Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) (150 page)

I racked my brain, trying to figure out
what I could have said—what I could have done—to drive him away. Had I been too
demanding? Had I said something bad about Landon? No matter how I tried to
figure it out on my own, I couldn’t come up with anything. I couldn’t ask
anyone else either; I didn’t quite trust Amie—in spite of the fact that she was
my best friend in the office. I couldn’t talk to anyone else in the office,
either. And I certainly couldn’t talk to my family about Patrick. As Amie had
pointed out, they would take the situation way more seriously even than I was
taking it.

I couldn’t think of anything that I might
have done to make Patrick mad; thinking about our dates together I couldn’t
even remember a time that he’d looked upset. We’d had sex together a few times,
and every time it had been amazing. We’d gone on fancier dates and more casual
ones, and every date had seemed to be going even better than the last…right up
until they’d stopped. I didn’t know whether I should be taking Patrick’s
ghostlike behavior as a sign that I should just drop it, or if he was testing
me to see if I was really interested in him—interested enough to make a move,
to be proactive about seeing him.

As I wrapped up for the day, I thought
about the problem in front of me. I couldn’t talk to anyone else about it; and
I had exhausted all of my own ability to figure out what could have gone wrong
between Patrick and me. The only thing left for me to do was to try and talk to
Patrick directly.

I waited until I was out of the building,
heading to my car, and I took my phone out.
What
if he doesn’t answer your call? What if he just keeps avoiding you?
I
sighed and pulled up Patrick’s number anyway. If he kept avoiding me—avoiding
my calls, and even the text messages I sent—then I would know that he had lost
interest. I would just give up on him, and move on with my life. There was way
too much good going on in my life for me to beat myself up over losing a guy.

I unlocked my car and climbed in, but
instead of starting up the car, I took a deep breath and tapped the call icon.
I held the phone to my ear, shivering a bit in the cold, stale air, and
listened to it ring: once, twice, three times.
It’s going to roll over to voicemail,
I thought with a sigh.
At least he didn’t decline the call
outright.

But instead of the voicemail prompt, I
heard Patrick’s voice.

 
“Hey, Mack.”

My heart beat faster in my chest and for
just a second I wasn’t sure I would be able to say anything at all—my brain
froze. “Hi, Patrick,” I said finally, taking a quick breath and swallowing
against the dry feeling in my throat. “I’ve been—I started to worry about you,
since I haven’t been seeing you come in with Landon.”
Great job, Mack. You’re really coming down on him hard.
“Is—is
everything okay?”

“Oh—yeah,” Patrick said, his voice
hesitant. “Yeah, everything’s okay, I’ve just been really busy. Busier than
usual. Lots of work to do before I go on vacation for the last week of the
year.”

“I figured as much,” I said, smiling
nervously even though Patrick wasn’t even there, and wouldn’t see me. “I just
was starting to kind of…wonder if things were…you know, okay with us. Because
we were supposed to have a date…” I trailed off.

“Yeah,” Patrick said. “I’m sorry about
that. I’ve totally dropped the ball—I meant to reschedule with you and then
everything sort of…piled up.” I pressed my lips together; I wasn’t sure if even
Patrick believed his story. “I’m really sorry I’ve let so many days pass
without getting in touch.”

“I understand,” I said, my smile frozen on
my face. “I guess—I mean—if you’re too busy to see me…”

“I think I can make some time for you,”
Patrick said. “Are you doing anything tonight?” I scrubbed at my face.

“I was just going to get some last-minute
shopping done,” I said with a shrug. “Nothing special.”

“I’d love to keep you company,” Patrick
told me. “If you’d have me?”

“Sure,” I said.
Don’t sound so eager,
I added in my mind. “Give me like twenty
minutes or so to get home and change out of my scrubs, and let’s meet
somewhere.”

“How about 900 North Michigan? That way we
can find something to eat too,” Patrick suggested. I thought about it for a
moment.

