ten
Joy yawned and frowned in her sleep, and Candace adjusted her hold on Mandy’s baby. “She is so sweet.”
“No fair using my daughter to deflect. I was asking about Colin.” Mandy sat in the other chair. “If you don’t tell me now, I’ll call you at 2:00 a.m. when she is screaming her head off, and you can deal with her not-so-sweet moments.”
“I thought we needed to discuss the Hearthfire showing in Blue Pines.” Candace tried to change the subject again.
“Nice try. Tessa and I have that under control. I’ll go out in October to make final arrangements. But that is not the point. Spill, or I let the little one scream you awake.”
Candace adjusted the blanket around Joy’s face. “Don’t say such disparaging things about my honorary niece. You exaggerate.”
“About her crying, or me calling you with it?”
“Both, but I’ll tell you anyway. Colin officially asked me on a date. Even got Bonnie to help him with the arrangements.”
“What are you doing?”
Candace stifled a laugh, not wanting to wake Joy. “Colin was a bit vague on that. Bonnie didn’t give him the name of the play or musical she got tickets for. I think he is afraid to ask her.”
Mandy covered her mouth with her hand. After a moment, she removed it. “Let me go put her in her crib so we can laugh.”
Candace sat down in her favorite chair. A few boxes stood against the wall. Daniel and Mandy’s new house was finished. They decided they would rather not raise Joy in the heart of the city, but they would keep the penthouse for events there.
Mandy returned in a different shirt. “Joy gave me a little good-night spit up. I am not sure the pumpkin spice cake I had this morning agreed with her. Now, back to Colin and Bonnie. She probably didn’t tell him just to get him to make his own dates. Nothing annoyed her more than when Daniel would ask for her help in his personal matters. Of course, with me, it is a different story. I don’t think I can ask too many silly personal questions, as long I ask them between the hours of nine and eleven in the morning.” Mandy took a seat in the chair opposite her. “Although I can pretty much text her anytime of day with a Joy-related question. Now, I digress. What did you think of Colin asking you out?”
“It was inevitable?”
“That is not what I mean.”
“Honestly, I have never been so nervous about a date in my life. With my ten-year plan, I never took any guy very seriously. He was just fun for the moment. Colin is different. We have been talking and doing things together for a year and a half, but it has almost always been in the context of doing them with you and Daniel or because of the other roommates. I am comfortable with where things have been. He knows me as well as many of my roommates do.”
“Have you told him about the ten-year plan?”
“A little, but not the real pain behind it. There was a point I honestly didn’t think I would live for ten years—or if I wanted to. I lost so much.”
“How long was it after your mom died that your dad figured out you had been come addicted to pain pills?”
“He didn’t. It was my sister. Somehow in the middle of everything, she had gotten engaged to a med student, of all things. I was barely talking to her I was so mad about Mom dying. I think her fiancé noticed it first and pushed her into telling Dad and confronting me. The fact that other than my mother’s pain-pill stash I had gotten the rest legally blew everyone’s mind. Some of the doctors were on a different computer system, and since some prescriptions were filled in Houston and others in Indianapolis, the pharmacy hadn’t realized what I was doing either.”
“Does Colin know?”
“I told him last fall. It came up one day about why I was so adamant about not having painkillers around when I was using an ice pack for a headache.” Ice worked relatively fast for her.
“How hard was it when I broke my foot and had the painkillers in the house?”
“You mean your lover’s fracture?” Candace loved using the nickname of the type of break Mandy had received from falling off Daniel’s fence, especially since the name turned out to be somewhat prophetic. “I was surprised how easy it was to leave them alone.”
“That’s good. I always worried about that. Have you told Colin everything else?”
“You mean the full effects of the cancer? Not yet. If our dating looks like we are moving forward, I will tell him then. In the meantime, he knows enough. You know, he doesn’t treat me any differently when I am wearing a scarf than when I am wearing a wig. I’m not sure if it’s because he doesn’t notice what I am wearing or if he really doesn’t care.”
“I think he notices. Colin said he had a favorite wig.”
“Really? Which one?”
“I think you need to ask him that.” Mandy smiled one of those annoying I-know-what-is-best smiles.
Candace decided to change the topic again. “Did I tell you Zoe went to the 9/11-wing opening at the museum?”
“She sent photos to the group chat, and Tessa posted too. Is it my imagination, or is Zoe mentioning Nick a lot?”
Nick would be so right for her cousin. Sean vouched that his childhood friend had earned the nickname “Do-Gooding.” “I have noticed that too. To be honest, I didn’t know if she would choose to move on, even with all the support she has had this past year. Statistically, the majority of men are decent people, even if they do seem to be from another planet sometimes.”
