Sarah wanted to die, or at the very least have a hole open up in the floor below her chair to swallow her. She didn’t know where the question came from and blamed it on the fact that a freaking god had sat down at the table across from her.
She’d tried not to look too closely at the men while they were forced to stand around and wait for the event to start. It was nerve-racking enough just being in a room with forty people she’d never met before. Matters weren’t helped by the fact that most of the people looked like they stepped off of a runway. The man sitting across from her had to be a model of some sort, or maybe an actor.
There didn’t seem to be any product holding his smoothed-back dark brown hair in place. It looked too soft to be filled with gel. So soft that Sarah sort of wanted to reach out and feel if it was real.
Aside from the desire to run her fingers through his hair, his blue eyes were trying to burn holes in her. Even with her face covered, she could feel them penetrating. Sarah had felt them earlier from across the room, and they terrified her even more up close. She didn’t understand why he stared at her with such intensity. There was a small part of her that just wanted to sit back and return the stare to see who would blink first.
“Please pretend you didn’t hear any of those words come out of my mouth. I don’t know why I asked them.”
Sarah refused to remove her hands, so her words came out muffled. She’d known the whole speed dating thing would be a challenge for an introvert like her, but she hadn’t considered for even a second that she’d ask something as stupid as whether the guys were gay.
“I’m guessing you had some kind of reason. Look, this really isn’t my scene, but I need a date to an event and a friend suggested I give it a try. I have no intentions of starting any kind of relationship, so you should know that upfront.”
The fingers covering Sarah’s eyes slowly slid down her face as Reid spoke. If his chiseled face with hard jawline wasn’t enough, the guy’s voice was enough to make a nun swoon. It was deep, like a singer whose sole responsibility was to get you in a certain mood, and his looks alone had already put Sarah in that mood.
Even with her nervousness, Sarah’s body felt like there was electricity running through it. She wanted to feel his hands running over her skin. Just thinking about it made her squeeze thighs together to push back against the tingling sensations going on between her legs.
“You’re not here looking for a girlfriend.”
It was meant to be a question, but it wasn’t. Sarah did whisper the words to make sure no one heard them. She didn’t want to get the guy in trouble, and she was fairly sure his motives went against the general rules. Being there for pretty much the same reason, Sarah didn’t have a moral high ground, but she didn’t want to get the guy in trouble.
“Something about your opening question makes me think you aren’t here looking for a boyfriend either. I hazard to guess you’re getting out of a complicated relationship.” The guy paused to look around for a second. “We’re probably getting close on time. Do you want to get out of here and talk about how we can help each other?”
Sarah’s mouth hung open slightly as she considered his words. She concentrated on trying to figure out what had given him the idea she wasn’t there looking for a boyfriend. There’d only been a few sentences between them and somehow he thought he had a handle on her motives. He was right about things being complicated, but her stupid question didn’t scream she’d just gotten out of a relationship. At least she didn’t think it did.
“The rules say we aren’t supposed to make dates ourselves. We have to wait until they send us contact information.”
After getting a look at the men in the room, Sarah’s certainty that she was going to have to find some homeless guy to come to the wedding increased. Aaron had been above what Sarah considered her hotness ranking, if one could call it that. She figured she was maybe a six. Aaron had been a solid eight or nine and Reid didn’t even rank on a scale of ten. If he did, he’d be a ten and Sarah would have to slide down to a two.
She had to sit back from the table as Reid leaned in and put his elbows on it. The nearness of three feet was close enough. If Sarah got closer to him, she knew she’d say something else stupid. She was already lost figuring out the offer of leaving. There was nothing she wanted to do more, but it seemed like it’d be putting all her eggs in one basket.
“And you’re big on following the rules? Honestly, I am too, but I need someone to go to dinner with me Sunday night. Are you available?”
Sarah felt her brow scrunch together as she attempted to process his words. She wanted to look away from him to verify there were more attractive women all around them, but something about his eyes kept her attention on him. They made her think of when people said they fell into someone else’s eyes. Sarah had always thought that was crazy talk, but she began to understand what it meant.
“I have to find a date to a wedding next weekend. Are you available?”
The words should have killed any fire the guy seemed to have brewing in him, but Sarah only watched as a smile appeared across his face. The perfect white teeth that appeared weren’t a surprise.
“Saturday or Sunday?”
A blank stare greeted Reid’s words. Between her embarrassing opening question and her basic fumbling around as her brain tried to compute words coming out of his mouth, she had nothing for him.
“If it’s Saturday, I have a previous engagement, but Sunday I should be free. It’s only fair that if you help me out, I help you with whatever you have going on.”
Sarah hadn’t agreed to help him, which made it even harder to believe he was willing to go to a wedding with her. Men generally were supposed to fear weddings like the plague.
“I’m a bridesmaid seeking someone who doesn’t mind being a groomsman for someone he’s never met.”
