Chapter 7
EDEN
“At the riskof sounding overly optimistic, holy crap, things are going pretty freaking well.”
Danny smiles at me from the other end of the couch. “I mean, as your star Dream Guy, I definitely agree.”
My apartment living room has become the unofficial meeting spot after Dream Guy dates. In addition to Danny, I recruited my friends Jamie and Ian as Dream Guys. They’ve been hits on the app too, garnering rave reviews from their dates. Over the past month since Dream Guy launched, we’ve developed a routine. Danny, Jamie, and Ian contact me after their dates end to go over how they went. Jamie and Ian sometimes come over for an in-person chat, but more often than not, they call due to their busy schedules. Danny, however, has made it a point to come over to my place after his dates for in-person meetings. We check the online reviews he and the app receive, then review all the date requests he gets. Danny has a near-perfect rating from all his clients—the highest rating out of all the Dream Guys—and the app has a stellar 4.9 out of 5 stars rating online.
Danny is becoming such a popular Dream Guy that he’s booked most evenings and weekends—pretty much all the time he’s not spending teaching, he’s working as a Dream Guy.
I dart to the kitchen to refill my tea mug and plop back down on the couch. “So, how did the date with Chloe go?”
“Really well. Standard work event. It was a formal dinner at Le Pigeon. Her law firm rented the whole place out.”
“Wow. Fancy.”
“It definitely was. I felt so out of place.”
He loosens the silver tie he’s wearing and undoes the top two buttons on his crisp, white dress shirt. I try not to gawk for more than three seconds before averting my gaze to my tea mug. Danny is hot when wearing just jeans and a t-shirt, and a freaking nuclear explosion when he’s decked out in a suit.
For a split second, I feel like a creep. Wait—is it creepy to think about the attractiveness of my work colleague? Maybe? I think about my bartending job, which I’ve been working at less and less now that the Dream Guy app has been doing so well and demanding more of my time. I definitely notice when there’s a good-looking guy working the same shift as me or if a cute customer walks in, but that’s it. I don’t devote any more brain space to the thought. And I definitely think Jamie and Ian are handsome guys. They’ve been my friends for years and I’ve always been aware of how good-looking they are. So it’s probably normal that I’m noticing how attractive Danny is.
Still, though, something hits differently about him…
Never mind that. We have actual business to take care of.
“No way in a million years you could ever look out of place in that suit,” I gesture in his general direction while pretending to fixate on my laptop screen.
He chuckles a “thanks” before taking a swig from his glass of water.
“Jamie made a special request for casual or outdoorsy dates only, so you might be relegated to suit and tux duty for the foreseeable future,” I tease.
“Jamie’s not a fan of dressing up?”
I laugh. “No way.” I tell Danny how I met Jamie on a camping and hiking trip through the Cascades in Oregon and became friends when we both found out we were from Portland. “That guy would live in the wilderness if he could. He loves everything to do with the outdoors. He’s been a hit with users on Dream Guy who want a gruff, outdoorsy, mountain man type.”
Most of Jamie’s date requests are from women who enjoy hiking, camping, or other outdoor activities, but are worried about going into the wilderness alone. There’s the danger of getting hurt in the woods or the mountains and not having someone there to help. But it’s also the unfortunate reality of being targeted because they’re a woman alone in a remote place.
Jamie is the perfect solution though. For starters, he’s huge—hardly anyone would dare mess with nearly six-foot-four-inches of solid muscle who looks like a demon when he scowls. But on the inside, he’s a softie who loves meeting new people while exploring the wilderness.
Plus, he’s a volunteer firefighter and is CPR- and first aid-certified, so he’s the perfect person to have with you on a hike or camping trip. And it doesn’t hurt that he looks like a tall, jacked, broody version of Nick Miller from The New Girl.
“Well, I’m definitely not the guy for those adventure dates.” Danny laughs. “I’d be a huge disappointment if a date wanted me to start a fire or fish for their lunch or wrestle a bear. Or grow a beard. This is as good as it gets.”
He runs a hand over the thick golden scruff along his sharp jawline. I try not to stare and drool.
“Good thing you’ve got the suits to fall back on,” I say, hoping he doesn’t notice the hitch in my voice.
“Still, though, in a room full of corporate lawyers, I felt a bit out of place,” Danny says. “Everyone kept talking about contracts and mergers and acquisitions while I nodded along in between bites of caviar.”
I make a face. “Oh my god, you had to eat caviar? Gross.”
