Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) (104 page)

“Oh, you think I need a husband,” I told
him.

“What’s husband?” His frown deepened. I
sighed.

“That’s a bit complicated, little one,” I
told him. “Jenny’s papa is Jenny’s mama’s husband.” I took a deep breath and
tried to think of how to explain it in a way that a three-year-old could
understand. I knew he couldn’t remember his father, not really; Alex hadn’t
shown up in Brady’s life since the divorce, and Brady had only been about one
when that had happened.

“You need one,” Brady told me solemnly.
“So you’re not lonely.” I laughed and shook my head.

“Maybe one day, little bit,” I told him. “Now
come on—no more stalling. Let’s get that hair washed.”

I finished up Brady’s bath and got him out
of the water and wrapped up in a towel. He was already starting to yawn when I
got his pajamas on, and by the time we were curled up in his bed and I was
reading him his bedtime story, he was nearly asleep already. I managed to get
through the short little book nonetheless, and as he finally began to doze off,
I felt the last stresses of the day start to leave me.

I crept out of his bedroom as quietly as I
could, and my thoughts turned to Zeke. We were going to have our first real
date in a few days’ time—he’d had his personal assistant call me to let me know
the specific day—and I wasn’t sure what to think. My first impression of him
had been good; he’d come up to the table looking put together, in a pair of
jeans and a nice shirt, and the light had gleamed on his clean, light brown
hair. His bright blue eyes had almost glowed.
You have to admit, of all the clients you’ve worked with, it’s hard to
imagine him having a hard time getting a date,
I had thought to myself as
we shook hands.

But then my optimism took a turn for the
worse as I realized he wasn’t really paying attention to me; he was nodding
along, occasionally saying something neutral, when I went through the ground
rules—and at that I wasn’t even sure that he was interested in knowing what
could and couldn’t happen between us. He considered me a tool, that much was
clear. He wanted to get through the coaching and get on with his life. In that
sense, he was like almost every businessman I’d ever worked with.

I sat down to work on my initial report
for my boss on the subject of Zeke Baxter. It was only a little after seven,
and I would have plenty of time to get it done before I went to bed for the
night. On the one hand, he had a stable income, obviously more than he needed,
and he was good looking. On the other hand, I wasn’t sure that he actually knew
how to have a romantic conversation with anyone.
Just how much work is it going to take him to get ready to date on his
own?
I shook my head and began to write. The issues that I could see right
from the get-go were that he tended to only actively engage with those topics
that interested him completely or topics that he thought were most relevant to his
interests. If it was anything else, he tuned out. Masterfully, but I had been
able to tell when he was and wasn’t paying attention to me throughout the date.

He was friendly, sociable, and even a
little charming, but the listening skills were an obvious sign of broader
problems.
Fortunately,
I wrote in my
report,
he doesn’t seem to objectify
women as a general rule, but it will still take a great deal of work to teach
him active communication skills and appropriate conversation dynamics.
I
finished the report with the idea that the initial few months that the
matchmaking service had set for him might not be enough, unless he was—as he’d
said—a fast learner, and emailed it to my boss for her to review.

I wasn’t all that surprised that Zeke had
set our first practice date at a restaurant; it was a safe choice, a
comfortable choice, and one that a lot of my clients in the past had gone with.
I had looked up the restaurant online when his assistant had given me the name
and address, and it was fairly fancy—I would be eating a dinner that would
probably come out to the same amount of money I spent on groceries in a week.
But I hoped that I could steer Zeke towards something more unique for our
second session together; if he was going to stick with nothing but meal-dates,
then I wouldn’t have any chance to properly get him in shape, and that was the
ultimate goal.

I wondered if he’d gone to the matchmaking
service as soon as he’d come to the conclusion that he wanted to date again or
if he’d tried his hand at dating on his own and come up empty. Zeke hadn’t
given me any real, solid idea of who he actually was underneath the charming
businessman façade he wore, and that was another issue we would have to
address. If he really wanted to make an impression on a woman, he would have to
learn to be genuine and spontaneous. I made a note of that in my case file for
him, reminding myself to talk to him about it on the date we were set to go on.
I thought—based on how quick he’d been to respond to the few pointed remarks
I’d made at our first meeting—that he might at least be fairly reasonable when
it came to taking feedback from me. I could hope so, at least. There were tons
of guys out there who would say “Oh yes, you’re absolutely right. I’ll work on
that,” and then turn around and keep doing the same things over and over again
without even the attempt to correct a behavior.
I guess we will see what kind of guy he is when I give him his feedback
in a few days,
I thought to myself as I shut down my computer for the evening
and set it aside.

I glanced into the kitchen; I’d left the
dishes undone since I wanted to get Brady ready for his early bedtime. I would
do them, get a bowl of ice cream, and watch a little TV before going to bed
myself. As I stood up to get started on the rest of my night’s activities, I
thought that I had both the most boring and the most exciting life of anyone I
knew.

Chapter
Four

Zeke

The alarm on my phone went off at six
thirty, but I was already nearly on my way out of the office by then. I was
surprised at how excited I was—almost anxious—for my first practice date with
Natalie.
At least you know there’s not
even a need for a goodnight kiss or a question of whether you’ll go to your
place or hers,
I thought as I gathered up my things to leave. Since I’d set
our date for a higher end restaurant, I’d decided that the suit I’d worn to
work was just as good an outfit to wear to it as anything else I owned; it
would save me time at least in getting to the place. I had to admit to myself,
even as I tried to play off the significance of the date, that I’d been
thinking about Natalie a lot in the week since we’d met. She’d emailed me a few
things to look at, all of them computer-based tutorials about topics like
“active listening” and “conversation dynamics.” I’d gone through them, but I
didn’t think I really needed their advice; after all, on a real date, I’d have
every reason to pay attention, ask relevant questions, and take an interest,
wouldn’t I?

