Chapter 13 – Catalina #2
"Wait. This guy's located in Nashville?" He looks surprised by that, and a small part of me feels guilty, which makes no sense because I don't owe him anything. We agreed. He agreed. It was one time, and we were both very clear about what’s at risk for me. It can’t happen again. I left. I stood in the hallway. He didn’t follow me.
"Yeah."
His brows rise, thick and expressive, doing something complicated that I can't quite read. "So, you used me to get to Nashville for your date?”
I roll my eyes. "June told me to select the city I was going to be in next, so I put in Nashville since that's where we're headed." I pause. "That's just geography. That's not—I didn't plan this around you."
"Sure."
"Jensen."
He smiles. "I'm going to tell Grandma that you used her grandson," he says. There’s teasing in his tone now, but something underlying that tells me maybe he isn’t as cool with this as he’s pretending to be.
"Please don't tell your grandma. I haven't even met the woman yet. I'd like her to have a neutral opinion of me before I walk through her door."
He laughs, shaking his head a little. "So, where are you two going?"
"Some bar he likes. Boots and Bevvies, I think."
He stares at the seat back in front of him for a beat too long. I watch him do it and wait for him to say something. He offers up nothing.
"What?" I ask. "Is it any good?"
"It's fine. Good music. Gets loud on weekends." He pauses. "So, Brock?"
I nod. “Yeah.”
"Brock," he repeats, like he's filing it away for later.
"He seems normal. I sent his profile to June to vet right after we matched.”
"June also set you up with a dating profile at eleven o'clock at night after two glasses of wine," he says. "Her vetting process might need some peer review."
That's fair. I don't say that.
There's something in his expression that I don’t understand. I can't read what he’s thinking. There’s something sitting just behind his smile that's a little too tight for the usually loose-limbed, unbothered guy who rides bulls for a living. I notice it, but I’m not sure what to do about it.
I don't know what I expected. We both agreed it was one time.
He said it first or maybe I did. The sequence is blurring now and the agreement made sense then and it still makes sense now.
We work together. I'm technically his doctor.
We're wildly incompatible by every measurable metric I care about.
The fact that I haven't fully stopped thinking about it since Denver is just residual chemistry left behind from the first good orgasm I’ve had in years. That's biology, not meaning.
You simply can’t make decisions based on how well a guy eats pussy. Plus, it’s not like Jensen wants to date me anyway.
"Well," I say, because the silence is starting to feel loaded, "I'll go after we have dinner with your grandma. She shouldn't mind, right?"
I don't ask if he minds. Because he shouldn't. And because I'm a little afraid of what his face might do if I ask him directly.
"She goes to bed by seven," he says. "We can leave after."
I blink. "We?"
He settles back into his seat like he owns the entire row, his good arm is stretched wide behind the headrest, hovering just behind my shoulders without quite touching. His eyes close. Jaw easy. Like he's already decided, and the conversation is over.
"That's right. We can go."
I stare at him. He doesn't move. Doesn't open his eyes.
Doesn't offer a single justification for what he just said, just lets it sit there in the recycled cabin air between us like it's perfectly reasonable.
His lashes are dark against his cheeks and there's the smallest curve of a smile at the corner of his mouth, like he's keeping something tucked behind it that he'd rather I didn't see.
I should say no. I should point out that bringing your one-night stand to watch you go on a first date with a stranger is not a normal thing people do and reflects poorly on my judgment, which is already taking enough of a beating this week.
Instead, the most surprising thing happens to me. Relief floods my chest.
Which is ridiculous. I'm a grown woman with advanced degrees and a functional sense of self-preservation. I don't need a chaperone for a date. But it is my first real date with a stranger, if you don't count the drinks in Austin with Jensen, which I'm not counting because that was professional.
And if Brock turns out to be boring or strange or the kind of man who talks about himself for forty minutes without pausing to breathe, I have absolutely no mechanism for extracting myself politely.
The two strategies I tried with Jensen—boring him and telling him to go away—failed spectacularly, and he at least found them amusing.
Maybe there's something to be said for having a familiar face nearby watching.
A contingency. Someone who already knows I'm not great at this and won't be surprised when it shows.
"Okay," I say softly to myself.
Jensen hears it. The corner of his mouth lifts into a full smile, though his eyes don’t open.
"Okay, Doc."
He doesn't say anything else. Neither do I. Outside the window, Tennessee is somewhere below the clouds, getting closer.
I’m about to go on a date with a man I don’t know while Jensen watches.