Penny passed by a few more girls. And by a few I mean…dozens.And I never said a word. Because I didn’t want to date any of them.
I tilted my head so I could stare at her instead of at thescreen.
“Yes or no?” Penny asked.
I didn’t bother looking. “Pass.”
This kept going for a while. Penny was super patient. Shedidn’t seem to care that I literally hadn’t liked one match. I was pretty sureI’d said the word “no” more than I ever had in my life over the next hour.
“Oh.” She stopped. “She sounds perfect. Her profile is cute. Sheseems really fun.”
“Then why don’t you date her?”
Penny looked up at me. “Why are you suddenly acting sohostile? This is supposed to be fun.”
“How would you feel if I forced you to look at a bunch of menyou weren’t interested in?”
“Confused. Because I’m married.” She smiled, waiting for meto laugh, but I didn’t. “Matt, you asked for my help. Why do you always get somad whenever I follow through?”
Because I don’t want any of this. I hadn’t expectedher to have already finished creating my dating profile. I thought we’d spendtoday joking about ways to describe me. And telling her things she didn’t knowabout me. Fuck, I didn’t know what I expected. But I didn’t feel like swipingthrough a bunch of blondes that I wanted nothing to do with. “Can I at leastsee the profile you made for me?”
Penny pressed her lips together. “But it’s more fun to lookat the matches…”
“You did something weird.”
“What?” She looked shocked. But in an over the top way. Shewas definitely lying.
“You put something weird in my profile, didn’t you?”
“I did no such thing.”
I grabbed the phone from her and she squealed. I clickedthrough to my profile and laughed. “The most eligible bachelor in the city?” Ilooked up from the screen. “That’s the corniest thing I’ve ever heard in mylife.”
“You’re a Caldwell. Everyone’s going to recognize you fromyour picture anyway. I thought we might as well lean into it.”
I shook my head as I read through all the nonsense. “Greatwith kids? Are you kidding me?”
“You are great with kids. Scarlett freaking loves you.”
“But you made it sound like I’m looking for divorcées withchildren.”
“Well you are over thirty…”
I glared at her.
“Would that be so bad? To have a family?”
Yes. Yes, it would be. I couldn’t have a family. Icouldn’t have a wife. I’d promised Brooklyn it would only ever be her. I’dpromised. “I’m good with your kids. Not with my own. Take that part out. And alsoget rid of the part about me volunteering at Empire High.”
“But you do volunteer at Empire High.”
I thought about the woman in the hotel room this morning. Tannerhad told her I was a nice guy. I needed to lower expectations here. “It makesme sound like too much of a nice guy.”
“Matt, you are a nice guy. What do you want it to say in yourprofile? That you’re looking for a one-night stand?”
Yeah, kind of. But that didn’t exactly work with thefalse pretense of why we were hanging out. “Get rid of all that crap. And takedown my picture too. I don’t want people to say yes to a date with me becausethey know who I am.”
“I think the picture might be required.”
I snapped a photo of the tea that I hadn’t even tried andhanded her phone back to her. “Just use that picture.”
“You want a photo of cold tea to be your profile picture onyour dating profile?” She shook her head.
“And tell them that I’m poor.”
“That’s just lying.”
“It’s all about low expectations, Penny.”
“Why? Wouldn’t you rather a girl be super nervous and excitedto go on a date with you? Looking forward to something is pretty great.” Sheimmediately looked back down at her phone. And I swore she was blinking alittle faster. “You know what? I’m just going to find you someone and let you knowwhen your first date is.”
Well, that sounded terrible. But I was a little moreconcerned about the fact that it looked like I’d almost made her cry.
“Ian just pulled up. See you for the Giants game?”
I didn’t exactly feel like hanging out with everyone tonight.I shook my head.
But I wasn’t sure she’d seen because she was already walkingtoward the door. “Bye, Matt,” she said without looking back.
Great. I ran my hand down my face. Penny was settingme up with someone I couldn’t even veto now. And I’d made her cry.
Chapter 11
Monday
“Here you go,” said my administrative assistant as she placeda hot cup of coffee down on my desk.
“Thanks, Mary.” I’d come back to the office after footballpractice to get some more work done. And I desperately needed some caffeine.
“Your mother left another message about getting together withyou for lunch. What do you want me to say to her?”
My mom always bugged my assistant when I didn’t answer hertexts. She got overly concerned about me every fall. And I tried my best to avoidher until the holidays. I didn’t want to talk about Brooklyn. I just wantedpeace. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll call her.” Eventually.
“Okay. Is there anything else I can get you before I headout?”
I looked down at my watch. I hadn’t realized it was after six.“No, have a nice evening.”
She didn’t move to leave. “You know, I heard a rumor theother day. It was something about…” She lightly tapped her chin and pretended likeshe was trying to remember something. “Oh, right. Sleep is actually really important.Who would have thought?”
I laughed. “Mary, I’ve been sleeping.”
“Tell your face that. And you forgot to change afterpractice.”
I scowled at her, but only in jest. I usually did change backinto a suit after practice. But over the last few weeks, I’d stopped. No one elsewas here this late anyway.
“Maybe try some chamomile tea.”
What was with women forcing me to drink tea? But I didn’tknow how to say no to her. “I’ll give it a try.” Penny may have left some ofthat.
“You have a good evening, Matthew.”
I’d been telling her for years to
