that the one night was all you wanted. And you’re going to stop telling men how you need to find a nice guy. That’s what gets you into these situations.”
“I do want a nice guy.”
“No, you don’t. Like me, you want a good time and a disappointed father.”
Candice’s giggle carried Caleb down the street to the entrance of his own neighborhood. “Did you get a text from him today, too?”
“The one about the Kerrs having their fourth grandchild? Yup.”
“What if this guy gets mad?”
As he turned into the small road leading to his townhome, he repeated the same thing he always told her. “If he gets mad, then you made the right decision. If he doesn’t get mad, he might be worth another night of a good time.”
Then he remembered what his sister had said about her one-night stand. “Only not this one, since the first night wasn’t that good of a time.”
As he put his car in Park, he thought about the book he joked about writing. Dating Advice by Caleb. Something to compete with those creepy pickup artists who advocated cornering women and never taking no for an answer.
His goal was good company, great sex and no long-term commitments, in that order. He was also just fine with the idea that a woman had sovereignty over the decisions she made about her time and her body.
“I just got home. We good?” He turned the car off.
“Yeah. He probably suspects something is up. Mad or not, he won’t be surprised.”
“Uh, no,” he agreed with a laugh.
“You have a hot date you need to get ready for?”
“Hot date with a continuing-education class on writing narrative nonfiction.” Tonight, his relationship included not alienating his computer by spilling fried rice on it while he finished his copy. He needed the keyboard to still like him enough that he could pursue his own passions after meeting his deadline.
“I didn’t know you were interested in writing nonfiction.”
“I’m a man of surprises.”
She laughed hard enough to practically bray. “No, you’re not. You just think you are.”
“Go out and break a man’s heart. Send me a text and let me know how it goes when you’re done.”
“Bye, bro.”
“Bye, sis.”
Once they’d hung up, Caleb tossed his phone in the bag with his food and prepared for the usual night of a single man, rather than the nights all his coworkers imagined he lived. If he were feeling especially frisky, maybe he’d ask the cute dog lover to meet him for drinks. That was all the action he could handle tonight.
BECK STOOD ON the sidewalk outside a cocktail bar in Durham’s small downtown, trying not to look stood up. It wasn’t easy. With all the people out and about early on a spring evening, there wasn’t much space to stand with anything approaching nonchalance.
Caleb, aka Mr. Swoony, was late. She looked quickly at her phone. Okay, calling him late wasn’t entirely fair, since she had been fifteen minutes early. She’d rushed everything today, starting from the moment she’d sat bolt upright this morning, an hour before her alarm had gone off. She’d had three cups of coffee, two more than she usually had when she woke up. But she’d tried to waste some of her extra hour over coffee and a magazine. It had been that or stare at her closet and rethink what she’d planned to wear today, which was guaranteed to be a bad idea. Of course, too much coffee had given her the shakes, which meant her homework assignments for her art class were a mess.
And then she’d stared at herself in the mirror, trying to figure out what first date hair and makeup should look like. And she’d changed her mind about what to wear before settling back on the ruffled cream-colored dress with a peachy cardigan, seafoam green scarf and matching bangles. Later, when she’d called her friend Marsie—who had been dating forever before meeting the man she was set to marry—her unhelpful friend had told her not to worry about what she was wearing and instead think about what she would talk about with a stranger.
Knowing what to say to a stranger had never been a problem for Beck, but finally she had decided Marsie was right about the first part. She pulled out the outfit she’d planned to wear originally, got dressed and then left for her date.
Of course, she’d driven too fast and there hadn’t been any traffic, so her plan to sail casually through the door of the bar at exactly six in the evening wouldn’t work. Now she had to try to make it look as though this wasn’t her first date since...college.
And, as it had for the entirety of the day, trying was failing her. As she shifted from foot to foot to foot and wondered where to rest her hands, she probably looked like a woman who’d already had too much to drink and was about to have more.
“Beck?”
She started at the smooth, deep voice that said her name from the left. “Caleb?” she asked as she turned. All this time she’d been staring out to the parking garage to the right, not expecting him to come from the left.
His shoes were nice. Casual black loafers, well-worn, but not scuffed, like he both wore them a lot, but also took care of them. Dark jeans with trim hips and the hem of a light purple button-down.
And an outstretched hand, which she took before meeting his eyes. But when she did meet his eyes... God, they were as light green in person as they had been in his pictures. Not only were they an unreal light green, but they were smiling, and his entire face was surrounded by pitch-black hair that made it look as though he’d just gotten out of bed in the best possible way.
He might be the most handsome man she’d ever seen in real life, and if it wasn’t for the slight crook in his nose where he’d probably broken it, she’d think he stepped out of a photoshopped magazine spread.
He was slender and tall, too. Willowy, without being weak-looking. Frankly, it was all a bit unreal.
She smiled back at him as she took his hand. Well, if this was going to be her first date in over twelve years, at least she was starting on a high note.
“Nice to meet you,” she said. God, his hand was warm, even on a cool late-spring night when he wasn’t wearing a jacket. He was probably perfect and did things like keep the woman in bed next to him warm, even if she always had ice-block feet.
“Likewise. Shall we?” He swept one hand onto the glass of the bar’s front door.
“Yes.”
He opened the door for her and she took one step into what felt eerily like her new future.
* * *
BECK WAS NERVOUS enough that her hand shook as he had gripped it in his. She even walked like she was nervous, with her shoulders up near her ears and quick, rabbit-like steps that made the ruffled bits at the bottom of her dress bounce about her fine legs. And her square jaw had tightened as she’d smiled, rather than opening in the bright grin he remembered from her profile picture. Her rich brown hair was shoulder-length and feathery around her chin and collarbone.
She was just as cute as she’d been in her profile pictures, with intelligent eyes and an open face. In fact, her nerves were endearing. Caleb couldn’t remember the last time he’d been nervous on a date, nor could he remember the last time he could recognize that one of his dates was nervous.
Her profile said that she was divorced. If he had to guess, she hadn’t been divorced long. Once inside, he stood back to watch her move as she approached the bar.
“Hi,” she said to the young woman wiping a glass dry. Then, to his surprise, she stood