Chapter 7

Casey

Time had never passed as slowly as it did from 6:54 PM to 6:58 PM. It had only been four minutes since I’d finished curling my hair and putting on a slightly-too-tight black dress, but the nerves made it feel like a lifetime. There wasn’t exactly protocol for going on a date with your patient-turned-sperm donor-turned-potential love interest.

I applied some lipstick and rubbed my lips together, sighing as I looked in the mirror. Alexander was so hot, and I was just so blah. I was certain that, by the end of the date, he’d want nothing to do with me. He seemed so certain when he asked me out, though, that I decided it was worth taking a chance. Before I could overthink things any further, there was a knock on my door.

“Wow,” Alexander said, eyeing me up and down. “You look incredible.”

In a maroon button-down shirt and khaki pants, Alexander looked even more handsome than usual. I didn’t know that it was possible. “Wow, yourself,” I said. From behind his back, he pulled out a bouquet of red roses.

“Oh my goodness. They’re beautiful!”

“Just like you.”

Beaming from ear to ear, I left Alexander by the door as I put the roses in a vase. It was too soon for him to see my tiny apartment. I was certain it would scare him off. Shutting the door behind me, I asked Alexander where we were going.

“It’s a surprise,” he said. “I’m hoping you haven’t been there before.”

Considering my meals consisted mainly of frozen dinners and cheap takeout, I figured it was a safe bet I hadn’t been to wherever he was taking me. It was exciting to have an element of surprise. Like a true gentleman, Alexander followed me to my side of his car and opened the passenger door for me.

“Thanks,” I said, blushing.

The car ride went much better than I had anticipated. Instead of being filled with a mixture of awkward silence and small talk, we had a surprisingly engaging conversation about some of our favorite places in the area and our hometowns. It turned out that both Alexander and I were native Floridians, he from the outskirts of Tampa and I from a small town outside of Tallahassee. It was nice to talk to someone else who had grown up by the ocean and not in the big city.

“I moved here to go to Emory for college and never looked back,” Alexander said. “It’s hard to be away from my family sometimes, but I have a great group of friends here, and I still go back to Tampa for the holidays.”

“Any brothers or sisters?” I asked. I always imagined I’d end up with someone with a big family, since apart from a few distant cousins in New York who I hadn’t seen since my mom’s funeral, I had virtually none.

“Two brothers and a sister,” he said.

“Wow!” I hadn’t meant to say that aloud, but I was genuinely surprised. We were truly opposites. “Older or younger?”

Alexander put his turn signal on. “I’m the oldest. Let’s see. I’m thirty, which makes Emily twenty-eight, and the twins, Connor and Patrick, twenty-four.” Glimpsing over at me with a grin, Alexander pulled into a parking spot at an unfamiliar, dimly-lit restaurant. “Here we are.”

As he walked over to open my door, I stared at the building in front of me. With a few small waterfalls and gorgeous stenciled stones, I knew it had to be fancy. I followed Alexander into the restaurant, wondering what he had in store for us.

“Welcome to Lotus,” the hostess said. Based on the restaurant’s name and the outfits of the wait staff, I decided it was a safe bet we were having Asian. It was unlike any place I’d ever eaten before, filled with paper fans and porcelain tea mugs and a live quartet. Alexander went up and spoke to her, and she soon brought us to a table in the center of the restaurant.

“This place is gorgeous,” I said as I sat down. “You really didn’t have to do all this.”

“Of course I did!” Alexander said. “Besides, I wanted to. And you mentioned you love Chinese food!”

I nodded with a smile. “I’m guessing this is going to be miles better than the takeout place I usually order from.”

“Which place is that?”

“Han’s Dynasty,” I said.

Alexander threw his napkin on the table in fake disgust. “Han’s Dynasty?! That’s what you’re basing your love of Chinese food on?” I nodded as he continued laughing. “Boy, are you in for a treat!”

“I’m looking forward to it.” I perused the menu and tried not to have a heart attack looking at the prices. Wow, was I living beyond my means tonight. One of my foster moms, whose home I had been at when I went on my first date, had told me to always offer to pay on a date. It was a piece of advice that had stuck with me long after she had. I always offered, but only a few pathetic guys had taken me up on it. I was certain that Alexander would pick up the tab, not just because he surely knew I couldn’t afford such a meal, but also because he had been nothing but a complete gentleman.

We decided to split a few appetizers, none of which I could pronounce, and I opted for a chicken dish, while Alexander decided on shrimp.

A thought popped into my mind that I felt compelled to share. I liked that he hadn’t pressured me into ordering anything like other guys I’d gone out with. No matter how this date went, it was already a step up. “I know the cardinal rule is to never talk about a prior date on a first date,” I said, hoping Alexander understood where I was going.

“If you have a good story, lay it on me!” he said with a chuckle. “I won’t hold it against you.”

