23. Lizzie
TWENTY-THREE
LIZZIE
I met Sean for lunch on Tuesday, and I came prepared. The Four Cups Café was bustling with people who chatted and laughed over drinks, pastries, and sandwiches, the scent in the air a rich aroma of coffee, spices, and sugar. I sat at a small square table and pulled out the notepad and phone where I’d prepared more extensive questions for him.
He walked in wearing his quilted tan work jacket, jeans, and work boots. His cheeks were red from the chill in the air, and more than a few heads turned in his direction. My heart gave a leap when his eyes landed on me, and I steeled myself against the force of my attraction.
Yes, he was a beautiful man. No, I couldn’t have him for myself. Repeating those thoughts like a chant was the best I could do when faced with the power of his presence.
The more attracted I felt to him, the more determined I became to set him up with someone else. I was the family matchmaker, and I would not fail. If I didn’t put in a full effort, maybe someone would guess that every time he grinned at me, I felt like fainting. I wouldn’t be able to stand the mortification of it. Poor Lizzie , they would think. She really thinks she has a chance with him.
So when Sean pulled out a chair across from me and dropped into it, I gave him a determined smile.
“I have a plan,” I announced.
“Uh-oh.” He pulled the black beanie off his head to reveal his short-cropped hair, his long fingers curling around the knit fabric as he stuffed the hat in his pocket. He had very nice hands. A man’s hands, with calluses and broad palms and long fingers and?—
His hands were irrelevant. I uncapped my pen.
“Laurel was a good match on paper in terms of shared hobbies, but there was no spark. Astrid turned out to want something a bit more, uh, explosive than what we’d anticipated. We’re looking for someone who’s in between. Someone just right.”
“My Goldilocks.”
I smiled. “Exactly. On that note. Physical preferences. Ethnicity? Hair? Eye color? Build?”
Sean shrugged. “Like I said before. It depends.”
“I’d really like you to dig deep,” I said, leaning forward. “There must be something you’re attracted to more often than not.”
“Curves,” he blurted, then cleared his throat. His cheeks went faintly pink, and he glanced toward the counter as if he were reading the menu. “I like a woman with a little something extra. Something to grab.” His hands made a clenching motion before smoothing out over his thighs.
I blinked at his profile, surprised and a little turned on, which was ridiculous. “Oh. I see.”
“What do you want to eat?”
I plucked one of the menus from the edge of the table and pointed to one of the soup combos. Tomato basil soup with a grilled cheese on the side. “Comfort food,” I explained.
He nodded and stood, shedding his jacket as he did. I ogled. I know; it was wrong. I should have looked away, but I just couldn’t. He stripped that Carhartt jacket off and revealed a fitted polo shirt with Grant’s company logo on the breast. The sleeves hit him at mid-bicep, so I got a nice view of the shape of his arms as he dropped the jacket on the back of his chair. The fabric wrinkled over his flat stomach before he pulled it down, covering the little strip of skin that had been exposed by his movements.
When he turned toward the counter and walked away, I stared at his ass.
“Girl, you’ll want to roll that tongue back into your mouth before he catches you,” a voice murmured behind me.
I turned to see a redheaded woman a little older than me clearing the table at my back. I was pretty sure she was one of the women who’d owned the place since it opened a few years back. My blush was hot on my cheeks. “I, um. Yeah. Right.”
She laughed and winked at me. “Not that I blame you. He’s Grant’s new guy, right? Fiona—Grant’s wife—told me he’s been a godsend.”
“Well that’s wonderful,” I managed, forcing a smile as I did.
“Grant didn’t mention he looked like that , though.” She laughed, picked up her bin full of dishes, and sauntered off.
I let out a heavy sigh and shook my head. If a stranger could tell I was leering at Sean, it had to be written all over my face. I needed to pull myself together, or I’d be a laughingstock. Sean Hardy was not for me. Sure, he said he liked curvy women, but when men said that they usually meant a huge rack and a tight rump with an itty bitty nipped-in waist. That was not me. Never would be.
By the time Sean came back, I had my pen poised over my pad and had written the word “curves” as my first bullet point.
“So. I was thinking about this after your date with Astrid, and I’d like to approach this in a different way.”
“Okay,” Sean replied, sounding unsure. He leaned back in his chair, and his foot nudged mine. Neither of us moved away, and my heart definitely should not have thumped as hard as it did.
Focus .
“Tell me about your ideal day,” I said, starting another bullet point.
When I looked up, Sean’s brows were raised. “My ideal day?”
“Yeah. What would be the perfect day to you? Start to finish.”
“With a woman?”
“If your perfect day includes a woman, then yes.”
Sean rubbed his finger over his chin as his eyes took on a faraway look. I waited, watching the way his fingers flexed and curled, and reminded myself that another woman would feel those hands on her body, and that was the way things were meant to be.
