You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology (16 page)

Kate could feel the heat in her cheeks. “I’m not discussing details. But… yes, it was very… he was very…”

Kate sighed. She simply didn’t have the vocabulary to explain how she was feeling. Not all of it was pleasant either. In many ways she felt raw and exposed. There was a person out there in the world who knew some of her sexual secrets. A man she didn’t know. It wasn’t exactly comfortable.

“Well, good for you. Way to break the internet ice.”

“He wants to meet me,” Kate admitted.

“What! Are you serious? So this might be more than a one-time hookup?”

“I’m not sure. He gave me his number, but I think it would be awkward.”

Sally rolled her eyes. “Of course it would be awkward. First, it’s a blind date—by its nature it’s awkward. Second, the first thing you’re both going to be thinking is how fast you can get each other out of your clothes. Unless of course he lied about his picture and he looks like a creepy troll who lives under a bridge. Then you’re just going to want to run for it.”

Kate considered all of that. The clothes flying, the creepy troll. She really hoped he wasn’t a creepy troll.

“You should do it.”

Kate could see Sally’s face had transitioned from excited co-conspirator to something more serious. Concerned friend.

“Don’t,” Kate pleaded, not wanting to hear the speech again. A speech Sally rattled off at least once a year in some fashion or another. How Kate worked too much and let it take over her life. How she deserved a relationship and happiness and love but was never going to get that if she didn’t do something to make it happen.

“I know it’s scary,” Sally said in that gentle tone Kate recognized. “I know it’s probably easier to forget his number and focus instead on whatever task you need to accomplish today, but… you have to try, Kate. You wouldn’t have let me put that app on your phone if deep down you didn’t want to find someone.”

“Spoken like a person who has never had to suffer a blind date,” Kate said a little harshly. She knew Sally was trying to help. Knew everything her assistant said was true. Nobody knew how hard it was to set yourself up over and over again for what had always ended in disappointment. She was Charlie Brown kicking the football.

Sally smiled sheepishly. “I know. I’m a bitch. I met my husband in college and we’ve been together for twelve years and I never once had to put up with the bullshit you have. But if I don’t say it to you, Kate, no one will. This place, this business that you’ve created, it’s an amazing thing and you should be damn proud of yourself. But there is more out there in life. If this guy got you to break out of your shell even for a night, then he might be something special. Someone worth knowing.”

Kate had definitely felt as if something been cracked open. The question was, did she want to open that crack even further?

“I’ll think about it. In the meantime, I have the Hutchinson deal I have to finalize…”

Sally took the cue. “Yes, ma’am. Back to work.”

Kate watched Sally bounce out of her office, and even though she said she wanted to focus on the Hutchinson deal what she really wanted to do was talk to John. Ask him how he felt about blind dates and whether he went on them often.

Kate took out her phone and set it on her desk. It was office policy to keep phones put away and on vibrate mode. An attempt to curtail usage for her younger employees who seemed addicted to the things.

For the first time she started to understand that addiction. Because she felt compelled to look at it and wonder, if she texted him would he message her back like he had last night? Or would he wake up this morning, having forgotten her entirely?

Maybe he’d been drinking, too.

Kate thought about the couple of glasses of wine she’d had, how it had loosened her up. Of course on a blind date she would have to limit herself, since she would be driving. Which meant she would be her typical uptight self, who could only talk about her life as it related to her job. A guarantee that would drive him away.

“Will you stop overanalyzing everything!” Kate huffed softly to herself. There were times when she was sick of her own head space. Almost out of spite, because she knew with certainty she was her own worst enemy, she reached for her phone.

She punched in the numbers she had memorized and thought about what she wanted to say, what she wanted to ask, what she wanted to hear.

In the end she typed two letters.
Hi
. And hit send.

Then she pushed the phone out of reach, feeling like a colossal fool. Or a fourteen-year-old girl who was just discovering she liked boys. They were probably pretty close.

Dropping her face in her hand, she actually groaned. What would he possibly think of her when he saw that? That she was desperate, needy, or God forbid, horny again. Certainly not a mature, sophisticated woman who had no problem dealing with post-Christmas sexting.

She was about to reach for thing again, prepared to put it in her purse so she wouldn’t even have to look at the evidence of her idiocy, when the double ding of her text alert sounded, letting her know she had a new message.

It was almost crazy to her, the way that sound resonated through her entire body. Cautiously she reached for phone, telling herself the whole time it could be anything. A text from her friend, a bank alert, anything.

Only it wasn’t any of those things. It was from him.

Good morning. I was just thinking about you… and smiling.

She smiled in return and texted back, feeling bolder that he’d responded so quickly.

How do you feel about blind dates?

I hate them! Which is why I never do them. Hell I’m not even sure why I was on that app. I guess I liked the idea that something might happen. Then there was you.

Kate appreciated the sentiment. She was about to respond when she saw the dots on her phone signaling he was still typing.

Shit! When I said I never do them I meant I haven’t done them in the past. But I want a date with you. I want to meet you, Kate.

OK.

Kate sucked in her breath. It was done. She was committed now. Or at least in some way she felt honor bound. He’d asked and she had accepted. It didn’t matter that part of her was already dreading it, she knew herself well enough to know she wouldn’t back down at this point.

Okay. Yes. Good. Tomorrow night?

OK.

I’m sensing your enthusiasm in your single word responses. LOL. You name the place. I live in the city. An apartment in the Northern Liberties area.

Kate didn’t know much about Philadelphia. Despite having lived just across the bridge for most of her life, she rarely made it to the city except for the occasional girls’ night out when they wanted to be adventurous.