I sighed loudly for dramatic effect, making Alexander’s laugh grow and his gorgeous dimples appear even more pronounced. “Worst date I ever went on. I had just started at the clinic and a guy who worked a few doors down at the pizza place asked me out. For starters, he insisted we go to the pizza place he worked at.”

“No way!” Alexander said. “That’s awful!”

“That isn’t even the worst of it,” I said. “He insisted that I had to try their supposedly-famous mushroom pie, which had mushrooms and olives. Guess who hates both mushrooms and olives?”

Alexander raised his eyebrows. “The stunning girl I’m having dinner with tonight?”

I tried not to blush as I continued. “I told him that, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He ordered us a mushroom pie. I was out the door before the pizza was even out of the oven.”

“I don’t blame you,” Alexander said. “Sounds like a real jerk.”

“Pretty much,” I said. “How about you? Any good stories?”

Alexander ran his hands through his gorgeous hair in a way that said he had quite the story to tell. “About awful dates? I should write the book on them. There was one girl in college who wanted to take me to meet her parents after the first date because she was so certain we were meant to be.”

“I’m guessing you weren’t,” I chuckled.

“Not even close,” Alexander said. “A few years back, I went on a date with a girl I met online.”

“Oh no,” I said. I’d heard my fair share of online dating stories, and none of them ended well.

Alexander shook his head. “Should’ve never gone. After our second date, she was already talking about our future babies…” His voice trailed off, and I could tell by the bead of sweat that poured down his cheek that he immediately regretted what he said. “Casey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by that. This whole you-carrying-my-baby thing is still new to me.”

“Hey, I’m already two dates ahead of her,” I said, laughing it off. “Seriously, don’t worry about it.”

“You sure?”

I nodded. There was no use making him feel bad over something that didn’t really bother me. “It’s going to take some getting used to, this whole pregnancy thing. Don’t feel like you have to tiptoe around it. I know it’s a weird situation.” I paused. “So, any other good first date stories?”

In between bites of dumplings and spring rolls, Alexander ran through his list of horror stories. I thought my dating history was bad, until he told me about the girl who asked him to pop her pimple in the middle of a date. That one was the definite winner.

In between appetizers and the main course, Alexander picked up our conversation from the car. “So, how about you? Any siblings?”

“Nope,” I said. It came out more curtly than I had intended. To make up for it, I added, “But I’d love to hear more about yours! What do your siblings do?”

“Well, Emily’s finishing up her medical residency at a hospital down in Tampa,” Alexander began. “Connor is in his second year of teaching high school history. And Patrick, well, I’m not really sure about him. Keeping a job isn’t his strong suit. Last time I saw him, back at the start of the summer, he was working at a shoe store. I wouldn’t bet on him still having that job though.”

I picked at a dumpling on my plate, searching for the words to say back. “That must be tough.”

“Yeah,” Alexander said. “I’m sure he’ll figure out his way, though. To be honest, our grandpa died a few years back, and that hit Patrick hard. They were really close. Patrick dropped out of school and started working odd jobs to pay the rent.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, putting my hand on top of Alexander’s. Just as I thought a kiss was about to happen, the waitress brought over our dinners. My eyes grew wide as I got a clear view of the giant plate in front of me. These two dishes could’ve easily fed five or six people.

Alexander smiled. “Dig in!”

I wanted more than anything to spill my soul to Alexander. I wanted to tell him about growing up in foster care, and having to deal with my mom’s death. I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t scared of being a single mother, because my dad had left before I was born and my mom had done just fine until she passed away. Instead, I held it all in. The only thing I could bear to mention was my lack of a college degree. “I have to confess something,” I said.

Alexander wiped something from his chin with his cloth napkin. “What is it?”

“I don’t have a college degree,” I said. It felt embarrassing to say, not because it was something I was necessarily ashamed of, but because it made me feel so lame compared to this guy who ran his own company. “I mean, I went to college, but I never finished.”

“Can I ask why?” Alexander asked, tilting his head in curiosity.

I drew in a breath. “I was two semesters away from graduating, but I just didn’t have the money to finish. I found the job at the clinic and never looked back.”

“I see.”

“Look, I know you have this big, fancy company, and I didn’t even finish my degree…” My voice grew quiet. I wasn’t exactly sure where I was going with this. Luckily, Alexander took over before I could figure it out.

“Casey, I don’t care about what degrees you have,” Alexander said. “I care about what kind of person you are. And, so far, you seem pretty great.”

As if he wasn’t already swoon-worthy enough, Alexander continued to surprise me with his charm. “Thanks. By the way, this food is incredible!”

“I told you you’d love it,” Alexander said. This evening was already more amazing than I ever could have dreamed, and, from the look on Alexander’s face, I could tell it was far from over.