Chapter 2
grayson
Enthralled. That’s the only word I can think of to describe what I’m feeling toward this woman. With every word that comes out of her mouth, with every obscure nineties hip hop reference she makes, with every curve of her red lips, the more I’m taken with Kat.
I mean, the woman looks like a fifties pin-up girl, is wearing a cheesy Christmas sweater, and just got done giving me a quick TedTalk on A Tribe Called Quest.
I think I’m in love.
Which is a crazy thought to have since I didn’t come here looking for love.
No, when Hazel told me yesterday during my presentation that they were having a test event for their new venture, Quiz and Cupid, I knew I had to come.
My thought was that I’d show Hazel that I was willing to go the extra mile if she’d hire me, and the company I work for, Sterling Strategies, for her media and publicity needs.
But meeting Kat? Safe to say this was a very pleasant, and unexpected, surprise.
“Have you ever done anything like this before?” I ask, suddenly realizing that our time is almost up for our speed date.
“Speed dating?” she asks, but is also already shaking her head. “No. It’s not really my scene.”
“Me neither,” I say, wanting to keep this honest, but also not wanting to tell her that my initial reason for coming here was to impress my hopeful future client. “So what made you want to come tonight?”
The side of her lip twitches up, and I swear I see a little light in her eye. “Honestly? The trivia.”
“A woman after my own heart,” I say honestly. The concept of combining speed dating along with a popular concept like bar trivia was the reason why I wanted to pitch to Left for Love in the first place. Because when it comes to bar trivia, I don’t lose.
That can be said in a lot of areas in my life.
I grew up playing sports and played baseball in college, so that kind of competition has been engrained in me from a young age.
Even now as an adult I feed that part of my soul with softball in the summer, a kickball league, and my new fascination, pickleball.
Don’t knock it. It’s a hell of a workout.
That competitive streak has also spilled over into my career.
I knew when I decided that public relations and media strategy was the career for me it would mean that I always had to be on.
Play to win. Have the best ideas. The best concepts.
And for a competitive guy like me, that was right up my alley.
And I do win. Well, ninety-nine percent of the time. Recently I’ve been in a slump, but that’s just because of a new woman in town who keeps somehow beating me.
Katherine Smith. If I didn’t know any better, it would sound like a witness protection alias.
I’ve tried to do some digging on her, but she doesn’t have a resumé on LinkedIn and from what I’ve gathered is an independent contractor.
The only reason I even know her name is because a friend of mine told me.
He works for a bank that was going through a crisis—a bank whose account I thought I had in the bag.
When I called to see if he could get me any info on who they went with, all he knew was that Katherine Smith came out of nowhere and blew the decision-makers away.
That was the second account I didn’t get. There was one more after that. And I have a feeling she’s the reason behind all of them.
But that ends tonight. I don’t know if she pitched to Left for Love, but I doubt anyone else would go above and beyond like this to secure an account. And if I get this job and meet a beautiful woman in the process? That’s just icing on the cake.
“Is that so?” she says as she leans in a little closer. “I should warn you, I’m pretty competitive.”
The nearness allows me to get a whiff of her perfume. I think every woman I’ve ever been with has worn something sweet or floral. Not Kat. No, this is warmer. Sensual. A hint of vanilla.
I was enthralled before. Now I’m fully under her spell.
“It is. And so am I.” I push the tablet aside so I can lean a little closer to her. “I know the organizer said that she used our speed-dating rankings to team people up for trivia. How about we rig the system? Get the guaranteed win.”
Her smile is big and full of playfulness. “Well, you’re the only one I’ve put down that I’d like to see again. How’s that for rigging the system?”
“Funny, I did the same thing.”
“Which means we’re going to be paired up.”
Now it’s my turn to smile. “No systems to rig.”
“Just you and me, beating the hell out of everyone else.”
We sit there quietly for a second, a shared look between us that I feel throughout my body.
I date plenty. Sometimes seriously, others for a short time before the vibe ends. But it’s been a while, maybe ever, that I’ve felt this kind of pull to a woman just minutes after meeting her.
Thank you, Hazel…
I stand up and hold my hand out for her. “Want to get a drink first?”
She puts hers in mine, a spark shooting through us. “Sounds good. How about an old fashioned?”
Yup. I’m going to marry this woman.
