Say You'll Remember Me(6)

I handed her the kitten, took the airline health certificate she brought for me to fill out, and I left.

I saw Tina in the back. “She needs a prescription for gabapentin and proof of vaccinations. I’ll fill out the health certificate before I leave.”

I was talking to Tina but looking through the tablet for Samantha’s number.

“Oh my God, he’s smiling,” Tina said.

My head jerked up. “What?”

She was looking at me with wide eyes. “You’re smiling.”

“He is smiling.” Maggie’s mouth was open. “Is it her? Do you like her??”

I didn’t get to answer. Tina gasped and started bouncing. “He likes her!”

“Stop it. No I don’t.”

Maggie made a circling motion with her finger. “Yeeeessss you dooo! We can tell.”

I stared at both of them flatly. Then I turned toward my office and shut the door. I stood in front of my desk and wiped a hand down my mouth.

I felt bad that I said I didn’t like her. It wasn’t true.

I came back out.

“I do like her. We’re going on a date tonight. I don’t want to hear anything else about it, it’s not a big deal.”

Apparently it was a big deal. They started screaming.

“This isn’t my first date,” I said defensively.

“Oh, we know,” Maggie said, beaming. “But this one is different.”

“Why?”

“She called you an asshole.”

I snorted.

“Normally I would tell you not to be all scary and serious, but I think she’s into it,” Tina said.

“Thank you, but I do not need your advice. I do not exactly have a difficult time finding people to go out with me,” I said.

I didn’t. I don’t know why they were so excited.

“You go on dates with a very specific kind of woman,” Maggie said.

“Do I,” I said, unamused.

“Your girls are always A-type personalities,” Maggie said. “They’re all Ivy League grads with perfect clothes and zero sense of humor. You’re intense and brooding and she’s always mad and texting furiously into her phone because she’s a CEO or a lawyer or something with a super tight bun—”

“Yeah! The bun!” Tina said. “They always have the bun!”

“The last one did not wear a bun,” I said, annoyed.

“No. But she had bun energy,” Tina said.

“You need someone who will argue with you,” Maggie said. “And loosen you up.”

“Someone nice but not like, too nice,” Tina said. “You’re too scary for too nice.”

I scoffed. “I am not scary.”

Both women looked at me with their awwww, bless your heart faces.

“You don’t smile a lot, sweetie,” Maggie said.

“Also, you’re very tall,” Tina said. “You can’t frown and also be tall. It’s intimidating.”

“Where are you gonna take her?” Maggie asked.

“It should be a public place,” Tina said. “You’re too big and frowny to take her somewhere secluded on the first date.”

I gave her a look. “Is my face really this much of a problem?”

They both sucked air through their teeth.

“Sort of?” Tina said. “Like, conceptually it’s fine? In a romance novel you’d be an alpha-male vampire,” Tina said, matter-of-factly. “That’s really good.”

“A werewolf,” Maggie corrected. “He’s sort of growly.”

“A werewolf,” I deadpanned.

“No…” Tina said to Maggie, not to me. She paused dramatically. “Rhysand.”

Maggie gasped. “Yessssssss! Because he’s all cold and handsome and dangerous looking.”

“He even looks like him. Like if Rhys were human?” Tina said.

“Oh my God, totally,” Maggie said.

They kept going on about it and I watched them, highly unamused.

“While you two figure out which fictional monster I am, I’m going to get back to work.” I gave them a pointed glance. “It’d be nice if you also resumed working at some point.”

They continued on, talking about faeries with bat wings.

I retreated to the office again before they could ask me any more questions, and I started second-guessing my plan of where I wanted to take Samantha.

It didn’t help. Then I second-guessed my second-guesses.

Usually I made choices quickly and confidently, and they tended to be the right ones. But for some reason with this, I wasn’t sure.

I don’t know why, but I felt like I was only going to get one shot with Samantha. The shot felt important. Maybe because the entire date was a second chance to begin with?

And what did they mean I don’t smile? I smile.

I looked up over the desk at a photo Maggie had framed of the three of us at the grand opening of the clinic two years ago. One of the happiest days of my life.

Okay, maybe I didn’t smile.

I should work on that.

I blew a breath through my nose. Then I called Jesse’s girlfriend, Becca. She answered on the second ring. She sounded like she was in a drive-through—a muffled voice was telling her to pull forward to the next window.