“No boyfriend.”
He blinks, alternating between widening his eyes and a furrowed brow. “But you’re dating.”
“Yes.”
“Men?”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re dating men?”
“Who else would I date?”
“Shannon.”
“Excuse me?”
“You dated Shannon. For a while there. At least, you pretended to.” He looks very confused. “I never really got the whole story from Declan. Something about you and Shannon being married, and then you weren’t, and then you stormed into my office and kissed me and demanded that me, Dad and Terry all act in your hotel scheme—”
“Hold on there. I kissed you?”
“Of all the things I just said, that’s the detail you’re going to focus on? What about my question about men?”
“I did not kiss you! You kissed me!” As for whether I like men, if he can’t tell the answer to that one by now, then we need more kissing.
Er, database discussion.
“You barged into my office and started ranting about what an asshole Declan was, right after my spin session. Then you pulled me into my closet and started kissing me,” he recounts.
“You have a memory made of Swiss cheese. There are more holes in that story than in a J. Lo Oscars gown.”
“You didn’t barge in here?”
“I did,” I concede.
“And you didn’t pull me into my closet?”
“I did. To hide from Shannon, who magically appeared at the exact worst moment.”
“And you didn’t kiss me?”
“No, I did NOT. You kissed me. I remember it perfectly.”
“So do I.”
“Glad to hear it. Funny how nearly two years went by without a word from you. Good to know you weren’t suffering from a rare case of kissing amnesia.”
He crosses his arms over his chest and gives me a weird smile. “That’s what this is about?”
“What what’s about?”
“Your attitude.”
“I don’t have an attitude. You’re the one with the attitude. Two minutes ago you were kissing me, then you found out I have a date, and now you’re a Neanderthal.”
“I’m a Neanderthal? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you need to learn to use your words. Silence works for cavemen. Not modern men.”
Someone knocks on the door and it opens instantly. Declan is standing there, Shannon right behind him. He taps the threshold.
“Look, little bro, I don’t have all day. The resort in Maui needs me for a marketing kickoff meeting about a new merchandising deal we have for branded sunscreen, and—”
“We were just finishing up here. Amanda has to leave for something far more important,” Andrew says, his voice closed off and cold.
“More important than Anterdec?” Declan flashes me a dazzling smile, while Shannon’s eyes turn suspicious. “What could be more important than a meeting with us?”
Andrew grabs his suit jacket off the chair and shrugs into it, his neck thick with tension. If he tightens his jaw any more he’ll crack a tooth. He storms out of the room, calling back over his shoulder:
“A date.”
Chapter Ten
“The anti-depressants did wonders for little Muffin here.” Jordan is forty-two and a short Italian guy who I could never, ever wear heels with if we were dating for real, because I would look like Hagrid next to him. He picked me because I have a teacup chihuahua, too.
He’s sweet and friendly, bald, with bushy eyebrows that have erratically long stray grays that extend out like uncoiled springs. Definitely not my type, but the kind of person who deserves to find a low-conflict partner to go to bingo night and chess tournaments and Mass.
Did I mention he goes to Mass seven days a week? His profile on DoggieDate didn’t note his Catholicism, but Jordan has managed to bring it up nine times. In fourteen minutes.
As we walk along the esplanade, the Charles River filled with people rowing and sculling, I find myself hunching. I have to. He’s so soft spoken and so short that I can’t hear him if I don’t.
“That’s great,” I say with as much enthusiasm as I can. Muffin is a tiny little thing that makes my mom’s dog, Spritzy, look like the Incredible Hulk by comparison. If Muffin weighs two pounds, I’d be surprised, and she’s so nervous she vibrates.
She has also scratched or bitten off most of her hair, so she looks like a rat with a short circuit.
“When my mother died, Muffin just fell apart.” Jordan’s eyes fill with tears. I’m guessing Muffin wasn’t the only one.
“Mama would have loved you,” he adds, giving me a shy, sidelong glance that fills me with guilt and a simultaneous sense of relief that this is all pretend.
“Umm...”
“Would you like to meet her?”
I halt. If Mama is dead, what does he mean? Is she sitting in a rocking chair somewhere in his apartment on the North End? Jordan suddenly looks a little too much like Norman Bates for my tastes.
“How would I, uh—”
Muffin sneezes. She scares herself and shakes some more.
“Her grave is a few blocks away. Mama likes it when I bring Muffin to visit her.”
I am starting to think that Jordan’s favorite toy is a homemade skin suit made from online dating prospects.
“Okay.” It’s only pretend. It’s only pretend. It’s only pretend.
“Amanda!” We’re interrupted by the divine hand of God (or, perhaps, Jordan’s disapproving mama) as Marie screeches my name from across the way. She’s in the middle of a large patch of grass with about ten people, all on yoga mats, all in Child’s Pose.