He shrugs. “It wasn’t that bad. Very salty, though.”
I see Chloe has already left a five-star review for Danny, along with the Dream Guy app.
“Oh, and look!” I spin my laptop to show it to him.
He smiles, that familiar rosy hue flushing across his stubbled cheeks.
“Clearly, you did an amazing job.”
“All I really did was sit there and chat with Chloe to make her feel comfortable. I can see why she wanted a date. Her entire firm is made up of people in their fifties and sixties who’ve been married for decades. And apparently, every time there’s a work event like that, her coworkers try to set her up with their sons or nephews.”
I groan. “God, that must be so annoying. Good thing you were there to save the day.” I do a quick scan of the multiple requests Danny has coming up. “You’re becoming quite the hot commodity, Danny Darden.”
He laughs, then squints at the laptop screen. His grin fades.
“What is it?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing. Just skimmed a comment on the review.”
I turn the laptop back to me and read the comment.
Too bad Danny’s not available for a real date. Isn’t that what the app advertises? Dream Dates and real dates? Kind of a misleading sell to have one of the only guys you employ on your app available for fake dates only.
I roll my eyes at the comment before glancing up at Danny. “Don’t pay any attention to that. I couldn’t be happier with the work you’re doing for this app. Seriously.”
His frown eases, and he starts to smile. “Thanks, Eden. Maybe if I weren’t still reeling from the most humiliating breakup, I’d be up for an actual date.”
The corners of his mouth turn down. He hasn’t said much about his breakup, and I don’t want to pry—clearly, he doesn’t want to talk about it. But he looks so damn sad. I have to resist the urge to scoot close to him, to hug him, to comfort him. I plant my feet on the floor and rest my hands in my lap. Nope. That’s not why I’m here. We’re colleagues, and colleagues don’t comfort each other in such a physically intimate way.
Instead, I just look at him and hope that my expression comes off as genuinely sincere as I feel. “Forget that comment. Let’s see what you’ve got on the docket for next week.”
He pulls out his phone. I notice how his mouth is curving up now, how his expression looks ten times lighter.
“Tomorrow night, I’m headed to a wedding. The night after that, I’ve got a rehearsal dinner. The day after that is a christening. And then next weekend some charity gala with…”
He squints at his phone screen. “Wait, this is weird. In this date request, the person asked that she meet with me to go over some ground rules. And sign an NDA.”
“That’s bizarre.” I sip from my tea mug.
“Her name is Ava Greer-Adamson. Why does that sound familiar?”
My eyes go wide and I almost choke when I swallow. “Ava Greer-Adamson? Wait, the Ava Greer-Adamson?”
Danny frowns at me, clearly confused.
“Danny, Ava Greer-Adamson is the heiress to GA Athletics and Textiles. They own one of the biggest athleisure wear brands in the country. Plus, like, a dozen other fashion labels and fabric companies. They dressed the athletes on Team USA for the last winter Olympics. Look, I’m wearing their clothes right now.” I gesture to my legs, which are clad in dark gray yoga pants. “Half of my closet is made up of their yoga pants, sweatpants, and hoodies. They’re the most comfortable clothes ever. I can’t…I mean, I…” I shake my head, stammering in disbelief. “They’re billionaires. And Ava is a socialite who lives on social media. She’s got, like, three million followers on Instagram and even more on TikTok.”
“Oh.”
I make a choking sound at how unimpressed he is before spinning to face him. “Okay, I don’t mean to put too much pressure on you, but if you can make sure that you knock that date out of the park, it would honestly mean the world to me.”
Danny laughs. “Yeah, definitely not too much pressure.”
I hold back a squeal. “Sorry, it’s just that this could be huge for us—the app, I mean. And you. If Ava enjoys her date with you, then she’ll probably tell people what a great app Dream Guy is and that could mean even more business for us.”
A hard swallow moves down Danny’s thick, stubbled throat. “Okay, I definitely see the plus in that. But if Ava is as huge as you say she is and she tells people about Dream Guy, I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep up. I’m just one guy. I know you’ve got Ian and Jamie too, but you’re gonna need loads more Dream Guys if Ava has such an impressive reach.”
A wave of nerves and excitement crash inside of me. It feels like butterflies on top of butterflies. This could mean a huge boost for the app. One step at a time, though. “We’ll worry about that later. For now, let’s just make sure that this meeting with Ava goes well and that you give her the best date ever.”