Chapter Two
“What did you think of her?”
Craig had been expecting that question from his sister-in-law all through dinner. “The world is full of hers. You’ll have to be more specific.”
He met his brother’s laughing eyes. They both dropped their gazes to their plates.
Bianca wasn’t amused. “Ada. What did you think of Ada?”
“Oh, that’s who you were talking about.” He held his hands up as he nodded, pretending she’d solved a big mystery for him.
She’d recommended Ada for his house search, but he’d suspected that she had more personal reasons for the suggestion. The woman had been trying to set him up ever since his divorce was finalized.
“How would you like me to rate my impression of her?” Craig asked. “Perhaps on a scale of Gina the dog walker to Hailey the Nordstrom’s makeup counter lady?” Bianca had set him up with so many people.
“I remember Gina the dog walker.” His brother laughed. Gina had been. . . interesting.
“Don’t encourage him, Rob.” Bianca shot her husband a warning glare. “He never gives anyone a chance, but Ada is amazing. Didn’t you think so, Craig?”
He’d liked Ada, really. She was fun. “She’s very good at her job. I think she’ll be able to find exactly what I’m looking for.”
“And what are you looking for?” Bianca’s pitying tone was all too familiar. “I admit that Gina was a miscalculation on my part, but Hailey was great. And there was Teresa. She was. . . pretty great. If I just knew what you’re looking for.”
“I think I know his type.” Rob leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowed, brow pulled low. “Someone shockingly taller than he is. Skyscraper bangs are a must. The fewer teeth, the better.”
Bianca threw a napkin at her husband. “The two of you are impossible.”
Craig was immediately back to biting his smiling lips while staring intently at his plate. He loved it when his brother came around, meddling sister-in-law and all.
“What was wrong with Ada?” Bianca asked.
“When did I say anything was wrong with her?”
“Then you did like her.” Bianca sounded way too excited.
“As much as anyone can like a real estate agent,” he said somberly. He couldn’t resist peeking at her expression— shocked, just as he’d hoped.
“You object to her profession? It’s not like she’s a bank robber or something.”
Good ol’ Rob jumped in. “She’s also not a professional puppy rescuer. So, I’d say there’s room for improvement.”
“You’re both impossible.” Bianca pushed her chair back from the table and stood. She skewered Craig with a look of frustration and pity. “I don’t know why you’re so opposed to dating.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to. I don’t feel the need to. So I’m not desperately clawing around for a girlfriend.”
Bianca huffed. “There’s nothing ‘desperately clawing’ about asking someone out if you think she’s amazing.”
“You said she was amazing,” he reminded her.
“Don’t you think she is? Or at least might be? You should see her again, Craig. You really should.” Bianca was too easy to string along.
“I’m seeing her Friday, actually. Jack will be at his mom’s, so I have the evening free.”
She clapped her hands in excitement. Craig didn’t dare meet his brother’s eyes.
“We’re going to look at a couple more properties,” Craig added casually.
“‘Look at a couple of properties’?” Rob repeated. “Is that code for something? Dinner and a movie? Coffee and dessert?”
“Dog walking?” Craig tossed in.
“So it’s not a date?” Bianca demanded, hands on her hips.
“She’s my real estate agent. Nothing more.”
Another of Bianca’s signature huffs was cut off by the sound of the back door opening.
“Dad! I got ten!” Jack came running in, basketball under his arm. “I totally made ten shots in a row.”
“Up top, little man!” Craig high-fived his son. “Layups or dunks?”
“Daaaaad.” Jack always drew his name out long when he thought Craig was being ridiculous. “I can’t dunk on a regulation hoop. I’m only nine.”
Bianca nudged Jack’s untouched dinner plate closer to him. “Nine or not, you need to eat,” Bianca insisted. “You ran out of here so fast that you’ve hardly eaten anything.”
“Yes, Aunt Bianca.” Jack set his ball on the table and reached for a dinner roll.
“Jack,” Craig warned.
“Sorry, Dad.” He moved the ball to the floor. “There’s only two weeks left of school,” he said to no one in particular. “Then we’re going to go to the beach to watch the seagulls attack tourists. It’s gonna be awesome.”
