“Hi, is this Holden?”

“Yes, it is!” I replied, and I instantly cringed at how overly perky my voice sounded. Did I really have to say it like that? I hated the way I sounded. But I figured it was better to sound a little too keen than a little too removed, so I would roll with it.

“Great to hear from you,” Andrea, the CFO of the company that I had canceled the meeting with earlier in the week, greeted me warmly. She had a calm, relaxed voice, and I tried to tap into some of that peacefulness for myself. I was coming to this interview on the back foot, no two ways about it, but I had to convince them that I was worth it no matter how much of an inconvenience I was to them. Which was harder than it sounded.

“I’m so sorry I had to cancel our meeting earlier in the week,” I told her. “I had an emergency that had to do with my son, and I couldn’t get out of it.”

I wanted to roll my eyes when I thought back to what that emergency had been. The way she had been talking in the email, I had been sure Hunter was building tiny little shivs out of sticks and leaves and using them to shank other schoolchildren. As it turned out, he was a little quiet, and she was worried he wasn’t spending enough time with people his own age. Which was crazy, because he went to school, didn’t he? He was surrounded by kids his own age all the time. She was just talking out of her ass, trying to interfere in his life to seem like she was a good teacher when she really wanted to exert some power and stir the pot a little. Maybe she wanted to delve into my son’s personal life for her own gossipy interest.

“I completely understand,” Andrea replied, and she sounded sincere. “I have two of my own, six and nine, and they’re constantly making it nearly impossible to run a business.”

“Oh, what do you have?” I asked conversationally.

“Boy and a girl,” she replied, and I could hear the smile in her voice as she spoke. “Boy’s older, though he doesn’t act it.”

“My son is that exact age right now,” I remarked. “They’re starting to turn into little people, aren’t they?”

“For better or for worse,” she agreed, and I chuckled.

“So, I want to discuss the proposed contract,” I told her, moving on to the task at hand now that I had papered over the cracks that had been left by my cancelation of the meeting. “I understand that it might be easier to do this in person, but if you have your computer there, I can send you everything I think you need to see.”

“Honestly, Holden, we’re quite impressed with the proposal you put forward,” she told me. “We don’t need too many more details. Just a time frame and a budget, and then we can get started with the details of the contract for you.”

I closed my eyes and punched the air. She couldn’t see me, so it was fine.

“That sounds great,” I agreed. “Let me run through everything again, so we know that we’re both on the same page.”

“Never hurts,” she agreed, and I launched into my rundown of everything the project was going to be from my perspective. I hadn’t half-assed this, knowing I had a point to prove and that I needed to convince them that wherever I was in the world, I could take on this project and do it better than anyone else they could hire. Thank God, they seemed to actually believe me, and after an hour, Andrea was making approving noises down the phone and agreeing with everything that was coming out of my mouth.

“Honestly, Holden, that sounds perfect,” she agreed. “I’ll pass all this along to the legal department and get them to draw up a contract, and hopefully we can start sooner rather than later, huh?”

“Hopefully,” I agreed. We finished up the call, and I switched off the phone and dumped it into my pocket, closing my eyes and collapsing into my seat. It hadn’t been as bad as doing the presentation in person might have been, but I still felt as though that had taken it out of me. Working on the project was one thing—I could pull that off, no question, no problem—but hashing out all the details was the hard part.

Especially when my mind was lingering over that meeting I’d had with the teacher. I shouldn’t have been letting it get to me. I had given her a piece of my mind, and I stood by that, genuinely believing everything that had come out of my mouth that day. She couldn’t just drag my son in front of her like he’d done something wrong and then speak to him like he was some kind of socially stunted freak. And she couldn’t expect me to stand by and take it. And she for sure couldn’t bring up his waste-of-space mother in front of him, not when I had fought so hard to make sure he never felt like anything other than a complete, loved person despite the absence of the woman who birthed him. That was what had seriously pissed me off. She had swung straight into our personal space without a second thought, and I didn’t put up so well with that. She was going to learn to keep her nose out of our business. God willing, that would be the last time I ever heard from her.

I headed downstairs, where Raymond was waiting with his daughter and Hunter. I had offered to babysit for the evening so that he and Olivia could go out, provided he was able to keep an eye on Hunter while I was making this call. I grinned when I saw him. She was asleep in his arms, peaceful and pretty, and I could see the relief painted all over his face.

