Friends & Fortune Cookies: A Sudden Falls Romance (13 page)

“Sit here,” I said, vacating the chair in front of my vanity. I grabbed a concealer wand and dabbed gently around his eye.

“Does that hurt?” I didn’t want to make it any worse.

He looked directly up at me, and I caught my breath. Our faces were less than a foot apart. He shook his head slowly.

Using a makeup sponge, I spread the concealer around, minimizing the bruise, though by no means hiding it completely.

I placed a finger against his chin and moved his head until Joe faced the mirror. “What do you think?”

He leaned forward a little and squinted, moving his head left and right. “A lot better. And at least I don’t look like I’m wearing makeup. You can still see the bruise, but I no longer look like I just went ten rounds with a heavyweight prizefighter.”

“It would pretty much take an airbrush and a professional special-effects makeup team to completely hide the damage.” I shrugged. “But you’ll do.”

The black eye gave him a little bit of bad-boy mystery. The girls would be falling all over themselves during his speed-dates.

For whatever reason, that idea didn’t sit very well with me, and I tried to push it aside.

Picking up a tube of lip gloss from the vanity, I painted a shiny bow onto my mouth, very aware of Joe’s gaze following my every move in the mirror. It took three tries to get the wand back in the tube. “Ready to go?”

Joe cleared his throat. “Yup.”

He rose to his feet slowly, getting his bearings before navigating his way to the hallway on the aircast.

It didn’t take long to drive to the Spaghetti Barn where the speed-dating event was held. By the time we arrived, the weirdness that had been simmering between us all day seemed to have dissipated somewhat. At least, until I helped him out of the car. He stumbled, and I had to catch all two hundred and ten pounds of him. We ended up in a grappling hug as he tried not to hit the ground, and I tried not to let him.

My heart kicked it into marathon speed as I sucked in a deep breath of Joe’s warm, spicy scent, and the embrace suddenly felt a lot less like support and a lot more like… something else.

Joe finally got back under his own power, and we made our way from the parking lot to the front door. Distracted, I didn’t notice Annie Tremont standing at the front door to the restaurant.

I’d met Annie shortly after I started with the paper at a Women in the Media banquet, and we’d become instant friends. She was a deejay at one of the local radio stations and a professional do-gooder. Funny and vivacious, she had curly bright-red hair, a thousand freckles, and a million-kilowatt smile.

“Hey, Grace. What are you doing here?”

“Speed-dating.” I tried not to let the embarrassment creep into my voice. It took everything in me not to spill the fact that work was making me do this.

“Oh, that’s funny!” she said, pink tinging her cheeks. “Me, too.”

Joe hadn’t said anything at this point, and she looked back and forth between the two of us. “You know you’re not actually supposed to bring a date to speed-dating.”

“Oh! Joe’s not my
date!”

“You needn’t sound quite so horrified,” he said, looking mildly disgruntled. He turned to Annie. “Joe Baker,” he said. “You can consider me Gracie’s private security.”

I elbowed him, taking care to not actually make contact with his bruised ribs.

“Nice to meet you,
Joe.”
Annie raised an eyebrow in my direction. I remembered a girls’ night in the previous fall at her apartment, sponsored in part by a pitcher of piña coladas, where she confessed a long-term crush on a guy she’d attended college with. I’d admitted that my relationship with Joe had always been on the cusp of “maybe-something-more”.

I’d be getting the third degree from Annie after this was over.

The Spaghetti Barn was exactly what you might picture. A giant red restaurant decorated in country kitsch that served pasta that no Italian in their right mind would claim. A sign directed us off to a private room at the right, where we took our place in line for sign-in.

“Here’s your list,” the appropriately perky organizer said as she handed me a couple of sheets of paper. “We’ll be getting started in the next few minutes. Ladies, take a seat at the table with your number on it.” She indicated the number on my name badge and then pointed to the nearest table with a giant round “22” in a stand. She looked over at Joe. “The fellows are waiting over there.” She pointed to a group of men in a line along the wall.