“Time well spent,” Rob said.
Jack looked over at Craig. “Mom says I need a new swimsuit ’cause mine’s too small.” Breadcrumbs sprayed everywhere as he spoke. They’d need to work on table manners.
“Does she want you to have it before you go to her house this weekend?”
Jack grabbed another roll. “I don’t know.”
“I’ll call her.” He ruffled Jack’s dark hair. “In the meantime, you need to eat and then go do your homework.”
“I want to go shoot some more hoops,” he protested.
“Two more weeks, and you can shoot hoops all summer long.”
“Can I eat while I do my homework?” Jack asked.
Craig nodded. Jack tucked his basketball under one arm, as always, and grabbed his plate of food, then made his way down the hall toward his room.
“How does he feel about the move?” Rob asked.
“He says that as long as there’s a basketball court, he’ll be happy.
” Craig fully intended to find one. He felt bad that his son would be losing his backyard hoop, but the landlord was raising their rent, so he no longer had enough reasons to put off buying his own place.
“And he loves the pool at Carol’s, so I’m looking for that too. ”
“Ada will find something perfect. She’s fantastic.”
“No. You said she’s amazing,” Rob corrected.
“Stop it.” But Bianca laughed. She did have a good sense of humor. Craig and Rob simply knew how to push her buttons, and they enjoyed doing it. “After you ‘look at a couple of places,’ why don’t you get some coffee or something?”
“I don’t like drinking coffee alone,” Craig said.
“You wouldn’t be alone.” Bianca dropped her head into her hand. “You are hopeless.”
“I don’t know about that. Rob is more pathetic than I am, and he didn’t end up as a lonely cat lady living in an abandoned attic. I figure my chances are pretty good.”
Bianca rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why I even try.” She left the kitchen and dropped onto the couch in the living room, just out of earshot.
“She worries about you,” Rob said confidentially. “You and Jack both.”
“I know.”
Rob finished his Coke. “Any chance you’ll take this Realtor of Destiny out, or do I need to brace myself for another night of Ada listing possible love interests for you while I’m trying to watch the eleven o’clock news?”
“You might want to get your news online.” Craig stood, then grabbed his plate. “I’m done dating.”
“But you haven’t dated since the divorce. That’s three years.” Rob brought his plate to the sink, where Craig was rinsing his.
“And, yet, I don’t miss the dating scene.” He did miss it a little, just not enough.
“Could be fun,” Rob said.
“I’m an accountant. How much more fun could my life possibly get?”
“You—”
“Dude. Lay off.”
Rob grinned. “Okay, but if Bianca asks, I grilled you, made a lot of good arguments, and convinced you to at least consider it.”
Craig laughed and shook his head. “Got it.”
“And one more thing—”
Craig muttered something a little colorful under his breath and braced himself.
“If Ada doesn’t catch your interest, Bianca is going to try setting you up with her manicurist, who thinks Russia is the gridlock that clogs the freeway twice a day.
And she laughs like a goat. All the time.
” Rob gave him a pointed look. “I had to fake appendicitis to get out of picking Bianca up from the salon last time.”
“You had your appendix taken out when you were twelve.”
“Which tells you how desperate I was— couldn’t even come up with a realistic lie,” Rob said. “If Ada the Realtor can hold an intelligent conversation, you ought to consider the coffee thing. It’d get Bianca off your back and save you from Mademoiselle Goat Laugh.”
“Very generous warning,” Craig said.
“I’m a very generous person.”
Craig eyed him dryly. “The fact that you regularly hung me out of our bedroom window by my ankles when we were kids argues otherwise.”
“I didn’t drop you, did I?”
“Brotherly love, right there.” He slapped Rob on the back as they walked toward the living room. “I’ll think about having coffee with Ada. Happy?”
“I don’t really care,” Rob said.
“But I’m happy,” Bianca declared from the couch. “And I expect you to call me first thing Saturday to tell me how it went.”
“Rob,” Craig muttered.
“Yes?”
“You should have dropped me.”