“She’s sleeping, so we’re being quiet,” Hunter told me, lifting a finger to his lips. I mimicked the same motion and nodded in agreement.

“Right.” I headed up to them. “You want to hand her over, or you want to wait a little longer?”

“I’ll wait a little longer,” Raymond remarked, a little gruffly, and I could tell he was trying to play the big tough father but was enchanted by his little girl so much that he could hardly keep a straight face.

“Can I go upstairs and read for a bit?” Hunter tapped my arm, and I ruffled his hair.

“Yeah. Be down for dinner,” I told him. “An hour at the most.”

“Okay!” he called back down the stairs, and both Raymond and I winced and checked to see if the baby had woken, but she was still passed out.

“What did you do, take her for a six-mile hike?” I remarked. “She’s really out for the count.”

“I know, thank God,” he agreed. “How did your call go?”

“Yeah, pretty well.” I shrugged, taking a bottle of water from the fridge and cracking it open. “How about you? How are you doing?”

“Looking forward to getting out from underneath this papoose for a while.” He grinned. “Was that call the meeting you skipped in New York?”

“Yeah.” I grimaced. “Though now that I look back on it, I don’t think I needed to cancel that meeting at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I went along to meet with that teacher thinking Hunter was beating up other kids or something, and she tells me he’s a little lonely.” I shook my head. “Can you believe that? She said that in front of him. Then she was asking about his mother like that’s relevant to anything in the entire world.”

Raymond furrowed his brow and shook his head.

“That is a little weird,” he agreed diplomatically. “But maybe she was trying to help?”

“I know that’s what she thought she was doing,” I conceded. “But that’s not how it comes across, you know? Feels like gossip.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t that,” he replied firmly. He fell silent for a moment, eyeing me.

“What?”

“I was just wondering,” he said before taking a deep breath. “Have you actually dated anyone since Karla?”

“Hell no.” I waved my hand and shook my head. “I have no interest in it either. I’m too busy with the business and Hunter and—”

“It seems like the business is in a good place,” he pointed out, cutting through my empty talking in a way that he had plenty of practice doing. “And Hunter spends plenty of time away at school these days. You don’t think you should consider getting back out there?”

I sighed heavily. I sort of knew that he was right, that I couldn’t spend the rest of my life hiding from romance in my work and in my son, but it had been so long since I had dated anyone even casually that even the notion of it was unsettling to me. What did dating look like now? What did it look like now that I had more money than ever before? What did it look like with a son in tow? I didn’t know the answers to any of those questions, but I had a feeling I didn’t necessarily want to hear them either.

“Look, I’m not saying you have to run off and get married or something,” Raymond continued. “But it might do you and Hunter good if you got out there a little bit more, had a life outside him now that he’s old enough to handle it.”

“He’s nine years old, Raymond. He’s not exactly about to put down a mortgage on his first place,” I pointed out. He chuckled.

“You know what I’m saying,” he replied firmly. “Give you and him a little space, and you never know what could happen. Could make things better between you.”

I fell silent for a long moment. He could be right. I hated to admit it, but he could be right.

“Besides, if you did end up meeting someone nice,” he went on, “it wouldn’t do any harm for Hunter to have a woman in his life, don’t you think?”

“I suppose not.” I shook my head. “But where the hell am I meant to go about meeting these women? In the line at the grocery store?”

“Hmm.” He cocked his head at me, clearly thinking. “Oh, Olivia mentioned to me that one of her friends is looking for a decent blind date candidate. I think you fit the bill.”

“A blind date?” I laughed. “I don’t think I’ve heard about anyone going on one of those in years.”

“So maybe it’s time to bring them back into style,” Raymond suggested. “What do you say? You up for it?”

“I guess so.” I laughed. “I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this. If it’s a terrible date, I’m holding Olivia personally responsible. I hope she knows that.”

“I’ll make sure she does,” he agreed. “Say, Friday night? I’ll let you know the details as soon as I get them from Olivia.”

“Works for me.” I reached out for the baby in his arms. “Come on, hand her over. It’s time you went out.”

“I guess so.” He handed her to me a little reluctantly and then grinned. “Thanks for doing this, buddy.”

“Thanks for getting me that date,” I replied, and he slapped me on the shoulder and headed out the door. I was left wondering if I had just agreed to the date that was going to change my life—for better or for worse.