I check my phone again. It’s been four days, and all I’ve heard from Coen are responses to the messages I’ve sent him. They’ve all been brief, not inviting further conversation. The first couple of times he did it, I assumed he was busy with work or a project with his house. Yesterday, I pushed him by continuing to send him messages even though I could tell he didn’t want to talk. Today he hasn’t responded at all.

I remind myself that I haven’t known him that long, and if he doesn’t respond to me again, I can get over him. I will get over him. After all, I’ve lived in this town for years with only one friend. I will be able to survive without him too.

The thing is, I’ve been telling myself this exact same thing since Monday morning when he first started this vague absence. I’ve already deleted our text conversations twice so I wouldn’t be tempted to message him again.

Twice I’ve failed.

I’ve been able to complete even more work, and am now going through the proofs I’ve drawn up to send to my creative team who isn’t expecting the orders for another week.

Mr. Hakes leans against the doorframe of my office, filling the small space with the scent of his aftershave. “You’ve been quiet,” he says.

I smile. “Did you need something?”

He gives me a pronounced frown and shakes his head. “I saw some of the correspondence between you and the creative department about your proofs being ready.”

“Nearly,” I correct him.

“I’m impressed, Ella. Everyone is. The angle you’ve gone with this account and the time and dedication you’ve applied have really set you apart. Keep up the good work.”

His musky aftershave lingers in my office while I do a celebratory dance in my chair, appreciating that at least one thing in my life is on track and going well.

I grab my phone and send a text to Rachel.

I haven’t. Since replying to them both, I’ve avoided the site, my emotions and thoughts split between my evening with Patrick and Coen’s disappearing trick.

There’s another message from him waiting.

I hit send before I can change my mind, then send a quick text to Rachel to confirm I did it.

She’s right. It is, and I’m proud of myself for taking this chance, though my thoughts veer to Coen again. I wonder if he heard something else about me or realized that the rumors that have been orchestrated and shared by so many in this town are just a small glimpse of their dislike for me.

As if on cue, I receive an alert that I’ve received a new message, and it’s from Outdoorsyman.

Beaming, I look over my calendar.

I wait with bated breath for several moments and nearly leap out of my chair when I receive a reply back, confirming the date along with a restaurant he suggests.

The rest of the day goes by too slowly, my concentration struggling with my growing anticipation. I debate what I’m going to wear and what I’ll say, then question things I haven’t for a very long time like, what if we fall in love? How will he take to Hayden? Would we have more children? Reality and fiction twine together into the most perfect of fairy tales and before long, it’s lunchtime, and rather than eating at my desk and finishing some more drafts, I grab my purse and head out to the parking lot without a destination in mind, and am completely fine with the fact.

I wake up on Friday hours before I need to, my excitement too large to contain, let alone allow me to rest. Hayden’s beside me, his head on my pillow. We watched a movie in my bed last night and snuggled under the duvet, warm and giggling until he fell asleep.

Carefully I slip out from under the covers and find my glasses and slippers before heading downstairs with Shakespeare on my heels. I flip on the lights because it’s barely dawn, and open the slider so she can mosey around the backyard. I go into the kitchen and start a fresh batch of coffee though I don’t need the jolt. As it goes through its motions, I continue with mine, heading over to the toaster and dropping in a piece of apple cinnamon bread and then continuing to where my laptop has taken up permanent residence at our kitchen table and booting it up while already scrolling through my received emails on my phone.

Two cups of coffee, a piece of toast, twelve emails, and a finished set of mock-ups are completed before I have to wake Hayden up to get ready for school, and everything shifts to mom mode as I make waffles and pack his lunch and extra snacks for his game tonight before checking his duffel bag to ensure he has everything he’ll need, including his full uniform, hat, mitt, cleats, and socks.

“Hey, Mom, where’s Coen?” Hayden asks on our drive to school.

I glance at my son in the rearview mirror to read his expression of interest. “I don’t know. I haven’t heard from him. He must be busy with work.”

“His truck’s been gone.”

I hadn’t even noticed. I’ve refused to drive by his house because I didn’t want to make any more excuses for him.

“I don’t know, baby. Maybe he’s on a trip or something?” The thought of Patrick and his “trips” filter into my thoughts like a low fog, thick with memories and difficult to navigate through until Hayden grunts with thought.

“I wonder if he’s coming to my game tonight?”