No, most of her time was spent between her office building and her home in Haddonfield. She’d heard about the renaissance of the Northern Liberties area. Apparently a lot of cool new restaurants and bars.

I work just over the bridge in South Jersey. Easy for me to get to the city. Is there some place you like around you?

McGlinn’s. Great place, great atmosphere, great French fries.

French fries were a particular weakness for Kate.

Ok. McGlinn’s. 8ish?

Yes. I can’t wait.

Kate smiled. She wished she could say the same, but already the questions started to race through her mind. Would he think she would automatically go back to his place with him? Would he expect sex because of what they had shared?

Would he be, as Sally described, a creepy ugly troll in real life?

She didn’t know, but she knew the only way to find out was to go and see.

See you then.

Hey Kate… don’t chicken out okay?

I NEVER chicken out.

LOL. Okay. Tomorrow.

She didn’t feel the need to write any more. The date and time and place were set. Now it was just a question of meeting him. Kate let a small smile play around her lips. After everything she had been feeling earlier, the only thing she could identify swirling in her stomach felt a lot like hope.

John stared down
at his phone and knew that if he could see himself in a mirror he would have the biggest shit-eating grin on his face. He had a date. With a woman who looked like Kate. Who he had felt so freaking connected to last night. This never happened to him.

A moment of pure happiness.

Then the smile faded as he thought about what a date meant. Especially a first date. Lots of questions. About his life, his story.

His past.

Someplace he didn’t want to go. Was it a requirement, he wondered? Like filling out a job application? Did he have to tell her he’d spent time in jail? Was it only fair that he include that as part of his life story?

He could only imagine where her mind would go after that.

Swell. I’m on a date with a convicted criminal. Way to go, Kate.

The first thing she would wonder was what he did to get himself in there. His words of innocence, an asshole cop giving him a hard time and too much booze, would probably fall on deaf ears.

Everyone in jail thought they had been mistreated by the system.

For John it was simply an event. It happened. He had to do eight months of time inside, with twelve months of parole following his release.

Since then he’d kept his nose clean. He’d been able to find work on the Philadelphia Ferry System, and during the summer it was just him and his commercial fishing boat. The fish didn’t care that he’d seen the inside of a cell.

She would. She would worry about him getting violent with her after he told her the story. She would worry about drug use and possibly his sexual history and exposure to STD’s.

He could tell her that not every man who went inside was a candidate for rape. He could tell her he’d never done drugs on the outside, and wasn’t looking to pick up a habit on the inside. He could tell her that he basically spent eight months reading any book he could get his hands on and catching up on sleep.

Would it matter?

Don’t tell her.

It was simple enough. Avoid that two-year period of his life—hell, it was six years ago now—and tell her about everything else. Then if there was a second date or a third, he could be honest with her. She would know what kind of man he was by then and she could decide for herself if she could be with someone who had a criminal record.

Hell, if she got to know him, realized what kind of man he was, and decided it still mattered to her, then that wasn’t anyone he wanted to be with anyway. John was no damn snob. He knew good men, he knew bad men and he was probably somewhere in between. He didn’t spend his life judging other people and he sure as hell would not tolerate being judged by someone who didn’t understand the circumstances.

Then he shook his head. He was overthinking the shit out of this. It was a freaking blind date and nothing else. She could be nothing like her picture. Her personality could be nothing like how he had… what was the right word… read?

Because that’s all they had done so far. Typed things to each other. Intimate things. True things.

Lonely?

So lonely.

Really, wasn’t that what all the matchmaking internet websites and apps were about? Trying to find someone to be less lonely?

John didn’t know if he was cut out for any kind of real relationship. He had a woman once, he lost her and he figured that was it for him. Loading that stupid app on his phone had been nothing but a joke he and his buddies had done after work at the bar.

Johnny, trust me. You just swipe and it’s like all the free pussy in the world is right there in your fingertips.

Kate didn’t feel like pussy to him, though. Yes, it was intimate, yes, it was the most action he’d seen in a year, which probably made him the horniest man alive. And yes, it got him off hard last night once he put the phone down.

Still, it had felt like… more.

He guessed he would find out tomorrow. Which of course begged another question.

What the hell was he going to wear?

I
t was eight
o’clock on the dot according to her car clock, which was perfectly synced to her phone. Kate always made sure all the clocks, watches, oven clocks, microwaves at home and in the office were all always the exact time. It was a little OCD thing she had. One of those things someone might think was really cute about her or really annoying.

She was parked in front of McGlinn’s, frozen in her car. She could hit the button on the dash, start the expensive Mercedes, pull out and pretend…

That she was a coward?

There would be no pretending. She was a coward.

A grown, sophisticated, successful independent woman, and she was frightened of a blind date.

No, it wasn’t the date she was frightened of, it was him. John.

She’d read back through their exchanges, and thinking about some of things he’d said to her, made her do, the way he seemed to take control of everything… it had all happened so fast. While at the time it had been incredibly arousing, she wondered for the thousandth time since she’d agreed to meet him what he might be like in real life.

There is only one way to find out.

Kate undid her seat belt and heard her phone chime. This was it. He was probably cancelling. Maybe he was sitting in his car too, thinking that this was all a big mistake. She reached for her bag and pulled out her phone.

I’m at the bar. Dark leather jacket.

Dark leather jacket. Got it. Kate took a huge breath and opened the door. She did one last check of hair and makeup in the rear view mirror and made the march so many singles had made before into the depths of the unknown.

She walked inside the restaurant and was struck by all the Christmas lights that winked and glittered over the bar. Christmas music was playing, and she realized that not two days later she had already forgotten it had been Christmas. That New Year’s was just a few days way.