“That sounds good,” I said. “I’ll see you
there in maybe like—thirty minutes?”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Patrick said,
and in spite of how skeptical I felt I had to admit he sounded like he at least
was being honest about that. I finished the call and hurried home, weaving
around the rush hour traffic and trying to decide what I could wear for a date
like this. I didn’t want to dress up the way I would for dinner or a movie or
going to a play; but I didn’t want to look like a slob either. I also wanted to
make sure that I wouldn’t freeze my ass off getting to the mall, while not
sweating like a pig once I was inside.

I hurried up to my apartment as soon as I
parked, wondering what was going on with Patrick and whether it even made sense
to go on this date with him. I made a mess of my room going through my clothes
as quickly as possible and finally settled on a pair of jeans, a fitted sweater
with a camisole underneath it, one of the nicer scarves I owned, and a pair of
ankle boots with thick socks underneath to keep my feet warm. I brushed my hair
and tucked it into a cute wool cap that covered the tops of my ears, and put on
just a little bit of makeup; enough to make me look clean and natural and polished.

I hurried back down to my car and made my
way into downtown, jittery and nervous at the idea that I might be late to meet
with Patrick at the entrance of the mall.
Why
am I sweating this so much? It’s not like we’ve been dating for months. We
barely know each other.
But I didn’t want to let things go without giving
it at least one last, final chance. I kept glancing at my face in the mirror,
wondering if I’d gone too casual, if I looked too fresh-from-work. I told
myself that Patrick knew that I was going to be meeting him almost immediately
from work, that he couldn’t rightly expect me to show up looking as though I’d
spent an hour on my outfit, hair, and makeup, but I was nervous anyway.

I had to wonder just how much sense it
made for me to be this attached to Patrick this soon. We’d gone on maybe five
dates over the course of less than three full weeks. That was unusual—before
Patrick the most I had seen someone was twice in one week—and it made the way
that he was avoiding me even more frustrating. If he’d lost interest, wouldn’t
it just be easier for him to let the conversation happen, or tell me that he
was too busy to see anyone, or something like that? Or if he wasn’t brave
enough to actually end things, at least he could have let it fall by the
wayside completely. I replayed the phone conversation in my head so many times
I thought I’d never be able to forget it.

I told myself as I finally got close to
the mall that I wasn’t going to go into the situation with any expectations at
all. If he’s not interested in me anymore, that’s going to be obvious from the
beginning. If he is still interested in me, then that will be obvious too. I
wasn’t about to sit there and pine for someone who’d already moved on; I’d
spent too long being single—and mostly happy—to get all wrapped up in a guy who
would rather drop off the face of the planet than tell me he wasn’t interested.

I circled around, looking for parking,
watching the time tick down to when I’d agreed to meet Patrick at the entrance
to Bloomingdale’s. “If you’re late it’s not like you set a definite time,” I
told myself, waiting for the slowpoke in front of me to move their ass.
“Besides, he showed up late to the first physical therapy session you had with
Landon.” The fact that he’d been on time to every other session—and to all of
our dates together—was a separate issue. I took a deep breath and considered
texting Patrick to let him know that I had arrived, but was looking for
somewhere to park. If he was looking too, then it wouldn’t matter; but if he
was waiting for me outside of Bloomingdales, I’d feel bad for the fact that he
was standing in the cold while some woman or man waited for someone else to
pull out of a parking spot rather than moving on and accepting that they were
going to have to walk a little bit.

I finally managed to find a spot and
pulled in, throwing my car into park and taking a moment to check myself over.
I had forgotten almost completely what it was I even needed to buy; I shook my
head at how much stress I was putting myself through for what should have been
a very casual, very basic date. I went over the list of friends and family that
I had to buy for in my head and tried to remember if I’d already bought for
each person and if so, what it had been that I’d gotten. Once more I argued
with myself over whether it would make any sense to get anything for Patrick;
especially now that I wasn’t sure if he even wanted to see me anymore, it
seemed silly to worry about it. “Quit stalling,” I told my reflection. “It’s
not going to get any better worrying about it.” I checked my purse to make sure
I had my phone, my wallet, and my keys, and I got out of my car.