“I don’t know. If he’s out of town, he probably won’t be able to.”

“Do you think Dad will be there this week?”

“I haven’t heard anything from him, honey. But you know Aunt Rachel and I will be there. And we were talking about going for pizza afterward.”

“I was thinking of trying to throw a curveball today.”

I’m grateful he doesn’t focus back on his dad. Since Sunday, he hasn’t asked again about why we don’t live together, or mentioned anything else about him or Lindsay, but I know he doesn’t feel like our answers were good enough, and don’t expect him to table it for long. “Are we talking literally or figuratively?”

“Literally.”

“I think you should do it. You’re never going to know what will happen unless you try.”

“Mom?”

“Yeah?” I ask, waiting in the long line of cars for drop-off.

“If Coen comes tonight, you think he can come have pizza with us?”

“I’m sure if he’s able to come, he will.” The blanket statement is meant to appease him for more than just the pizza but also the game. I don’t owe Coen an excuse like the many I’ve provided for Patrick over the years, but I also hate that Hayden may believe them not coming is in any way a reflection of his worth.

Hayden surprises me by sitting forward once his seat belt is unlatched and pressing a kiss to my cheek. “I love you, Mom,” he says. “I hope you have a good day.”

“I love you too, baby. I hope you have a great day as well.”

He flashes me a grin, then grabs his backpack and duffel and climbs out of the car, leaving me with the realization that regardless of what happens today on my lunch date, my world is going to continue spinning and I’ll be happy all because of the boy I’m lucky enough to call my son.

I text another outfit to Rachel for approval and smooth a curl in my hair as I wait for a response.

I look back over my red shorts and flouncy white T-shirt and hope Rachel’s right as I slide my black sandals on and rummage around for some matching accessories.

It took both Rachel and me several hours after the news of the date to realize Outdoorsyman never told me his name, but I decided maybe it was a good thing to go into one of these dates with another difference, regardless of how trivial it might be.

As I pull up to the restaurant he had suggested, I realize another distinctive difference between this date and the many others: I don’t have to scroll through his profile for pictures and facts while I wait for him to arrive. I already know he has spiked blond hair which he combs to the left, blue eyes that could more easily be called gray, and I know him better than all the others combined.

“Shakespearian!”

My smile grows when I recognize his face. “Outdoorsyman.”

“Also known as Garret.” He smiles, exuding warmth and humor as he holds out his hand. He’s a little shorter than I expected and his shoulders narrower, but the friendliness that emanated from his pictures becomes more vivid.

“Outdoorsyman has a certain ring to it,” I tell him as we hold each other’s gaze while shaking hands.

His hand falls to his side, but his steel eyes continue to hold mine. “And my sister told me it would send women running.”

We share a laugh that is easy and genuine before he takes a step closer and extends his hand toward the small podium like an invitation.

“Have you been here before?” he asks.

“Yes, several times actually. It’s my best friend’s favorite restaurant.”

“So you have good friends too. That’s nice to hear.” His smile grows cocky. “I say that because my sister owns this place.”

“Really?”

Nodding, he moves his hand so it rests lightly on my back, high enough to remain polite. “As much as I love the outdoors, she loves to cook. It’s been her passion since we were kids and she got one of those little pink ovens one year for Christmas.”

A waitress greets him by name and then shows us to a table in the back that sits against a window.

“Preferential seating—does this mean you also know exactly what to order?”

Garret’s lips have remained upturned, reminding me of Coen and his constantly friendly demeanor, but with my question they curl into a sly smile. “Sometimes it’s not what you order, but how.”

I wait for more that he doesn’t share because our waitress appears, and she too knows Garret on a first-name basis.

“Do you mind?” he asks me, motioning to the menu. “Everything here is delicious, but I’ll order you my favorites and teach you how to order them.”

“By all means,” I tell him, setting my menu down on the white linen tablecloth, working to not allow this moment to make me feel like Donna Reed.

He smiles and then turns back to the waitress. “We would like to begin with the crispy fried calamari, fried twice with a drizzle of lemon between, and then the slow-roasted porchetta with light sauce.”

Flashing my attention to the menu set in front of me, I read that porchetta is pig belly, and my stomach knots. He’s just ordered squid and pig belly, and I hate seafood and can’t even fathom what pig belly will be like. Garret completes our order with some bread and an antipasto dish I also won’t be touching because I hate olives and he requested extra.

