Page 11 of The Dating Charade

“And I could venture a guess that this ‘friend’ of yours stole your identity and messaged on your behalf.”

Her jaw clenched as she nodded again.

“And you don’t actually remember me from high school?”

Her brows raised curiously for a moment, her eyes seeming to trace him before coming up short.

“Huh.” He eyed the sidewalk thoughtfully. Stuck a hand in his pocket. Considered his options. Then, at last, he held out the bouquet. “In that case, I believe your friend ordered these.”

Cassie put up her hands. “Oh, no. I couldn’t.”

“Don’t worry about it. I already have three bouquets at home.” He smiled, but her expression didn’t register the joke. He shook the flowers a little. “Please. I insist.”

He continued to hold out the bouquet, and finally—regretfully, it seemed—she took it. When she did, he dipped his head, his smile not watered down in the least. “Well, Ms. Everson, I sincerely wish you a relaxing evening and a nice holiday tomorrow with your loved ones.”

He glanced around his surroundings, the slimming stream of cars, the lack of pedestrians on the sidewalk, the dark and empty building behind her. It connected to a string of boxy apartment buildings he knew only too well from work. Some of the stories he came away with made his skin crawl.

“Mind if I at least walk you to your car? I assume it’s in the back.”

Cassie’s once-set jaw, growing softer and softer as the conversation went on, snapped tight again. She pushed the stems of the bouquet carefully into her work bag. “No. Thank you.”

Clearly she wanted two free hands to ward off her attacker.

As if he hadn’t descended enough from the status of “chivalrous date” to “stranger worthy of immediate rejection” tonight, he’d now dropped another peg to “potential assaulter.”

Terrific. This night was going swimmingly.

“That’s a kind offer,” she added, though her hands noticeably played with her keys—keys with a rather large can of pepper spray attached. “But I do this all the time.”

And before he could say another word she was walking toward the side of the building. She called out, “Thanks—and sorry again—for the flowers.”

Jett waited behind his steering wheel until her headlights lit up the short drive to the street and an old green Subaru rolled by. She pressed her face into a smile and gave a brief, tight wave before her tires squealed onto Profit Drive. The woman couldn’t drive away fast enough.

Tilting the mirror down, he looked at himself. He was clean shaven, his hair cut short. His mild blue eyes looked back at him with the dim dissatisfaction he felt. Nothing about him looked like a serial killer. In fact, nothing about him looked like he should be shot down—for a first date at least.

Great, now Donna Gene was giving him an ego.

But perhaps that was it, though. He had the distinct sense Cassie had not turned him down tonight but all men in general. In one way that was encouraging, in another it proved to be a whole other challenge.

As he drove back to the apartment he considered his options. First, and most obvious, he could take Cassie at her word and leave her alone. The most simple and straightforward solution. One he let himself consider the span of one red stoplight.

Option two: pursue the heck out of her. Charm her socks off. Now that would be hard to do. The woman obviously had a chip on her shoulder. Dramatic pursuits, like attaching a walkie-talkie to a box of chocolates delivered to her workplace, would be a gamble.

Option three: casually pursue her. Find out where she did life and just so happen to run into her there. The grocery store. The fancy-ladies-and-millennial-men coffee shop. On the greenway, perhaps, as she walked her dog. But he had the distinct feeling she would take his innocent research into her whereabouts as a sign of stalking, and that handy pepper spray of hers would come out again.

Which brought him back to option one, where he didn’t want to go.

So how, then? How could he convince a woman—a very specific woman—to go out on one date? She was on a dating website. Unless her friend had signed her up entirely, she was actually in search of a relationship.

The predicament was beyond his ability to solve alone.

Jett ruminated on the issue in front of his complex. He barely registered his neighbor’s door opening as he pulled out his keys.

“Look at you, Jett. Went somewhere fancy?”

He turned. Sarah stood in her doorway, a bundle of mail in her hand.

For the moment, he pushed the puzzle aside. “Expected to, but plans fell through.”