I waited for Autumn outside the mall, and my leg was jiggling nervously as I scanned the crowds and waited for her to turn up. I shouldn’t have picked such a busy day to meet with her. What, did I think I wasn’t going to recognize her or something? I remembered what she looked like. In fact, the image of her in that dress when she had walked into the restaurant was seared into my brain, and I found myself coming back to it a lot.

Then, suddenly, she emerged from the throng of people in front of me, and a smile spread over my face. I was just relieved she had turned up. For some reason, I had been nervous all morning about the thought of meeting her here, as though she was going to change her mind and not turn up at the last second. That just told me everything I needed to know about the last time I had been dating, back in the day when getting stood up was a real possibility, when nobody bothered with manners or basic kindness.

Autumn was wearing a green sweater and a pair of jeans, her hair loose around her shoulders, and she beamed when she laid eyes on me. The color of her sweater made her hair glow almost supernaturally around her face, and I moved toward her to greet her as she approached me.

“Hey.” She gave me a quick hug, and I was surrounded by the scent of her perfume for a moment. Flowery and slightly powdery, it seemed to suit her, a gentle and delicate scent. I removed myself from her embrace and straightened my shirt, and she raised her eyebrows at me expectantly.

“So, what exactly is it you want me to help you with?” she asked, and I took a deep breath. I had been meaning to do this for ages, and now that I had a woman here to help me, hopefully I would be able to pull it off without picking something totally awful.

“I need to get a new suit,” I told her, cocking my head to the side as I spoke so I could get a read of her reaction. “And I was hoping you could give me a hand.”

“You’re serious?” She laughed, her entire face lighting up.

“Deadly.” I shrugged. “I keep on planning on buying a new one, but then it always slips my mind because I’m sure I’m going to pick something crappy. I could use a guiding hand on this.”

“Well, I suppose if I’m going to be setting you up, I need to make sure you look the part,” she replied playfully, running her hands through her long red hair and smiling. “Buy me lunch after?”

“Sure thing,” I agreed at once.

“Then I’m in. Where do you want to start looking?”

“Lady’s choice.” I gestured back to the mall, and she hooked her arm through mine and started leading me to her first shop of choice.

“This place is pretty expensive, but you can probably afford it,” she told me, and she rolled her eyes to the heavens and laughed once more. “I’m sorry, I sometimes hear myself speaking and I know that I come out with the dumbest shit. I don’t mean to sound so rude, I promise.”

“No, it’s fine,” I assured her, surprised that I meant it. Normally, I would have been irritated at someone with such loose lips, but on her, it read as charming. Maybe that had something to do with how nice it felt to have her arm through mine like that, the weight of it, the ease of her close to me. Jesus, I needed to get out on a real date, if this level of contact was already getting me thinking twice.

“Okay, but you have to tell me if I’m getting too rude for you,” she warned me. “I need you to stop me from making a fool of myself in all these fancy shops.”

“I’ll try my best,” I promised her as we arrived outside the door of a glossy, minimalist place that I had never seen before.

“Are we starting here?”

“Sure are.” She headed inside. “I’ve always walked by this place and thought the suits in the window looked so cool.” She sighed as she began to walk a little reverently through the store.

“Uh…” I looked around at some of the mannequins. They were pretty avant-garde, to say the least. It seemed like the kind of thing a young actor might wear on the red carpet, and I wasn’t sure I could pull it off as a single dad and businessman.

“Ooh, look at this one!” She came to a halt next to a navy suit with a checked blue shirt underneath and a crisp red tie over the top, and a matching handkerchief tucked into the pocket.

“That’s a little forward-thinking for me,” I remarked, and she rolled her eyes.

“Oh come on, this would look great on you!” she argued. I could see the shop assistant, a snooty-looking dude a little younger than me, eyeing her with distrust.

“Can we start with something a little more old-fashioned first?” I suggested, and she rolled her eyes again and let out a long sigh.

“I guess so.” She grinned, and with that, she headed off to the back of the store to take a look at the suits that were a little more my speed.

She was so into it that I couldn’t help getting caught up a little. Most of the clothes I picked out these days were for Hunter, not me, and I had long since forgotten what it felt like to actually shop for myself. I had a few suits I had collected in the early days of running the business, but that was pretty much it, and all of them were hopelessly out of style by now anyway.

“So, tell me about your business,” she asked me, as we rounded out of one shop and started to head down to another one.