The waitress takes our menus, and Garret folds his arms and leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. “So why are you on a dating site?”

His question surprises me. I am still considering how I’m going to politely reject every dish except for the bread, and to now answer why I’m on a dating site in a way that doesn’t make me sound desperate or rude leaves me floundering.

“I mean, you just don’t look like someone who would need the internet to find dates. A date? Dates?” He makes it more awkward, as I think we’re both debating his words and their insinuation.

I clear my throat and sit straighter in my chair. “I have a busy lifestyle, and sometimes that makes it difficult to meet people.”

“But you want to meet someone?”

What happened to not having criteria, buddy?

“Yeah, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

He looks me over, and I feel the itch to call his first strike.

“So tell me about yourself,” he says.

It’s the single question I hate more than any other. Regardless of being in a personal or professional setting, it’s an uncomfortable subject because I never know what the person asking is referencing. “The CliffsNotes version: I’m from North Carolina, so I can firsthand confirm this isn’t like the Vatican.” I pause long enough to give a teasing smile. “I have a son and a dog, along with a full-time job, and combined they keep me fairly busy.”

He doesn’t flinch. Instead, his smile grows. “I have two sons,” he tells me. “They’re nine and seven.”

The idea of a strike against him vanishes. Especially when he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet, flipping it open to show me pictures of his boys who are miniature versions of him.

“They’re adorable! And so happy.” I scan over their infectious smiles that remind me of their father’s and wonder if Hayden were around them if he would smile more. No one has a better smile than my son, but he doesn’t wear it without it being earned.

“My son’s nine,” I tell him. He doesn’t comment about me not reaching for pictures, and I’m grateful. While he doesn’t seem alarming, my own anxiety and fears still lurk in my mind, keeping details about Hayden hidden.

“Boys are the best, aren’t they?” he asks.

I hate statements like this because my mind always wants to dissect them.

“There’s no one I love more than him.” I don’t mean to stare at him afterward. It’s not meant as a threat or a dare, but when he turns his chin to one side, I see how it could be taken as one. “So tell me more about your job. You mentioned you opened a business with your father. I think that’s incredible.”

And because I am failing even at this date, I rely on another question I loathe: careers.

Garret laughs. “Growing up I always told my dad there was no way, no how,” he sweeps his arms across the table,” I would ever go into construction. He used to make me help him on jobsites starting when I was young. It was my job to walk around and find all the loose nails on the ground, and then I graduated to using a hammer and had to learn how to knock in four-inch nails while everyone around me got nail guns and went a thousand times faster, which drove me insane. I was so mad at my dad, and it became my mission to learn how to use every single tool so I would never have to lag behind. By the time I was thirteen, I realized he’d tricked me into learning how to use them all, and hated him for it.

“By the time I went away to college, all I knew were jobsites, and somewhere in the mix of it all, I had even started to enjoy the process of watching something being created from nothing into a home. It inspired me to study architecture.”

“So you guys design and build?” I ask.

Garret smiles. “We could, but mostly we just build. I guess I missed getting my hands dirty.”

“That’s really awesome. Do you get to take your boys out now? Make them pick up loose nails?”

“The little one will, but my older son, AJ, won’t go near a jobsite.”

I try to imagine if Hayden would have any interest in doing something like that. The kid has loved constructing things since birth. Give him Legos, magnets, bricks, or blocks and he’ll build a cityscape.

“I’m sure that’s normal,” I tell him. “I’m in marketing, and I already know for a fact that my son will never choose the same field. He looks at all my Excel spreadsheets and just shakes his head.”

We share a laugh that sits on the edge of being polite, but is genuine enough that it doesn’t feel contrived.

When our lunch arrives I look over the food, each dish less appealing than the last.

“Looks great!” Garret says, rubbing his palms together.

“It does,” I lie.

He dives in, and I reach for a piece of fresh focaccia and some of the root vegetables that are served alongside the pork belly that I can’t remember the fancy name for any longer.

If Garret notices that I don’t eat anything besides those two things, he doesn’t mention it.

It’s the first date in a long while I have to cut short so I can return to work before Hayden’s game. I thank him, and while it wasn’t what I had imagined and maybe hoped for, he has no strikes by the end, and it makes me feel hopeful that maybe the next date will be even better.