since What’s-his-name decamped?”
Saskia glanced at Ernest and in a stage whisper said, “Seven months.”
Lissy whispered back. “The dog can’t understand English.”
“Oreos,” Saskia said, this time at a normal decibel level.
Ernest woke with such a start he fell off the armchair. Three seconds later he was at Saskia’s side, paws on her lap, claws stretching out the zigzags on her woollen tights in the hope of finding cookie crumbs.
“Later, baby,” she said, ruffling his ears, and sending him back to the chair with a pat on the bum.
“Way I see it, this is your chance to try something new.” Lissy reached out and turned Saskia’s monitor so she could get a better look at the man thereupon. “Not some indigent fixerupper, but a guy who’s sexy and brilliant. A man who looks like he knows how to take care of himself for once. And take care of you, if you know what I mean?”
Lissy finished with a Groucho-style eyebrow-wiggle, then slurped at her coffee, shuffled in her chair and got to work.
Saskia tried to do the same, cracking the spine of a fresh yellow legal pad, writing “Dating By Numbers” at the top and “Love Formula” beneath. She crossed it out, tried to think of a more appropriate title and, no thanks to Lissy, couldn’t.
Also thanks to Lissy, her mind kept curling back to the same conversation she and Lissy had had a million times over. Lissy postulating that Saskia’s yen for needy guys came down to a childhood spent trying, without much success, to lighten the life of her clueless, maths professor, single dad. Saskia contending that she simply liked who she liked. And if that happened to be men who made her feel indispensable, then what was wrong with that?
Apart from the fact that it never lasted.
Her gaze swept back to the screen and she let it trail over every inch of yum.
NJM looked like the least needy man on the planet. But could he kiss a girl so well she’d forgive him for snapping her carrots? Yeah, she thought, tingles curling into existence inside her belly, I have a feeling he could.
But that wasn’t why she clicked on the happy yellow “Why not?” button on NJM’s email. She had a job to do—a well-paying job. NJM was an anomaly in the heretofore predictability of the remainder of subjects in her study and therefore worth investigating further.
And while she had more work than she would ever have taken on at one time under normal circumstances, a girl had to eat.
Weddings did it every time.
It had taken years, diligence and dogged immovability, but Nate Mackenzie had finally trained his sisters to leave him well enough alone when it came to his confirmed bachelorhood. Until a wedding invite arrived in the mail. Then all bets were off.
He’d just hung up from his oldest sister, Jasmine, when the twins, Faith and Hope, came at him, conference-call-style.
“She’s lovely!” one of them exclaimed before even emitting a hello.
He leant back in his office chair, executed a half turn till the sunshine slashing past the Melbourne skyline and through the intimidating wall of windows nearly blinded him. “I’m fine, thanks. You?”
Ignoring his sarcasm, the twins tag-teamed. “Jasmine’s friend makes the best macaroons.”
“I’ve seen photos. She’s just your type.”
He opened his mouth to ask just what his type might be, but he snapped his mouth shut at the last second.
They were good at finding weak spots. He was better.
After all, he’d taught them all they knew: a consequence of becoming the man of the house at fifteen.
He pressed his feet to the floor and a thumb to the temple that had begun to throb. “I’m thrilled you are all so content in your own lives that you have the time to stick your collective noses into mine, but you need to focus your impressive energies elsewhere. Third World hunger, perhaps?”
“But—”
“No more set-ups. Consider that an order.”
At that, a pause. Then lashings of laughter which had his other temple throbbing in syncopated rhythm against the first.
When they shifted into a familiar tune about how his natural born charm and adorable baby blues wouldn’t get him by for ever, Nate slowly turned his chair back to face his vast office as his brain flicked through possible ways to convince them to leave the subject of finding him a good woman the hell alone. He could honestly beg work, but that was nothing new. A weekend was something other people had. He hadn’t set foot on a beach in so long he couldn’t remember how sand felt between his toes. And telling them he was only keen on bad women hadn’t stopped them before; it had merely expanded the pond from which they fished on his behalf.
“I’m seeing someone!” The walls of Nate’s vast office seemed to heave away from him as the import of the words he’d just uttered echoed into the ensuing silence. Damn twins—they were like a pair of hammers banging at an exposed nerve. It had been bound to jerk eventually.
But when the silence deepened, Nate wondered if he’d hit on something inspired. If he oughtn’t to have invented a significant other years ago—someone who travelled often, was ethically against telephones, who had lost her whole family in some tragic accident so he could therefore never subject his love to the pain of meeting his.
Caught up in his own daydreams of freedom, he realised his chance to hang up on a high a moment too late.
One twin said, “Someone who can string a sentence together without saying ‘um’?”
“What the hell do I care?” he heard himself bellow. “So long as she looks good, smells nice and goes home happy.”
“Nate,” they said on twin sighs, with familiar waves of guilt pouring down the phone line. They knew they should be nicer, considering all he’d sacrificed to make sure they were well-adjusted after their father died. Knowing didn’t make it so. They had stubborn Mackenzie genes after all.
“The worst part is I don’t think you’re kidding,” said one.
“That the perfect Nate date wants no commitment, no happy-ever-after, no way,” said the other.
“Find her for me and then we can talk,” said Nate as his office door swung open. Gabe poked his head through the gap. Done with being outnumbered, Nate waved his recently returned business partner in with a brisk flap of his hand.
One raised eyebrow later, Gabe shut the door behind him and ambled across the room to lower his huge form into a chair that would have been plenty big enough for any other man. Gabe, on the other hand, looked as if he’d need a crowbar to get out.
“I have to go,” said Nate. “My ten o’clock is here.”
“Say ‘hi’ to Gabe from me.”
Then, “Tell him if it doesn’t work out with Paige, he can always—”
Nate hung up before any more of that image made its way into his subconscious.
“The girls on the warpath?” said Gabe, as Nate once again rubbed his thumbs across both temples.
“This time, it’s your fault.”
“How’s that, exactly?”
“If you weren’t with Paige, you’d never have met Mae and Clint, who’d never have invited me to their wedding. And Macbeth’s witches wouldn’t have made it their life’s mission to find me a woman.”
Gabe’s dark stare flattened. “Are you wishing away my woman?”
“Not,” said Nate, settling back in his chair. “For years you walked around like a bear with a sore tooth.