Island Kisses: A Billionaire Love Story (The Kisses Series Book 9) (12 page)

My fingers hovered over the keyboard. If I didn't go on dates, then I wouldn't have anything to blog about. I couldn't do that or I'd starve. My blog was how I paid my bills. There was really only one option.

So, with some hesitation, I decided that I’d start blogging about my good dates with him. Every other day, except Worst Wednesday, I’d post about what I did with Gabe. With any luck, they'd fall in love with him too.

I’m over trying to hide this from the world,
I thought.

With that, I got busy writing my second post of the night. In it, I told all about how much I’d been spoiled over the past couple of dates with Gabe and how it was nearly impossible for me to think of anything bad to say about him.

At the time, I had no clue how the readers were going to react. I never could have guessed how some in particular reacted.

I
couldn’t remember
the last time I had been this happy. It felt like I had been walking on a cloud and even two days after Gabe and I hooked up, there was still a smile on my face. Everything with him was going so well. He was exactly the type of gentleman I had always imagined, though never actually believed I could end up with.

It wasn’t just Gabe that had me smiling, though. It was also my website and blog. My latest post about the amazing dates with Gabe had had a really good response, much better than I imagined they would. In fact, I was getting emails daily from readers, asking me if Gabe was real or just a made up person.

The next Tuesday afternoon, I was sitting in my computer chair just casually looking at the comments on my blog, when I got a phone call from Cora. I hadn’t talked to her in a couple of days, so I jumped at the opportunity and answered the call.

“Cora! How are you?” I asked, closing my browser to give her my full attention.

“Fantastic,” she replied. “Although, it doesn’t sound like I’m doing quite as well as you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know that I’m your biggest fan, Harper. I read your blog more regularly than anyone,” she replied. “I’ve been learning all about Mr. Perfect Match from your website.”

Guilt hit me hard. I slumped in my chair and wished I could go back in time to make just one phone call to my friend.

“I’m sorry you had to find out about him through the blog, Cora,” I explained. “I’ve just been busy and there aren’t enough minutes in the day.”

“I understand. I'm just giving you a hard time,” she said, her voice shifting from disappointed to cheerful. “But now that we’re talking, you need to tell me all about him. Or at the very least, tell me when I can meet the guy.”

“I think you’ll meet him at some point. But it’s still too soon for me to say for sure whether or not this is the real deal,” I told her. I started to spin my chair in slow, lazy circles. “I mean Gabe is a great guy, an
amazing
guy, actually, but I still don’t know where it’s headed. I’m scared that I’ll jinx it if I get my hopes up.”

“Harper, you met his best friend the other day, right?” Cora giggled on the other end of the line. Her high-pitched, squeaky laugh always caused me to smile. “That’s what you said on one of the blog posts. Something about his friend, Bastian, making you two dinner at his house?”

“Yeah, that happened.” I shrugged. “But I’m not sure what that has to do with anything.”

“You met his best friend, Harp! It means
everything
! If a guy introduces you to his best friend, then that means he’s super into you.” She had to be shaking her head at me. “It’s as big of a deal as meeting his mother.”

“Really? I guess I hadn’t thought about that.” I stopped spinning for a moment.

“It’s true,” she went on. “It means your relationship is probably more serious than you think.”

I smiled at the thought of a serious relationship with Gabe. I actually really liked the idea of that.

“We’ll see how things turn out,” I replied, starting my spin back up again. “I’m not getting my hopes up quite yet, though. A part of me is still expecting it to fall apart. I guess that’s what I’m used to, so I’m worried it’s going to happen any minute.”

“Based on what I’ve read about the time you’ve spent with him, you’ve got nothing to worry about, Harper,” she assured me. “Gabe sounds like a wonderful guy. I doubt things will fall apart between you two.”

“I hope you’re right,” I replied.

“So when do I get to meet him?” Cora asked again.

“If things keep going like they're going now, then we’ll make plans for you to meet him in the next few weeks. How does that sound?” I asked, picking up a pencil and playing with it while I spun around in my chair.

“It sounds like a maybe, and maybe usually means no,” Cora stated. I could tell she was pouting, just by the sound of her voice.

“No, it's just later,” I corrected her. I decided to change the subject. “Cora, let’s talk about something else. I haven’t had a chance to catch up with you in a long time. How are things going for you? Any bad dates?”

“I’ve had a few interesting ones,” she said, her voice changing back to its peppy self. “A guy who was obsessed with his handlebar mustache, a thirty-five year old who still lived with his mother, and one dude that apparently had sixteen different pets.”

“Whoa.” I was impressed. Cora had about the same dating track record I did, but she said she wasn't a good enough writer to do a blog of hers. She occasionally would write one up for me, and the results were always good.

“Yeah, tell me about it,” she replied. “It’s been a weird couple of weeks for me in the dating scene.”

“Are you still willing to write about them?” I asked. “The blog has been doing well, but I think there are still plenty of readers who’d prefer to hear about bad dates over my good ones.”

“I’m happy to write up some posts for you, Harper,” she said. I could hear voices in the background like she was at a cafe. “But I don’t know how many I’ll actually have. I might be able to do one post per week or something.”

Her response reminded me about the reader submission idea I had been working on.

“Did you see Sunday’s post?” I asked. “The one about having readers submit their worst date stories to me? What do you think about that?”

“I
did
see that. At first, I didn’t like the idea. The blog was originally about you and that’s what people wanted to hear about,” she said slowly. “But then I know my posts do okay.”