I had a full, beautiful life, and I didn’t want to embarrass myself by asking for things that could never be mine. I’d learned my lesson with Isaac. With my family. With every year that went by.
“I wake up without an alarm,” Sean finally replied, “in a comfortable bed, with the sun streaming through the windows. It’s early, and I can hear the birds outside. My partner is beside me, and we take our time getting up. Coffee, breakfast. There’d be time for us to do things as a family, whether it’s a walk or a sport or just making a meal together. In the evening, we might have friends over—a barbecue. Lots of laughs. After everyone left and Mikey was asleep, we’d spend some time together, just the two of us. Slow and easy and quiet.”
My heart clenched. His vision of a perfect day sounded so peaceful and simple, and so close to what I wanted for myself. “And how does she make you feel?”
Sean’s gaze flicked over to mine. His knee shifted to touch the edge of my thigh, then moved away. “She’d make me feel like there was nowhere else I’d rather be. She’d feel like home.”
I dropped my gaze to my sheet of paper and tried to swallow past the lump in my throat. “So your ideal woman is someone who likes a slow pace to life, who appreciates life’s small pleasures. Someone who enjoys a lot of downtime but isn’t opposed to entertaining and being active.”
“When you put it like that, it’s no wonder Melody and I got divorced. She’s pretty much the opposite.”
I huffed a laugh and jotted down a few notes. My heart ached, and I felt silly for it. I would’ve loved to find a man who made me feel at home. My marriage to Isaac had been fraught with stress and effort. We hadn’t had many slow, easy mornings and evenings?—
Well. He’d had slow and easy mornings and evenings. I’d spent that time making sure the house didn’t fall apart.
“I’d also like someone I can spoil.”
I looked up.
Sean looked a little bashful when he continued, “Not necessarily with lavish gifts and vacations, but I like to do things for people. Small things.”
“Like the stuffing,” I blurted before I could stop myself.
His eyes were soft when they met mine. “Yeah. I’d like to find someone who appreciates things like that. With my ex…” He gulped and ran his hand over his hair, then down to the nape of his neck where he rubbed softly for a few moments as if to soothe himself. “With Melody, I felt taken for granted. I don’t think she cared about the fact that I made sure the coffee machine was prepped for her on a timer so she’d wake up to a hot cup, or how I’d—” He cut himself off. “It doesn’t matter. She just didn’t see those things I did, or if she saw them, she didn’t let me know that she appreciated them. If I were to describe my perfect woman, it would be someone who would appreciate that side of me, and maybe…maybe reciprocate as well.”
He stopped talking abruptly and shifted in his seat, as if his admission made him uncomfortable. Before I could stop myself, I reached across the table and put my hand over his, squeezing softly.
“It’s not unreasonable to want to feel appreciated by your partner, Sean.”
He snorted. “Yeah. I haven’t thought about this stuff before. I thought we got divorced because of the infidelity, but maybe there was more to it than that.”
“There usually is.”
“You must think I’m pathetic, saying all this to you.”
I ran my thumb along the tops of his fingers and shook my head. “Not even a little bit.”
When he shifted his hand against mine, I should have pulled away. But he slid his palm forward and caught my fingers with his, and it felt so good to be touched like that, so soft and gentle, that I couldn’t bring myself to stop it.
“I never felt like a priority in my marriage either,” I heard myself say. In some corner of my brain, I cursed myself for the confession. This lunch meeting wasn’t about me. I shouldn’t have been holding hands and telling him my deepest secrets. I was supposed to find him a date. Someone who would share his perfect days. Someone who would fit beside him, who wouldn’t make strangers wonder why a guy like him would be with a woman like her.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Sean said, a corner of his lips tilting. “You’re a giver. Selfish people take advantage of people like you.”
“That’s a very nice way of saying doormat and people pleaser,” I answered with a wry smile, finally pulling my hand away.
“Don’t do that, Lizzie. Don’t put yourself down.”
I opened my mouth to answer, but our food arrived. I sat back and smiled at the teenage waitress, then inhaled the aroma of my soup and extra-cheesy grilled cheese. Sean had ordered an enormous sandwich for himself. We commented on how good the food looked, and after a bite or two, talked about how good it tasted. I used those moments to walk myself back from the ledge and remember why I was here.
I dipped the corner of my grilled cheese into my soup and said, “I think I know who might be a good fit for you.”
Sean chewed his sandwich and watched me. When he’d swallowed, he said, “Is that right?”
“Uh-huh. She’s a mom.”
“Okay.”
“She’s really easygoing. Her divorce was really contentious, but I think she’s ready to start dating again.”
Interest sparked in his eyes, and a little part of me died. Sean said, “Oh yeah?”
I ripped into my grilled cheese with my teeth to hide my disappointment, and I nodded. “Cindy Reynolds,” I told him. “You’ll love her.”
His shoulders dropped slightly, and an emotion flashed across his face. Disappointment? It was too fast for me to read. He gave me an encouraging smile. All he said was, “Why not?”