I sat down at my table, and Joe limped his way across the room on his crutch. Annie made her way to her table, too, but not before giving me a significant look. Yeah. My phone was going to be ringing in the next day or so.

A waitress came by and took drink orders, and soon I had a glass of Merlot in hand.

“Hi, everyone! I’m Cindy Priscano, and I’ll be coordinating tonight’s speed-dating! Everyone’s here, and it turns out, we have one more girl than guy, so we’re going to have one lady sit out each round. You’ve each been given a sheet with everyone’s first name, speed-dater number, and a place for notes. Keep track of all the people you might want to meet again. Tomorrow, you’ll each get an email with the contact information of anyone who you marked ‘want to see again’ and who also marked you as ‘want to see again’.” She took a deep breath.

“I’ll ring this bell at the start of each date, at the four-minute mark—so you know you have one minute to wrap things up—and then again at the five-minute mark. At that point, all the gentlemen will get up and move to the table with the next highest number.” She looked around the room. “Any questions?”

No one said anything.

“Gentlemen, please head to the first table on your list!” She rang a little service bell, and the guys moved to tables. My first date was a tall, burly fellow who had a long beard that would do any Duck Dynasty cast member proud. I immediately questioned the wisdom of this whole exercise.

“I’m Carl.”

“Grace.”

“What do you do, Grace?”

“I work for a newspaper,” I said, eager to point him in a different direction. “What about you?” I took a sip of my wine.

“Stockbroker.”

I nearly choked. “Really?”

“Nah. I work in the office of my brother’s landscaping company and play bass for a ZZ Top tribute band.” He pointed at his beard and winked.

I had no idea which—if either—story was true. But he was funny. We did a comparison of our tastes in music, finding a little common ground, but only a little. Then the final bell rang. “Grace, it was nice meeting you.” Carl stood and moved a table to his right.

Ryan, a lanky redhead with a trim goatee sat down.

“What do you do?” I asked.

“I’m in IT. A network engineer.”

“I’m the stuff of your nightmares,” I said. “I’ve reduced our help desk guys to tears.”

He chuckled. “Fortunately, I don’t have to work with end users often. I’m more responsible for getting ones and zeros from one place to another.”

I nodded. “I have no idea what that means.”

“I think I understand how you make your guys cry.”

He grinned, and I wasn’t sure if he was kidding. He was cute, but I didn’t mark him as a “want to meet again.”

The bell rang, and the next contestant sat down. I tried to catch Joe’s gaze, but he was too far away and talking to his “date”.

A few minutes later, the bell rang again, and I was the “dateless” girl. Joe made his way to the table next to me where a pretty woman in her early thirties sat. She wore a short sundress and strappy sandals and had the legs to pull off both. She flashed a great smile.

I’m not sure why, but I kind of expected Joe’s opening play to be a little lame. But he met her smile with a grin of his own and turned on the charm. Yeah, this was why Joe hadn’t been alone unless he wanted to be since more-or-less middle school

I found myself seeing him from a different angle, and with that new view came a twinge of what could only be called raw jealousy.

Meeting Joe “for the first time” might be an interesting proposition. He was good-looking, professionally successful, and his time in the army hadn’t seemed to affect him in the way it had for so many others of our generation.

Unfortunately, there was a lot of water under our personal bridge.

And most of it involved Joe leaving—physically and emotionally—time after time and especially when things got tough. Starting with prom and ending with the brouhaha right before Mike dumped me, which Joe had all but predicted.
Damn him.

A lotta water.

What would be different if we met for the first time right at this moment?

The bell rang, and Joe slid into the seat across from me.

“Hi, I’m Grace.”

With nothing more than a momentarily raised eyebrow, he played right along. “Joe.”

“What do you do, Joe?” Why not ask the first question I’d asked everyone else?

“Professional boxer.”

“That explains your face,” I slipped out of the fantasy for a moment.

“Actually, I’m home rehabber. I fell off a roof, which I can definitely NOT recommend.”

“Ouch.”

“I’ll bet everyone asks you what you do for a living.”

“Isn’t that part of the script?”

“Is there a rule?”

I shrugged. “What would you like to know, then?”

