Page 21 of Mate Match: Curtis & Jae
“Well, I was gonna let you pick. Tell you what, you can choose all the snacks too. Everything is on me.”
“You don’t have—”
“I want to,” I said, interrupting his objection. “To make up for missing out on our date after cutting short our Sunday. I should have remembered my family were coming over.”
“It wasn’t like you knew I’d be there all weekend thanks to my heat. Look, we’re finding our feet in this… whatever it is.”
“A relationship. I want to date you, Jae. When my friends ask, I want to call you my boyfriend, or partner, whichever term you prefer.”
“Honestly, I like boyfriend. If this is you asking me out, then this is me saying yes.”
“I am. Will you go out with me, Jae? Be my boyfriend?”
“Yeah. I’d love that.”
“Dude, your dick must be epic!” Marty laughed at his joke. He sat in the office with a cup of coffee in front of him. Mine was steaming in front of me and not nearly big enough. After a late night, I was dragging. Thankfully, everything was quieter, giving me time to conserve my energy for my date.
I just frowned at him while I sipped my drink. The caffeine was sorely needed.
“No, seriously. First, he has to bail out of your house because of your family—”
“Jae chose to leave. It was too soon for him to meet them, though,” I pointed out.
“Okay, that’s a fair decision.” Marty shrugged. “Then you bailed on your date yesterday and he still agreed to be your boyfriend!”
I smiled, just remembering the conversation. Just thinking about Jae and calling him my boyfriend left me with a warm feeling inside. “True, but Jae explained it. Look, not airing his business or nothin’...” Marty nodded, expression sobering. “Jae hasn’t been treated very well. I made a promise to always call well in advance if work stuff came up. He knows I’ve got this place, employees and everything to deal with. He gets it.”
“Jae sounds special.”
“I think he is.”
The hours passed super slowly. Getting anything done was difficult, which made it luckier that we had a slower day. Therewere still the same admin tasks to do, ordering, payroll, all the boring stuff.
It was a relief to get home and shower off the day. Getting ready for my date was harder than I thought. I wanted to look nice for Jae, just not like I spent hours picking out a shirt. Eventually I decided on a plain button down and some nice jeans. The way they fit made me feel slimmer and the structure of the shirt did the same.
On my way to meet my new boyfriend, I picked up a little plant. I remembered Jae said something about liking flowers, except that they died. A little bit of greenery in his office space would be welcomed, right?
I picked him up outside his building with plenty of time for us to get there and get our snacks.
“Hey!” Jae greeted me with a kiss on the cheek.
“Hi. This is for you.” I brandished the little plant at him.
His eyes welled with tears for a moment, then he willed them away. “Oh my goodness, you remembered! I have the best boyfriend!”
Just like that, all my worries about letting Jae down, him being too good for the likes of me, vanished. If I could make him that happy with a tiny bit of effort, then loving Jae would be easy.
Ten
Jae
Curtishadcalledmeat lunchtime on Monday, sounding exhausted. We’d initially picked that day for our date, but he had to ask for a rain check until Tuesday. A supplier was running late, and the crew had to pull some overtime to get the materials secured because they were expensive.
His apologies were unnecessary, though sweet. I completely got that work had to come first sometimes. His company couldn’t afford to have materials being stolen or damaged by weather, so of course they had to get them put away before he could leave for the day.
What I don’t think he understood was how good it made me feel to have him think of me straight away. Rather than run late or keep me hanging on, he told me as soon as there was an issue.
Besides, cementing what we were to each other in that call made up for the momentary pang of disappointment at our datebeing delayed. Then, when he picked me up, he brought me the plant? I knew I was in danger of falling in love with him so fast!
