmed me.
He gave me a smile that I translated as a sad one. ‘Well, sweetheart… a lot of people in here know you haven’t dated in a long time so… they have been taking bets…’
A little mortified at the thought of people talking about my non-existent love life let alone betting on it, I pushed down all the feelings that threatened to come up to the surface and shook my head. ‘Did you…? Okay, no, I don’t want to hear about this. How did you even know?’
‘Someone heard you talking with Gayle the other day.’
‘Just so you know,’ I started, raising my voice a little so more people could eavesdrop. Again. ‘It’s my choice that I don’t want to date anyone. It’s not like there are a sea of great choices when it comes to men, and I failed to choose one of them. I’m choosing not to settle, and if that means I won’t date every single loser I come across and I’m lonely for a while, not that I’m even lonely, so be it. Let’s go.’
Before he could open his mouth and respond, I took his arm yet again and quickly dragged him towards William’s office.
* * *
It was 9 p.m., and I was still stuck at the bar. There hadn’t been a sighting of a Ralph as far as I knew. And considering we were supposed to meet up for dinner at 8 p.m. at a restaurant halfway across the town and he hadn’t showed, I figured I had been officially stood up.
Blind dates, my luck and life and all. Pretty fun combo.
Since I was already there and the bartender seemed nice enough, I stuck with him and decided to make a night out of it. I was already kind of dressed up anyway. I was sipping on my second drink. The bartender, whose name I didn’t know, wasn’t aware that he was my date for the night, but he didn’t really need to know that anyway.