He stared at me a moment longer than expected, and I was dying to know what he was thinking. “Describe your ideal first date.”

“Describe the guy or the event?”

“Both.” He was still making an almost disturbing level of eye contact.

“We do something that involves conversation. Not a movie. And not just dinner.”

He nodded. “Ok. What about the guy?”

“Smart. Confident. Good sense of humor. Never mentions his ex once. Likes his work. Has some semblance of a five-year plan.” I’d given these answers on questionnaires for the multitude of dating sites I’d recently signed up for.

“What’s he look like?” His voice was a little gravely, and he still gave the intense eye contact.

I wasn’t going to say blond hair, blue eyes, great smile, and a black eye even on threat of waterboarding, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I thought it for half a second.

“Attractive. But not so much so that he has to look in every mirror he passes.” Joe was like that: good-looking while seemingly not aware of it. But I needed to direct this conversation in another direction. “What about you?”

One corner of his mouth turned up, and I suddenly felt like he’d been waiting for me to ask. And also like a mouse who’d let herself get backed into a corner by a cat. “Well, I tend to be attracted to brunettes. Not too skinny. When I touch her, I want to have more to hang onto than just bones.”

I thought of my own proportions which tilted ever so slightly to the curvy side.

“I’d pick you up in the early evening.”

What? He jumped from talking about “a good first date” and directly to what we’d do on “
our
date”. As it if it were a foregone conclusion. My heart started to pound as he described dinner—at Zen,
natch
—and an evening walk along the Sudden Falls bike path and finally the drive home.

“And then what?” I asked, not even sure if I could even handle the answer.

Chapter 22 — Joe

I was definitely having an effect on Gracie. Her eyes dilated, and her breathing turned shallow.

“And then I’d back you up against the door, lean in, and—”

Ding!

She giggled, almost like she didn’t intend to.

“And I guess if you want to know what happens, you’ll have to put a checkmark next to my name.” I nodded to her rating sheet.

“Gotcha,” she said as I stood. There might have been some relief in that sound. But I didn’t want her to feel relief. I wanted anticipation and need. Like the need that was currently coursing through my blood.

I hadn’t intended that.

As she started her next “date,” I couldn’t help but keep half my attention on how well it was going. I probably didn’t make much of an impression on my next date. No problem. She filled the conversation with a monologue on why she was so awesome.

After the bell rang the next time, Gracie was too far away for me to hear her conversation. But that didn’t keep me from looking her way every couple of minutes.

My next date was the redhead Gracie had introduced me to at the door.

“So you’re Joe,” she said.

“My reputation precedes me, I see.”

She laughed. “Grace mentioned you.”

“Oh? Do I get to know in what context?”

“I’m not sure. What are your intentions toward her?”

“Excuse me?”

“Are you back in town as a pal or as…?” She trailed off.

Now I was dying to know how the conversation went when Gracie “mentioned” me. I decided to be straight with Annie. “I’m helping out my cousin for a couple of months. Reconnecting with Gracie has been...”
The best thing. The worst thing. An exercise in the road not taken.
“A bonus.”

I looked over at Gracie with her date. He was good-looking, and she spoke to him in an animated way that set my teeth on edge. Annie cleared her throat, and I quickly shifted my attention back to her.

The warning bell chimed, and Annie reached across the table and laid a hand on my forearm. “Take care with her, huh? The last year was pretty rough on her.”

Sadness in Annie’s gaze was hard to interpret. Before I could ask for clarification, though, the bell rang again. “Nice meeting you, Joe.”

The next guy waited for me to haul myself out of the chair and move down the line, but I was dying to continue the conversation.

Finally, the evening ended, and we each turned in our summary cards.

“Want to get dinner?” I asked as Gracie studiously avoided making eye contact.

“Sure.”

Annie came over to say goodbye, and I felt certain Gracie would ask her to join us. I wasn’t sure whether I was more hopeful that I could find out more from Annie or annoyed at the idea of sharing Gracie’s company.

“Have a great evening,” Annie said before Gracie could ask.

“You, too.”

“I’ll call you later this week,” Annie replied.