“Okay, daters! You’re now matched up for the trivia portion of the night,” Hazel announces as someone comes around and lays pencils and sheets of paper on our tables. “First thing you’re going to do is come up with a team name. Keep it clean, but have fun with it.”
“Well, that’s no fun,” Kat pouts. “The best part of trivia nights is double-entendre’d team names.”
I laugh, knowing exactly what she means. “I think the best one I ever did was My Dixie’s Normous. This is what you get for taking a bunch of business guys and letting them loose at trivia night.”
“That’s good. Though, my go-to is Fact Me Harder.”
Oh, that’s good. Punny. Subtle. A little dirty. “That’s really good.”
“Why, thank you.”
She takes a little bow, and I don’t know why it makes me smile. Everything she’s doing is making me smile like a fool.
“So what are we thinking?” I ask. “I feel like ‘Winners’ is too spot on.”
“For sure,” she says as she puts the end of the pencil next to her lips. Fuck, those red lips are going to haunt me in my dreams. “Should be a pun, obviously, but with a Christmas twist?”
“Definitely,” I say. “Bad Elves?”
“Maybe,” she taps her manicured nail to her chin. “We can do dirty, right?”
“I think it’s encouraged.”
The smile on her face is not just devilish, it’s full-on naughty. “Claus Deep.”
It takes a second for me to connect the pun, but once I do, I nearly spit out my drink.
“What?” she says innocently. “Hazel told us to keep it clean. It’s technically clean.”
“Yes, she did…”
Though clean is the last word I’d use to describe the thoughts I’m having right now.
Maybe it’s because we’re now sitting next to each other.
Maybe it’s because that perfume is clouding my brain.
Or possibly because every time she smiles, it’s a combination of flirty, sexy, and smart, and it’s getting me going in the best possible way.
“So, are you from here?”
She laughs under her breath as she sets down the marker after writing our names down on the white board mounted at our table. “Is this the point of the night when we get to know each other, since we skipped over that during our speed date?”
“Don’t get me wrong, I’ll talk for seven minutes about music any day. But if we’re going to be trivia partners, and if I’m going to take you out to dinner this weekend, I figure we should get the boring first-date questions out of the way.”
“You’re that sure I’d say yes to a dinner date?”
She raises her eyebrow, but not in a confused way. No, the look in this woman’s eye just told me everything I was pretty sure I already knew—that she’s going to go toe-to-toe with me in every aspect of tonight.
I fucking love it.
“Yes, dinner’s easy. It’s just a meal and a conversation.” I lean in closer to her, needing to whisper this next part. “Now breakfast? That’s the meal you need to work for.”
I don’t know if my words take her by surprise. If they do, she doesn’t show it. No, she just puts back on that flirtatious smile and answers my original question.
“No, I moved here a year ago from Los Angeles.”
“Another Nashville transplant,” I joke. “Don't worry, so am I.”
“I didn’t know there were so many of us,” she says. “Is there a club I need to join?”
“Nah. It’s just a badge of honor we wear that pisses off the locals. Especially when they find out I’m from Connecticut.”
She covers her heart and feigns a mocking shock. “Why, I do declare. A Yankee? In Nashville?”
It’s really unfair that she’s beautiful, has impeccable music taste, and funny. I don’t stand a fucking chance of not falling for this woman. “You know, for not being from the South, you do that accent pretty well.”
She takes a small bow. “In my short time here, I’ve become enmeshed with my fair share of born-and-bred Tennesseans. I’ve picked up a few things along the way.”
“And they don’t give you shit for being from California?”
She shakes her head. “Not this group. I’ve been really lucky to meet some amazing people. I was hesitant to move here, but they made me feel welcomed.”
“Did you come here for work?”
She nods, but doesn’t elaborate. “You?”
“Same,” I say. “My company has offices in New York, which is where I started as an underling. But three years ago, I got promoted, which came with a move here. And I figured, why not? I was still in my twenties. I’d never lived outside of the Northeast before, so if I was ever going to move, that was the time. ”
“I get it,” she says. “We’re only young once.”
“Cheers to that,” I say as we each raise our drinks in a toast. “To transplants and unexpected meetings.”
She smiles as she taps her glass against mine. “To winning trivia and hopefully more.”
We share a look and a smile as we take sips of our drinks. I want to keep getting to know her—what she does, more of her interests. Really, wherever the conversation will go, but when we set our drinks down, the emcee gets on the mic to start going over the directions for the game.