“Great. That’s good to know. However, my agency has been hired to do a job, and I plan on doing that job to the best of my ability. I really hope you’ll change the way you’re looking at this. Don’t ruin your dates before you even go on them.”
“Is that a code for something? Because it came out kind of wrong if you ask me.”
“No, it’s not a code for anything.” Rowan smiles at me disarmingly, after uttering the most straightforward, no-nonsense, borderline bitchy statement in history. She clicks her pen—one of those multicolored things with the different tabs—to punctuate her words. “Basically, I’m just going to ask you some questions to determine what kind of match would be best. First, though, I’m going to get a coffee. And I’m going to get you one too. I don’t care if you drink it, but it’s nice to have something to do with your hands when you’re nervous. The coffee is good. Good enough to banish almost all bad attitudes. There’s also the added bonus of supporting an amazing small business. So, just give me a second.”
She sets down her pen, stands, and makes her way to the counter, all before I can get a word in. I watch every move she makes. She’s wearing matching green heels with her dress. Her legs are shapely, and those heels make her calf muscles flex when she walks. I’m not sure why, but noticing it is ridiculously sexy. She has this way of moving that reminds me of something fluid, like water.
I can’t help it. I think about what those long, gorgeous, shapely legs would feel like wrapped around my waist. I immediately hate myself for it after, so I think that cancels out any of the bad voodoo I just put out into the world.
By the time Rowan sits down with our coffees, I’m pretty sure I’m composed and free of looks guaranteed to land me in court over sexual harassment. I check my coffee. It’s black, but I spot a stand at the front with sugar and cream. I normally take both, but since Rowan is sipping hers black, I sit there and let mine cool and don’t get up to add anything. Besides, I’m not actually going to drink it. Not when I said I didn’t want anything, and she forced it on me like my mom forced this bullshit dating.
“So.” Rowan picks up her pen. “Tell me about your ideal date.”
I glance around the shop. It’s two in the afternoon, so it’s deserted for the most part. We’re at a table tucked into the back corner, where no one, including the employees, is going to hear anything.
“The perfect date or the perfect date?”
Rowan shrugs casually, clearly undaunted by my assholelishness if that’s even a word, which I know it isn’t. “Both?”
“Ha! I don’t have one as far as a perfect date goes. And since I’m being forced into this, I also don’t have any ideas about a perfect date. I’d honestly prefer one that starts and ends within half an hour.”
“Good. So, you obviously value humor. The dryer, the better, with a heavy dose of sarcasm.” Rowan slips the notebook off the table and scribbles on her knee, where I can’t see it.
I wonder what she’s writing. It actually pisses me off a little that I can’t see what she’s jotting down. She’s probably writing about me being an epic asshole at the moment. I wonder if she’d let me see her notes after. She would if she has nothing to hide. I could claim it as professional curiosity. Suddenly, I’m nervous, and I feel overly warm and sweaty. I’m wearing a black t-shirt and jeans—nothing fancy—because I didn’t want to dress up for this shit. Thank goodness I didn’t choose a grey t-shirt because I’m pretty sure I’d have some pretty gross sweat marks going on. At least black hides a lot of that.
Still, I shift uncomfortably. I reach for my coffee and take a sip just for something to do, and the dark roast floods over my taste buds in a burst of delicious, intoxicating flavors that I didn’t expect. I nearly glower when I realize Rowan was right about the coffee. It is good. And despite not wanting to earlier, I’m now drinking it because I’m nervous.
“Hobbies?”
“That’s very broad.”
Rowan doesn’t look up. “What’s your view on marriage?”
“Marriage?” I choke. “Isn’t it a little bit soon to be asking about that?”
This time, her head lifts, and I’m staring into those huge, dark eyes. Her eyes are so dark that they’re like the night sky. Seriously. They’re sparkling and shining with fast wit that echoes in the tilt of her lips as she smirks at me.
“I’m not asking you to get married, Mr. Marshall. I’m asking what your views are on it. These are standard questions used to help find you a match.”
“Which I’m not actually interested in doing.”
“That doesn’t matter, because I’ve been paid to sit here and ask you these questions.”
“It doesn’t mean I have to answer you.”
Rowan grips her paper coffee cup and lifts it in the air just a little higher than necessary to take a sip. I have the feeling she’s mock saluting me, and it ratchets up my annoyance by a few levels.
“Fair enough.” She scratches something in her notebook. I grind my teeth. “I’ll keep asking, and you can keep not answering. It’s not my life, my problem, or my mom that I have to deal with.”
I can feel the temperature rising in the little coffee shop. Suddenly, I feel like I’m drenched in sweat like Satan himself is back in the kitchen, brewing up a pack of fucking bad news, transforming this place into his own personal hell. Oh wait, that would be my own personal hell. While Rowan is silent, I think about her last question. Do I believe in marriage?
The short answer to that question is no. I guess I don’t. My parents are still married and happy, even after approaching forty years of marriage, which is hard to believe. I think they’re the exception now. I guess I could say I feel the same way about all relationships. They might start out okay, but in the end, they turn into a bunch of nonsense, people hating each other, bitterness, bad words, bad thoughts, bad experiences, bad everything. Relationships are like flowers. They last for a little while. They might even look good and smell good. But then they start to wilt and die. They start to die a slow death, and no amount of fertilizer, no matter how expensive, is going to revive them.
I feel the same about romance. I think anything that has to do with it is a bunch of nonsense. It’s fake—all of it. Romance was invented to sell books, jewelry, chocolates, and flowers. It’s a business transaction and an invented notion. End. Of. Story.
“So. What’s your favorite childhood memory?”
I cross my arms and shift in my seat. There’s an uncomfortable pit growing inside of me. “Not going to answer that either.”
“Great.” Rowan jots something down. “Your dream destination?”
“Anywhere but here.”
I see Rowan’s lips twitch. “There’s that humor again.”
“Look.” I blow out a hard sigh. I reach for my coffee cup and grip it so hard that I’m surprised it doesn’t explode like a geyser and paint the ceiling. “I’m sure you’re very good at what you do. I’m sure you make decent money off exploiting lonely people who have more dollars than common sense. I’m sure you sleep just fine at night knowing you helped stupid people find whatever false version of happiness they might be up for at the moment. I’m not buying into it. So, ask me whatever questions you have left. Ask me what my hopes and dreams are. Ask me what my goals are. Ask me what fruit I’d be if I could be one. Go ahead, but the same thing is always going to be true. All of your questions are pointless, and when you ask a pointless question, you get a pointless answer.”