Chapter Four - Patrick

I spotted Mack as she came to the ground
floor entrance of Bloomingdales. I stepped forward, taking in the sight of her:
her hair bundled up in a gray knit cap, her curves wrapped up in jeans and a
sweater. She looked as adorable as ever, and for a moment all I could think of
was how much I wished it could work out between us.
Talk to her. Ask her how she feels. She gave you another chance to make
it right; don’t waste it.
“Mack! Hey,” I smiled, and she saw me finally.

Mackenzie hurried closer to me, her cheeks
flushed in the cold, and I thought that I had never in my life seen anyone as
simply beautiful as her.
Don’t get ahead
of yourself. You don’t know where her head is at. You have to find out.
I
hugged her quickly and gave her a kiss on the lips as soon as she was within
reach, and for just a moment, everything was right. Everything felt the way it
should. I took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of her hair, her soap.

“Did you have any shopping you needed to
do?” Mack pulled back and looked up at me. I shrugged.

“I could get a couple of odds and ends
while we’re here,” I said. “Stocking stuffers, little things for some of the
kids in the family.” Mackenzie smiled.

“Should we start here then?” She looked
around, and I realized that we were obstructing the flow of foot traffic.

“Yeah—before someone yells at us for
getting in the way,” I agreed. I took her hand and we walked into Bloomingdales
together. “Who do you need to shop for?” Mackenzie looked around as we moved
forward from the entrance.

“Mostly my siblings,” Mack answered. “I
wanted to get one or two other things for my mom, too.” I nodded, thinking of
the things I needed to get a few members of my own family.

We wandered around Bloomingdales, taking
in all the holiday frenzy, and making small talk. “Do you have any special
family traditions?” Mackenzie looked up from a display of tree ornaments and
shrugged.

“Mom makes her special eggnog, Dad roasts
some chestnuts. We decorate the tree together—what do you think of this one?”
She held up a silvery star ornament, studded with green and red crystals.

“I like it,” I said. “Landon made one kind
of like that last year in preschool. Not as nice, obviously.” I smiled to
myself, remembering the ornament; Landon had taken pieces of Popsicle sticks
and covered them in green and red glitter, until there was no wood to be seen
anymore.

“If he’d made something out of metal like
this, I’d be really shocked,” Mack told me, grinning. “It’s five dollars. Worth
it?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Totally,” I said. I watched Mackenzie
pick out a few more ornaments, getting my approval for each one, and tried to
think about how to come around to the subject on my mind.

We wandered through the store, picking up
a few more items each, and then left Bloomingdales to go through the rest of
the mall, browsing and taking in the decorations, the other shoppers. “No
matter how soon after Thanksgiving I start, I always seem to end up doing my
last shopping on Christmas Eve, and wrapping presents at midnight,” I told
Mackenzie as we passed a giftwrapping station.

“Me too,” Mack said. “Of course, I’m not
alone—my parents always have last-minute things to wrap for their grandkids.”

“So a big late-night wrapping party?” I
tried to picture Mackenzie in her pajamas, wrapping presents, maybe drinking
some mulled cider or some wine.
She could
be doing that with you.
It was too easy to imagine her with me at my
parents’ house, sitting in the living room, drinking wine while we worked on
Landon’s presents or some of the others. I’d give her a smaller present—nothing
big, just a little something—right at midnight, and then we’d finish up the wrapping
and go to bed together.

“What else is there to do on Christmas
Eve?” Mackenzie shrugged, the smile tugging at the corners of her lips driving
me almost crazy with the desire to kiss her. “I can never sleep on Christmas
Eve anyway—ever since I was a kid. I might as well be doing something.”

“I hear you there,” I agreed.
You could be having sex. That’d be a great
way to spend Christmas Eve: making love all night until Landon wakes us up.
I pushed the thought aside, remembering what Mack had said about not thinking
she was destined to have kids, or even get married.