“I like Nick. Daniel was talking about some of the things they did in school together. Nick is pretty good-natured and can handle a joke. Did Colin tell you about hacking Nick’s computer?”
“No.”
“It was like their junior year, and Nick’s dad bought him this new wireless printer. Colin realized it wasn’t protected and started sending documents to it. Things like, ‘Hi, Nick, I liked your striped socks today.’ ‘Nick, please remove the yellow toner. She is bringing cyan down.’ ‘Stop ignoring me, or I will not print that term paper you are working on.’”
Candace held her sides to keep the laughter from hurting her ribs. “No way. What did Nick do?”
“He took the printer to Colin and told him it was creepily self-aware and asked Colin to fix it. Colin told him it might be expensive and got a month’s worth of cleanup dorm duties in exchange. Then, a couple days before the end of their senior year, Colin sent a message to the printer confessing about the open Wi-Fi and that he’d hacked the printer. Daniel said he hadn’t seen Nick laugh so hard as when he told the story of his self-aware printer.”
“That would freak me out! ‘Hi, I am your printer, and I am self-aware.’ I would chuck it into the nearest dumpster. Then, when I found out, I would be so annoyed.” Practical jokes. Colin didn’t seem the type, which made it all the funnier. Candace and Mandy laughed until tears formed. “At least I’ll know now if my printer starts acting up it has been hacked.” Part of her wished he would, just so she could see the humorous side of him. Suddenly she couldn’t wait for Saturday’s date.
Concentrating on the board meeting was harder than usual. Colin never cared about the nontech side of the business. It was a good thing he had Daniel for a partner. Fortunately, Colin’s tech inventions made them enough money that Daniel was more than happy to deal with the mundane and day to day. But this meeting, instead of thinking of the line of code he could adjust, he was thinking of Candace. Perhaps it was the scarf Mrs. Johnson, one of the board members, wore. The soft colors were not Candace’s style, yet he thought of how the soft pastels would make her eyes sparkle.
When the meeting concluded, Colin shook all the hands he needed to and breathed a sigh of relief when only Daniel remained.
“Whatever the new idea you have in mind is, it must be good. You haven’t been that out of it in a board meeting for a while.”
Colin removed his tie. “Sorry about that.”
“What is the idea?”
“It wasn’t an app. I asked Candace out on a real date.”
Daniel stopped shuffling the papers in front of him. “As in you said ‘I am asking you on a date’ and not just one of those sideways-slide, hanging-out-with-her things?”
“I lost it on the phone. I think she thought I was going into shock. I couldn’t say a word.”
“But she still said yes?”
“After she came up to the penthouse to check on me and I explained. I should have paid more attention to girls in school. I have no idea how to do this.”
Daniel nodded in the direction of his office. Colin followed him down the hall to one of the corner offices, where Daniel shut the door behind them. “Are you asking for advice?”
“Maybe?” Colin had no idea what might help relieve the stress building inside him.
“You two have been friends for a long time. Just hold on to that. Have you ever run out of things to talk about?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Then it probably won’t happen during your date, either. I know your mother drilled proper etiquette into you so much that Miss Manners herself would have a hard time finding something you don’t know. Fall back on that if all else fails.” Nick hung his suit coat in the closet.
Colin sat on the arm of one of the plush chairs. “I don’t know that etiquette can save me.”
“Sure it can. Offer your arm and ask a question. Trust me. That will give you a few more minutes to collect yourself.”
“Candace has an uncanny way of turning things back on me.”
“Ask about art. It works with Mandy every time.” Daniel smiled.
“You need time to think when you are around your wife?”
“Occasionally I am thinking about a business problem or too much about Mandy, and I need a moment.”
Colin wondered how someone could think about their wife too much, then realization hit him, and he hoped his neck wasn’t turning red.
Daniel smiled. His best friend had meant to bait him. “Any other pointers?”
Colin shook his head. No way was he going to ask Daniel about how one knew it was time to kiss. The chances that it would get repeated at an inopportune time were too high. “How do I get Bonnie to tell me where we are going?”
“You had Bonnie set up your date?”
“I didn’t know how to get tickets.”
Daniel whistled. “You are one brave soul. Fortunately for you, she likes Candace, and you were not a goof-up in college like I was, so you don’t have to worry. This time.”
“I thought about that. I am going to need to come up with my own dates.”
“I can help with that. Let me think of some, and I’ll text them to you.”
“Thanks.” I think. Daniel’s dating ideas could be as dangerous as having Bonnie arrange his dates. Which brought him back full circle to his problem—tomorrow night’s date.