20. Sean
TWENTY
SEAN
I scheduled my date with Astrid at the Four Cups Café on Saturday around noon. Mikey was at Aaron’s house, and I liked the idea of having an out in case the date went sideways. I trusted Lizzie’s taste, but my heart wasn’t exactly in it. I figured I could go on this date and go through the motions, and if nothing came of it, drop the whole endeavor.
Astrid blew through the door wearing a bright orange pea coat over a low-cut brown dress, with her hair bouncing in ringlets around her face. Her gaze cut to mine immediately, and an interested sparkle lit her eyes. She’d told me she’d be wearing orange when we’d set up the date, so I knew it was her.
“Hello, stranger,” she said.
I wasn’t sure if she was trying to be funny or seductive, so I settled on an easy smile and thanked my past self for scheduling this date at a coffee shop. Easy to escape. “You must be Astrid.” I stood and shook her hand. Her grip was a little limp, and she batted her eyelashes at me like she had a piece of dust stuck under her eyelid.
“Lizzie was telling the truth. You. Are. Delicious .”
“Um.” I cleared my throat. “Can I get you a coffee?”
“Only if I get to drink you later.”
We stared at each other. Maybe I could leave now, before things got worse.
Then she smiled. “I’ll have a strong cappuccino. I have a feeling I need to get my energy up.” She wiggled her eyebrows.
I pushed my chair back to stand, then paused. Bad innuendo was one thing. Could I handle it for the length of time it would take to finish a coffee? “Listen, I feel like I need to say something.”
Astrid leaned forward, her arms pressing her breasts together to show off the valley of her cleavage. “You can tell me anything.” She winked. “Made you look.”
“I’m, ah—” I jerked my gaze up at her face. “I’m not sure we’re really on the same page here.”
She tilted her head. Dirty-blond curls fell off her shoulder as she blinked big blue eyes at me. “What do you mean?”
“I’m more of a take-it-slow kind of guy,” I admitted, which I wasn’t entirely sure was the truth but definitely seemed like something I needed to say.
“Yummy.” She leaned back and brushed her finger across her collarbones. “Don’t mind a man who knows how to take things slow.” Then she arched her brows at me. “So? Cappuccino?”
“Right.” I stood. “Give me a sec.”
In the few minutes it took me to order and pay, I tried to shake the fuzz out of my head. Lizzie thought this woman was a good fit for me? I glanced over my shoulder and caught Astrid glancing at me. She gave me a coy smile and blew me a kiss.
Lord. I waited by the counter for the barista to finish up, just to give myself a few more minutes before I had to sit down again. I should’ve gotten my coffee in a to-go cup.
By the time I dropped Astrid’s cappuccino on the table, I’d braced myself—and come up with a plan of attack.
“So you teach at the school?”
“Sure do, big guy.” She smiled. “Art—because I like to get messy.”
I blinked and cleared my throat. “Right. That’s nice. You like kids?”
“I’d much rather talk about you.” She took a sip of her cappuccino and licked the foam off her top lip, holding my gaze the whole time.
My stomach churned, and I frowned. “What exactly did Lizzie tell you about me?”
“Tall, gorgeous, single. She said you liked to work with your hands.”
I did my best to ignore the suggestive tone of her voice and nodded. “I work as a carpenter with Grant Greene. You know him? His wife co-owns this coffee shop, actually.”
“Sure.” She did the foam licking thing again. “What about me? Hope Lizzie didn’t tell you any crazy stories from my younger years.”
“Um,” I started, “no. She said you were her daughter’s director for the school play. I wasn’t aware you knew each other from before.”
“Oh, we don’t,” she said. “But sometimes these stories make the rounds, you know?”
There was absolutely no way I was asking for any details whatsoever about Astrid’s stories of her misspent youth. I needed to get out of here, because my interest in the woman across the table from me was so low it was subterranean. But I was aware that she was a teacher at Mikey’s school, so I had to tread carefully. I’d learned how easily teachers and administrators judged single fathers, how the PTA moms were quick to spread rumors. Extricating myself from this situation would require some delicacy.
