Page 20 of Mate Match: Curtis & Jae
“Another date so soon? That’s awesome!” Grace enthused.
Marty narrowed his eyes. “You’re leaving something out. Spill it!” There was a pause while he studied me harder. “You’ve had sex! I can sense omega pheromones all over you.”
I lifted my wrist to my nose to sniff. “No, you can’t,” I denied, though I could pick up a trace of Jae’s scent clinging to me despite the two showers I’d taken since I’d last seen him.
Grace tilted her head up to look at Marty. “He totally got some, didn’t he?”
“He did. C’mon, Curtis, tell us what you got up to. My life is so boring right now, I need to live through you.”
From experience, I knew Marty wasn’t leaving until he either had a promise to get all the gossip later on, and he’d likely bug me all day, or he had what he wanted. “The long and short of it is we had a nice dinner. Jae wasn’t feeling well. Turns out he was going into heat—“
“Fuck!” Marty breathed.
“Yeah, so he asked me to take him through it.”
“Damn, that must have been some first impression!” Grace remarked, watching me avidly. “And?”
“Well, it broke fairly quickly, but he stayed Saturday night, too.” I tried not to go into much detail. Just the basics. “We had a great time together and I think this is the start of something serious between us.”
“I’m really happy for you, Curtis. You deserve this,” Marty said with a genuine smile.
“So that app is working out for you, then? Maybe we’ll get Marty mated off next,” Grace joked.
My best friend made a noise of disgust. “Mate Match might have found someone for Curtis, but they’d have their work cut out for them with me.”
I had a pretty big problem. Something which at this stage of our relationship could end it before it really began. How was I going to explain this to Jae to make him understand? I desperately wanted to spend more time with him, yet work was getting in the way like it always did.
A delivery was running late. These marble tiles and oak beams were expensive. With rain due later as well, we had to get them secured or lose a lot of the budget in materials. Marty needed to get his daughter from daycare. Jeff had a doctor’s appointment. Really, the only person who could stay behind was me.
There’d be no cinema date with Jae for me. I couldn’t promise when I’d get done, and honestly, I was running on fumes. All I wanted to do was go home, eat a quick dinner, and soak in the tub before bed.
Rather than put it off, I called him on my lunch break.
“Hey, Curtis. Everything okay?”
“Hey. I am so sorry about this…” I went on to explain the situation to Jae.
“Tomorrow’s good, though, right?” he asked casually, sounding completely unbothered about me bailing on him.
“Yeah. I really want to see you. I just feel bad about today. Like I let you down.”
“Uh, no. You didn’t. At all. You’ve given me half a day’s notice so I can make other plans, instead of leaving me hanging when you know you likely won’t make it at all.”
“Sounds like you know that from experience.”
“Let’s just say my ex was the king of the last minute cancel call.”
I felt my face pulling into a grimace. “Not what’s gonna happen here. I’ll always be honest with you, even if that means letting you down. If I have to cancel, I’d rather give you time to see your friends or family instead.”
“And this is what makes you special, Curtis. It makes me want to have that date tomorrow instead.”
“I’m glad about that.”
“You know what else this means?” I could hear the humor in his voice.
“What?”
“That I get to pick the movie.”
