You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology(40)

But it had been more than that. There had been intimacy… with John. Whose phone number had rattled through her mind all morning. Creating lyrics in her head like a bad remake of an eighties song.

“You didn’t. Did you?” Sally asked reverently, as if Kate would be handing her assistant some kind of present if she actually had. Sally loved drama.

Kate shrugged. “Well… I mean it wasn’t… real… that app you told me about…”

“O.M.G. You hooked up with a guy online and had internet sex. That is so awesome!”

Kate looked over Sally’s shoulder at the open door to her office, making sure none of her employees were walking by. She did have a reputation to maintain, after all.

As a stuffed-shirt spinster?

She didn’t feel like that today.

“Can we please keep this between us?”

“Oh, sorry,” Sally whispered. Then the younger woman clapped her hands in rapid succession. “Yeah! How was it? Did he give good sext?”

Kate could feel the heat in her cheeks. “I’m not discussing details. But… yes, it was very… he was very…”

Kate sighed. She simply didn’t have the vocabulary to explain how she was feeling. Not all of it was pleasant either. In many ways she felt raw and exposed. There was a person out there in the world who knew some of her sexual secrets. A man she didn’t know. It wasn’t exactly comfortable.

“Well, good for you. Way to break the internet ice.”

“He wants to meet me,” Kate admitted.

“What! Are you serious? So this might be more than a one-time hookup?”

“I’m not sure. He gave me his number, but I think it would be awkward.”

Sally rolled her eyes. “Of course it would be awkward. First, it’s a blind date—by its nature it’s awkward. Second, the first thing you’re both going to be thinking is how fast you can get each other out of your clothes. Unless of course he lied about his picture and he looks like a creepy troll who lives under a bridge. Then you’re just going to want to run for it.”

Kate considered all of that. The clothes flying, the creepy troll. She really hoped he wasn’t a creepy troll.

“You should do it.”

Kate could see Sally’s face had transitioned from excited co-conspirator to something more serious. Concerned friend.

“Don’t,” Kate pleaded, not wanting to hear the speech again. A speech Sally rattled off at least once a year in some fashion or another. How Kate worked too much and let it take over her life. How she deserved a relationship and happiness and love but was never going to get that if she didn’t do something to make it happen.

“I know it’s scary,” Sally said in that gentle tone Kate recognized. “I know it’s probably easier to forget his number and focus instead on whatever task you need to accomplish today, but… you have to try, Kate. You wouldn’t have let me put that app on your phone if deep down you didn’t want to find someone.”

“Spoken like a person who has never had to suffer a blind date,” Kate said a little harshly. She knew Sally was trying to help. Knew everything her assistant said was true. Nobody knew how hard it was to set yourself up over and over again for what had always ended in disappointment. She was Charlie Brown kicking the football.

Sally smiled sheepishly. “I know. I’m a bitch. I met my husband in college and we’ve been together for twelve years and I never once had to put up with the bullshit you have. But if I don’t say it to you, Kate, no one will. This place, this business that you’ve created, it’s an amazing thing and you should be damn proud of yourself. But there is more out there in life. If this guy got you to break out of your shell even for a night, then he might be something special. Someone worth knowing.”

Kate had definitely felt as if something been cracked open. The question was, did she want to open that crack even further?

“I’ll think about it. In the meantime, I have the Hutchinson deal I have to finalize…”

Sally took the cue. “Yes, ma’am. Back to work.”

Kate watched Sally bounce out of her office, and even though she said she wanted to focus on the Hutchinson deal what she really wanted to do was talk to John. Ask him how he felt about blind dates and whether he went on them often.

Kate took out her phone and set it on her desk. It was office policy to keep phones put away and on vibrate mode. An attempt to curtail usage for her younger employees who seemed addicted to the things.

For the first time she started to understand that addiction. Because she felt compelled to look at it and wonder, if she texted him would he message her back like he had last night? Or would he wake up this morning, having forgotten her entirely?

Maybe he’d been drinking, too.

Kate thought about the couple of glasses of wine she’d had, how it had loosened her up. Of course on a blind date she would have to limit herself, since she would be driving. Which meant she would be her typical uptight self, who could only talk about her life as it related to her job. A guarantee that would drive him away.

“Will you stop overanalyzing everything!” Kate huffed softly to herself. There were times when she was sick of her own head space. Almost out of spite, because she knew with certainty she was her own worst enemy, she reached for her phone.