“Do you enjoy teaching?”
Astrid nodded. Her face was all angles; it had none of the softness that Lizzie had. She wasn’t a bad-looking woman, but I was so put off by her first impression that it was hard for me to see anything attractive about her. “I love my job,” she said, “but I don’t really want to talk about that right now.”
“Oh?”
She leaned forward. “I’d much rather talk about what you and I should do once we finish our coffees.”
“I, uh, have to pick up my son, actually. So I’m not…free.”
A pout tugged at her bottom lip. “Shame.”
“I know,” I replied, then spread my palms. “Life of a dad, huh.”
“Well, there’s always next time.”
I cleared my throat and racked my brain for something to say, then glanced up at the eclectic artwork for sale on the café walls and asked Astrid for detailed opinions on all the pieces we could see. When my coffee was empty, I checked my watch and made my excuses.
Fifteen minutes later, I pulled up outside Aaron’s house to see Lizzie climbing out of her car in the driveway. She turned toward me and waved, a broad smile on her lips. Her kids were already sprinting toward their uncle’s front door, and I watched them disappear inside as I got out of my truck.
“Back so soon? How did it go?”
“What did you tell that woman about me?” I asked, leaning against the driver door and crossing my arms.
Lizzie wore a fuzzy pink hat that was somewhere between a beanie and a beret. She pushed it up her forehead and blinked at me. “What do you mean?”
“The woman was relentless. I think she was expecting me to bend her over the café tables right then and there.”
Wide brown eyes stared back at me. “What? Really?”
“She sat down and told me you were right, and I was delicious.” I wiggled my eyebrows for emphasis.
Lizzie clapped her hand over her mouth and giggled, and despite myself, I found my lips tugging up at the corners. The tension from the date drained out of me, and I finally shed that panicky feeling of needing to get away.
“I can’t believe that,” she said.
“Did you tell her I was delicious?”
“Now how would I know something like that?” Her eyes sparkled in the cool December air, that irresistible witchy smile tugging at the edge of her lips.
I could kiss her when she looked at me like that. Feel her part those plush pink lips and let me in. Taste her right back and find out if she was as delicious as she looked.
“I’ll admit, Astrid was a bit of a wildcard,” Lizzie said. “After Laurel, I thought maybe I’d misread you.”
“I’m starting to think you might be illiterate when it comes to my taste in women, Lizzie.”
“Hey, now. I’m under pressure here. You haven’t given me anything to work with other than wanting someone that no one else thinks is hot.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“No? What did you say, then?”
“I said I wanted to get to know a woman who made me feel like I was uncovering her secrets. Discovering her. Not someone who says she likes art because she enjoys getting messy.”
Lizzie rolled her lips inward to keep from laughing.
“She also told me she wanted a strong coffee to get her energy up so she could drink me down later.”
A gasp slipped through those lips I kept staring at, and Lizzie clapped a hand over her mouth again. “No.”
“Yes.”
“She’s an elementary school teacher!”
“She’s a sexual deviant. Or she might as well be. I’ve never seen anyone lay it on so thick.”
A snort escaped Lizzie, and I finally began to laugh. I loved when she snorted like that, when her giggles became too much to contain. She made me feel all fizzy inside. Even the memory of that disastrous date faded into something I wanted to share with her, just to make her laugh.
The front door opened, and Aaron appeared in the doorway. He waved at us. “That was quick!”
“Oh for two,” Lizzie called back.
“You’re losing your touch,” Aaron replied.
“No way,” Lizzie protested. “I can do this. I’m good at this! Matchmaking is one of my special skills.”
“What other special skills do you have?” The question just…slipped out of me. I hadn’t meant to sound so raspy.
Lizzie glanced over her shoulder at me and narrowed her eyes. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Yes, yes I would.
“Come inside,” Aaron called out. “Game’s on. Lizzie, the kids are in the family room if you want to check on them.”
As I glanced at her profile, I saw Lizzie’s smile freeze, then brighten artificially. “Sure!” She set off toward the house, and I had no choice but to follow.