“What do you want to know?” I asked, and she shrugged.

“Have you been running it since Hunter came along?”

“Since just after,” I told her. “I guess I wanted to run my life with a newborn and a business all at once.”

“So you run the place all by yourself?” she asked, and I nodded again.

“Yeah, I always wanted to be the one in complete control over there. I know it sounds a little anal retentive, but I like things to be the way I want them to be. I have my reasons.”

“Ooh, mysterious,” she teased, tossing her hair over her shoulder and waggling her fingers in a witchy fashion. “Am I ever going to find out what those reasons are, by any chance?”

I hesitated for a moment. I had never been forthcoming in telling anyone the truth of what had happened between Hunter’s mother and me, why she had left and what about it had driven me to the place I was in my work today, but for some reason, the way she was looking at me made me want to open up. I guessed that was part of why she was so good at her job, because it was so simple for people to tell her the truth.

I shook my head and waved my hand. I didn’t want to dump all that on her, not when we were having such a nice day together thus far.

“Maybe another time,” I suggested, and she shrugged and turned her attention to the window next to us.

“Oh, I like this shop too.” She pressed her finger to the glass. “We should go in and check it out. They’re a little more old-fashioned, but maybe that’s more your style.”

“You calling me old?” I raised my eyebrows at her, and she grinned.

“Just saying that judging by your taste in suits, someone might assume you were,” she replied sweetly, and I shook my head and followed her into the store.

Normally, I wouldn’t have let anyone talk to me like that. I could be oversensitive, I knew that, but years in business had taught me to try and sense everything anyone was feeling before they even knew they were feeling it. It was what had gotten me so far with the company, but sometimes I found myself overreacting to people when they said benign stuff. But with her, I found myself relaxed enough that I could laugh along to her occasionally blunt comments. In fact, I would even have gone as far as to say I was having something of a good time.

We went through pretty much every store in the mall, and I couldn’t find anything that looked right for me. Each one she pulled out for me, I would find a little detail wrong with it. In the back of my mind, I knew it was because I didn’t want this day to end yet. I was having a good time with her, and sometimes it was fun to forget about all my responsibilities for a while and let myself goof off this way. And being with her was a good time, a great time, even. If this is what actually dating could have been like, I wouldn’t have avoided it for so long.

Eventually, we had made our way around every store in the mall, and I had still failed to come up with something that fit my standards. She planted her hands on her hips and shook her head at me as we came out of the last one.

“Well, I’m not sure what else we can do,” she sighed, faux-exhausted. And then a smile spread across her face.

“What is it?” I asked cautiously, and she caught my hand. I felt a buzz of sparks pass from my fingers to hers and tried to ignore them.

“Come and try on that suit in the first place we looked,” she suggested. “You’ve got nothing to lose.”

“I’m not sure—”

“Come on, for me?” she pleaded, and I looked into those gorgeous green eyes and found myself wavering. I should have been able to say no, for the love of God, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to please her, and she was giving me a straight route to doing so.

“Fine.” I nodded. “I’ll try it, but I’m not promising anything.”

“An open mind is all I’m looking for.” She let go of my hand, and I felt as though I had landed back in the real world with a hard thud. I followed her back to the store and stood in front of the suit once more.

“I’m not sure about this,” I warned her, and she gave me that look, the one I had such trouble saying no to.

“Just try it on,” she ordered, and she waved the assistant over to find me one in my size to test out. I pulled a face when he handed it to me and shot a glance at her.

“If I look like a fool, I’m blaming you,” I warned her, and I headed into the changing room. I undressed swiftly and pulled the suit on, and then turned to look at myself in the mirror. And I had to admit, I looked good.

What I had thought would look silly and self-consciously youthful on me actually seemed modern and fresh now that I was wearing it. I looked totally different. Maybe it was more than just the suit. Maybe it was something about the look on my face, the gleam in my eyes. And that had more than a little to do with the woman who had chosen this suit for me.

“Well, how does it look?” she called through the door impatiently. “I’m starting to look creepy hanging around the changing rooms like this.”

She spoke so loudly, half the shop must have heard her, and I couldn’t help but shake my head and laugh at the thought. I took one last look at myself in the mirror and then pulled open the door so she could take a look at me.

“See for yourself,” I told her with a smile, and I watched her for a reaction, feeling lighter than I had in months.