“They do way better than 'okay'” I retorted. “Your post about the guy who was obsessed with yarn is still one of the top ten.”

“That's my point. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it’s actually a great idea,” she explained. “I’ll bet every single girl out there has a nightmare date story they’d love to tell about and have published to your website. I think it would give the blog a little more flavor, since you’d have stories from all different women, from all over the world.”

“I’m glad you liked the idea,” I said, with a pleased smile. I felt a tightness in my shoulders loosen that I hadn't realized was there. “I haven’t had any submissions from it yet, but I’m thinking that I probably will. It’s only been a couple of days, so I should try to be patient.”

“I’m positive people will send you some stories,” Cora said. “Will you forward me the juicy ones, even if you don’t publish them to the site?”

“Of course!” I replied. “I have a feeling there will be some good ones that we can laugh about.”

“I’ll get my 'handle bar mustache man' story written up and emailed to you by this evening,” she promised.

“Perfect!” I said. “And since you’ll be the first one, then you’ll also probably be the winner of 'Worst Wednesday', so I’ll make sure it gets posted by tomorrow.”

Cora cleared her throat. She didn’t say anything for a moment and I knew she was thinking about something.

“So, Harper,” she finally said.

“What is it, Cora?”

“I
seriously
want to meet this Gabe guy.” She was using her serious voice. “Like tomorrow. I’ll fly out there tomorrow.”

I couldn’t help but to burst out laughing. Typical Cora. She was going to bug me about meeting Gabe until it happened and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.

“You crack me up,” I said. “I told you that if things worked out with him then you could meet him in a few weeks.”

“Not good enough,” she scolded. “You and I both know that things
are
going to work out with the relationship, so I want to set an actual date for us all to get together.”

“Co-ra…” I said, exaggerating each syllable.

“Har-per…” she mimicked. “It’s only fair. I think you can give me this much. I mean after all, I
did
have to learn about Gabe from the blog. How about a friend-date? I can fly out to Orlando and we can all go out to eat.”

A sigh escaped my lips. “I don’t know... Like I said, I’m just afraid that if I get my hopes up about Gabe, then something will happen to keep things from working out between us. I guess I’m just being superstitious.”

“Superstitious or not, I want this friend date,” Cora replied. “If I don’t get to meet this guy soon, then I’m going to get onto Kindling Dating and set up my
own
profile so that I can make it happen myself!”

She was making it sound like she was just joking with her threat, but I also knew her well enough to not trust that. If Cora wanted something, she’d get it. That was one thing we definitely had in common.

“You’d make your own profile just to meet Gabe?” I asked.

“I don’t know if I’d get to meet him, but I’d at least have the chance to learn about him based one what he’s written in his profile.”

She’s not going to budge on this, is she?
I thought to myself.

“I love you, Cora. But you’re crazy, you know that?” I mused.

“Oh, I know,” she said, with a chuckle. “But I’ll take it one step further. If you don’t set a date for me to meet Mr. Perfect Match, then I won’t send you my bad date stories for the blog.”

“You’re serious?” I asked. “But you promised to help me out!”

“Completely serious,” she said. “This is how bad I want to meet him.”

“Gabe is just some guy I’m dating, though,” I explained. “I don’t see why it’s such a huge deal.”

“No, Harper. No. He’s not just
some
guy. He’s the
only
guy you’ve dated in the past however many years who isn’t a total loser. He’s the opposite of every guy you’ve been with,” she informed me. “This isn’t just
some
guy! He’s practically a legend, at least until I can see him in person and verify that he’s actually real.”

I shrugged. There was no arguing with her.

“Okay, Cora,” I said. “You drive a hard bargain, but you’ve made yourself a deal. How about the first weekend of next month you can meet Gabe? Does that work?”

“Yes!” she squealed. “That works perfectly. I’ll plan on driving down, so I’ll be there that Friday evening.”

While Cora was celebrating her victory, I started to think more about her idle threat to make a profile so that she could learn about Gabe. It gave me an idea.

“Cora, I know you were kind of joking about making a dating profile on Kindling Dating, but would you consider actually doing it?”

“I was only
half
joking about that,” she corrected. “But yes, I suppose I could make a dating profile. Why?”

“Tell you what,” I said. “Let
me
make the profile for you. I want to check out the sign up process for the website. I didn’t get a chance to do that, since Rosie secretly made mine. But once I have it made, then you could use it to set up your own awful dates. Or possible really great dates.”

“Hmmm,” Cora responded. “I suppose I’m okay with that. But do you think I’d be able to get any awful dates from the website?”

“If there are any more self-centered men with handlebar mustaches still left in the world, Cora, then they’ll find you on any dating site. Trust me.”

“Okay, then sure!” she said. “Make a profile for me! This actually sounds like it could be fun.”

* * *

W
e chit-chatted
for a little longer, going over some of the details about her upcoming trip to visit me in Orlando before hanging up.

I hung up the phone excited for what was going to happen next. The very first thing I did was to pull up the Kindling Dating site and begin the process of creating Cora’s profile.

After filling in her basic information, like a profile name, email address and photo, I was asked to fill out a fifty-question survey to see what kind of mate would best suit her. I was rather impressed that Rosie had filled this out for me.

I did the best I could, answering the questions in a way that I imagined Cora would. But I couldn’t help but wonder just how my answers would affect whatever algorithms Kindling Dating used to match people up. It made me ponder how Rosie might have answered these same questions for me, and if those responses could have had an effect on why I had been matched with Gabe.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I wondered if Gabe was just dating the version Rosie had supplied or if he was actually interested in me.