Page 16 of The One You Want

“Okay, Grandpa,” I mumbled. “I would be happy to meet him. Why don’t you give him my number and we can set up a timeto—”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” he said, raising a hand in the air. I turned in my seat to see who he was gesturing at and, to my horror, saw a man, about my age, walking towardsus.

I felt frozen in my seat, watching him approach. His suit was perfectly tailored, not a wrinkle in sight, and his brown hair was similarly tidy. I vaguely wondered if he used a ruler to part his hair—I didn’t think I had ever seen anything so perfectly straight in all mylife.

“Hello, sir,” the man said, holding out a hand to my grandfather, giving him a toothpaste-ad worthy smile. Then he turned to me. “Jennifer. I’ve heard so much about you.” He winked—ugh—and turned back to my grandfather. “She’s as lovely as yousaid.”

I was in serious danger of throwing up on this guy’s overly polishedshoes.

My grandmother cleared her throat and I held out my hand. Instead of shaking it, he brought it to his mouth and kissed my knuckles. OhGod.

“I’m Bradford,” he said. “It’s such a pleasure to meet you,Jennifer.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” I parroted, even though it most definitely was not. Uncomfortable would have been more accurate. Embarrassing. Horriblypainful.

“Well look at that,” my grandpa said, rocking back on his heels. “You’re getting along so nicelyalready.”

We’d barely said two sentences to eachother.

“In fact,” he said, giving Bradford a conspiratorial wink, “why don’t Caroline and I leave the two of you to get to know eachother.”

“Oh, Grandpa,I—”

He ignored me, clapping Bradford on the back. “I’ll have Christine send over some dessert. Coffee,son?”

“Coffee would be great, sir, thankyou.”

His agreeableness earned him another slap on the back. I stood so my grandfather could kiss my cheek. “You’ll do great, peanut,” he whispered. Then he was leading my grandmother away, leaving me alone with a complete stranger who was grinning at me like I was the last cherry fudge cookie at the LilacCafe.

“Sit down, please,” Bradford said, holding out my chair. I glanced back to the door my grandparents had just walked through. If I took off right now, he would only end up telling them and I’d get reamed out before I even made it back to mycondo.

So instead, I gritted my teeth, forced a smile, and sat down to get through the most awkward first date in the history of firstdates.