Maybe Later(41)

“Hey,” she answers, her arms linked around my neck. “I wasn’t expecting to see you today.”

“I’m glad you’re here.”

“Should I be sorry for my reaction?” she asks.

“He deserved it. We’ve told him plenty of times to stop being crass.” I kiss her nose. “Sorry for that though. I was going to say something but what you did was a lot better.”

“Let’s take that to my trunk,” she says, referring to the bag after she untangles her arms from my neck.

I take a better look at her. She’s wearing a pair of yoga pants, a tank top, and running shoes. Her hair is pulled into a ponytail.

“Are you wearing this for fun, or did you do yoga today?” I ask.

“Both?” She frowns, as she opens the trunk of her Tesla SUV. “I take yoga at Wash Park on Sundays. You should come with me next week.”

“I’ve never done it before,” I confess.

Her lips curl into a slight smile and her eyes crinkle. “Well, we should fix that. Maybe next weekend you can come with me. It’s free and they have all kinds of levels from beginner to advance and in-between. It’d be interesting to see you trying to do a crow pose.”

“Do I even want to know what that is?” I ask, slowly looking at her and controlling the temptation to say ‘Show me that crow pose, naked.’

“You should come find out,” she says with a challenging look.

“I’d rather see you in a downward-facing dog,” I emphasize suggestively.

“You would, huh? Stick around and I might show you.”

Once she closes the trunk, I take her hand and kiss it. “I missed you.”

“It’s only been a day,” she states and stares at me for a moment with her big brown eyes.

“A very long day,” I conclude. “Where do you want to go for a date?”

“A date?” She frowns, checks her phone and looks back at me. “I thought it was my turn to plan the next one. I’m not prepared.”

Her eyes are a bit troubled. As if she had one job to do and failed.

“How about lunch, and afterward you can decide where to go.”

She looks left to right a couple of times and then says, “There's a small sushi bar just around the corner. We can go there and then … how about if we go to the bookstore.”

“Is that your idea for our next date?”

“We’re improvising, mister,” she says excitedly. “You have to give me more time to make the perfect plan. I had a few ideas, but you just threw me into the scene.”

“Perfect?” I ask confused. “What would you consider the perfect plan?”

“Well, there are dancing lessons, painting lessons, we could always go to a cooking class. If none of those are enticing to you, there is always the music scene.”

“Music?” I ask a bit puzzled about the last choice.

She doesn’t look like a music geek.

“Yeah, we could go to a concert.” She finally looks at me and asks, “Do you like music?”

Her question makes me think of Amy and our earlier conversation. Does she go to concerts? I’d be nice if we could spend more time talking about the music she likes and her thoughts about the lyrics. In such a short time, she’s got me listening to songs in a different light—feeling them.

“Love it,” I say, brushing Amy from my mind. “Are there any concerts happening in town?”

“The Fillmore might have something,” she says and growls when her phone rings. “Buddy, you know I’m off today. I’m not acknowledging you.”

“Work?” I ask curiously.

“Yeah, he’s one of my best clients, unfortunately, he doesn’t get that I’m not his full-time employee, and I have a life. Actually, let me respond to him.”

She types furiously and then looks at me.

“Sorry about that. I should have brought my personal phone, not my work phone.”

“You have two phones?”

“I have to have two phones, or I’d be working all the time. This gives me a little separation between my job and my personal time. It was consuming me so much I had to find a way to set up boundaries.”

“So which phone do I have?” I ask because I am not thrilled by her confession.

People who have two separate lives usually hide more than I’m comfortable with. But even when I want to be upset, I can’t because she throws one of her beautiful smiles my way.

“Personal,” she answers. “You don’t want to be one of my clients.”

She chuckles.

“What is it that you do again?” I ask her.

“It’s complicated. My best friend says I’m in the business of solving people’s lives.”

I’m guessing she’s a consultant, or she could be a life coach, or maybe one of those human resources consultants who goes from one company to another. Maybe she trains personnel to improve productivity. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt—for now.





Chapter Twenty





Jack


Sunday, May 1st, 12:54 p.m.



The sushi place was closed, so we ended up at a gourmet hamburger bar. They have good burgers, and their whiskey collection is one of my favorites.