I climbed into my car and navigated out of
the parking structure next to the building, thinking about the date ahead of
me. Even if it was only practice, I intended to take it as seriously as
possible; I wanted to prove that I could learn quickly and that I didn’t need
all that much work to be ready to meet women for real. In fact, I’d met a woman
at lunch earlier in the day—cute, with brown hair and long legs, her makeup
subtle but effective. If it hadn’t been for the agreement I’d signed with the
matchmaking service, I would have asked her out; but I’d promised that I
wouldn’t ask anyone out on a date until I’d completed their “training” with the
coach and I had always considered my word to be my bond.

As I drove towards the restaurant, I
thought about the fact that I was dating for the first time in years, even if
it was just practice dates with someone who would never actually end up forming
a romantic relationship with me. She was essentially more like a friend that I
was paying to catch me up on what women wanted to see and hear when they went
out with a guy.
How sad is it that I had
to hire a matchmaking service to help me get a girlfriend?
I shook that
thought away.

I had decided to go with the service
instead of doing my own legwork in finding a girlfriend because it made the
most sense. Online dating obviously wasn’t much of an option—Tinder, Ok Cupid,
and the like all seemed to be people angling to get laid or too poorly-adjusted
to be in a healthy relationship of any kind. Trying to ask women out or going
out to bars to pick them up would take too much time and would just frustrate
me. Better by far to have the service set up a few meetings with women that
they had already figured out were compatible with me and go from there; I
wouldn’t have to do the weeding out myself, and I was just about guaranteed a
good time, even if individual dates or individual women didn’t work out in the
long run.

I spotted a florist as I came to a stop at
a light and an idea lit up in my head. Women loved flowers, didn’t they? It was
such a tradition to get them on a date that it would make sense for me to come
with a bouquet for Natalie. She’d appreciate it, and I was certain based on
what she’d said the other night that almost none of the other men she’d worked
with during her time at the company would have thought about it.
Get those bonus points in early and she’ll
let you out of training early,
I told myself, doing a U-turn at the next
light and doubling back towards the florist shop. I’d get her a bouquet, she’d
be impressed with my taste, and in a matter of a few weeks, I’d be going out
with women that I actually had some chance of having a life with.

I stepped into the shop and looked around
for a moment. “Can I help you, sir?” I looked up from an arrangement of big,
bright flowers and saw an older woman hovering at the entrance to the back of
the shop, where I guessed the bouquets were made up.

“Yes,” I told her. “I’m meeting a
beautiful woman for our first date together, and I wanted a bouquet that will
just knock her socks off.” The woman nodded and came out onto the floor to help
me.

“Do you know if she has any preferences?
Or allergies?” I shrugged.

“I think she likes all flowers,” I said. I
had no idea that women had any particular attachment to one type of flower over
another. My mother had never seemed to, and my dad bought her flowers
constantly.

“Well,” the woman said, pursing her lips
as she considered, “roses are classic, but you’ll want red ones—not white or
yellow.” She plucked a big, stunning bouquet out of a bucket of water and
showed them to me. “We use roses that are bred with their scent glands intact,
so these will make a really great impression on your beautiful woman.”

“I didn’t know there were roses without
scent glands,” I told her. “Thank you so much for your help.” I paid for the
bouquet and for a vase to put it in, and the woman gave me her card in case I
wanted to come back for a special occasion or just a second or third date. I
was feeling pretty sure of myself when I got back into my car and started back
in the direction of the restaurant, looking forward to the reaction from
Natalie with I gave her the beautiful flowers. I’d have to think of something
at least a little clever to say at the same time; I began considering that
problem as I came to a stop at another light.

I decided that I would stick with being
direct. Anything I thought of saying as I handed her the flowers came across as
either cheesy or creepy in my mind, and if it was that way in my own head, I
could only imagine what it would be like to Natalie. Better by far to do what I
did best and just make it a gracious gesture.

As I drove, I thought about the fact that
I was going on practice dates with a woman who wasn’t going to fall in love
with me. In a certain way, it made total sense. I’d been out of the dating
scene for years, and the matchmaking service not only wanted to make sure that
I wouldn’t ruin their record by being an asshole to the women they set me up
with later on, but also wanted to make as much money off of me as possible, as
with any client. I didn’t begrudge them the opportunity, and the system seemed
pretty fair all around.

Natalie seemed like a tough, but mostly
fair-minded woman, and I could imagine that if she really did find that I was
ready for real dating, she’d turn me loose and let me go on with my life. I’d
been worried that I’d meet the woman who was supposed to coach me about dating
and she’d turn out to be a little bit desperate or greedy, only going to the
sessions so that she could get an expensive meal on someone else’s dime and
rattle off a bunch of phony shit about embracing my inner child or being more
mindful and “in the moment” about my life. While I hadn’t paid as much
attention to the rules that Natalie had given me at the beginning of our first
meeting as I should have, I had read her well enough to consider her a
no-nonsense kind of person.

Of course, there was also the fact that
she was gorgeous. Her red-brown hair was stunning, and I wondered if maybe—just
maybe—she would wear it down that night. Did she ever go on dates that weren’t
work-related? She’d mentioned that she’d gotten into the line of work because
she’d wanted to meet more people. It only made sense that she would have a rule
about not forming anything other than a working relationship with her
clients—too many guys who’d gone too long without having the female
companionship they wanted would assume her friendliness was a sign that she
actually was into them, and they’d make fools of themselves.