Rather than the fast exit she expected when she explained further, Reid laughed. The noise coming from deep in his belly startled her and she jumped, pushing her chair a little further away from the table.
“This late in the game, I’m guessing the bisexual guy has something to do with your problems. Why don’t we leave now and grab some dinner so you can tell me about him?”
Clearly, the plea for him to forget she’d said that didn’t work, and he was pretty good at putting two and two together. It felt a little weird that he’d been able to make sense of her ramble. Thankfully, she had found an apartment earlier in the day, so she’d be out of Aaron’s and wouldn’t feel the need to kill him for the pain and suffering he was causing her.
“Are you a serial killer or something?”
It seemed an important question to ask as he kept pushing the idea that they leave together. Before he could answer, the buzzer sounded. Sarah let out a small breath of relief. The man across from her appeared like he was willing to be the answer to her problems, but she couldn’t believe he was real. There had to be some angle he was working, even if he claimed he just needed a date.
He made no move to stand up. When the man who was supposed to replace him came to take a seat, Reid motioned for the guy to move on to the table on the other side of them where a woman was yet to meet any of the guys. The new guy looked between the two women, and then shrugged his shoulders and went to the other table.
Sarah looked to the woman running the show, wondering if she was going to do anything about Reid’s failure to follow the rules. Since she was busy chatting with another woman, she didn’t notice the infraction.
“That’s against the rules.”
It was silly to say, but Reid claimed he liked to play by the rules. He’d broken pretty much every one of them Sarah remembered reading when she’d signed up.
“I can’t very well leave the question of whether I’m a serial killer or not up in the air. I’m not, by the way.”
“You could have said that and moved on to see if there’s a better option for your date.”
Whether there was a question about that wasn’t really up in the air. There were twenty women and eighteen guys participating in the event. Surely at least fifteen of the women were better options for him.
“I could have, but I really don’t want to deal with meeting anyone else. You didn’t answer the question about when the wedding is. Tell me it’s Sunday.”
Sarah had hoped they’d gloss over the question. His enthusiasm to help her out was wrong. She’d called Aaron to tell him that she’d be out of the apartment before the end of the weekend. He’d brought up the idea that he’d keep the commitment if she needed him to, but she didn’t miss the sigh of relief when she told him she had it covered.
Nor did she miss the edge of jealousy in his voice when he pressed her to tell him who was going in his place. The whole situation was bizarre, and thinking about it when something else strange was going on in her life wasn’t the best idea.
“It is Sunday, but it’s a wedding. I don’t even want to go to it, but my best friend’s sister is getting married and I’m being forced to.”
“Well, my dinner is to seal up the loose ends of an endorsement deal, so it’s not something I really want to go to either, but we all have commitments.”
“Endorsement?”
Sarah stared at his hardened eyes. He’d been so carefree and playful, but something about revealing more details about his dinner altered his expression. As she watched him, he shrugged his shoulders and sighed.
“Long story, that I’m sure I can’t get done in our allotted time. Would you please come to dinner with me so we can set things up for this Sunday and figure out what we need to do for next week?”
“I didn’t say I’d come to your dinner with you.”
The way Reid spoke made it sound like an entirely different conversation had gone on between them. He either thought she was a pushover or that he was impossible to say no to. The latter was probably true, but Sarah did her best to make sure people weren’t taking advantage of her.
“But I think you will. Plus, I have to know the story behind your opening comment. Do you like seafood? There’s a great place a couple of blocks away.”
“Do you find women normally just do whatever you tell them?” Sarah asked, but immediately shook her head. “Obviously, that’s rhetorical. I’m sure you’ve never had an issue getting a woman to bend around your finger, but I’ve been told I’m not a normal woman.”
The buzzer sounded again. Sarah wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or not. If Reid didn’t want to move, he wasn’t going to, and she was fairly certain no one in the room could make him. She waited to see what he’d do, but his eyes were busy staring at her as he considered something. When the man she’d noticed him talking to earlier in the evening tapped him on the shoulder, she worried about the way Reid’s eyes narrowed. Sarah thought for a second he was going to bare his teeth and growl.
“Move on to the next table, Nico.”
Since Sarah kept eye contact with Reid, her eyes widened a little when he was able to tell who the guy was by only a tap on the shoulder. Reid’s voice wasn’t friendly. She couldn’t tell if he was trying to pass off anger or boredom. It felt like it was on the edge of the two options.
“You move to the next table,” the man said in a heavily accented voice. “They let you slide once, but they’ve got their eyes on you. They kick you out.”
“That’s the plan. I’ll blame her and she’ll have to leave too. Now, if you’d go to the next table, I can convince Sarah to go to Table Nine with me.”
The smile returned to Reid’s face, but it didn’t reach his eyes like it had. Sarah didn’t want to get in the middle of it, and being kicked out of the event didn’t sound like a bad idea. She could tell May she tried her best, but they’d both known that there was a good chance Sarah wouldn’t be able to find someone.
“You need date for dinner later, not tonight.”
“Where are you from?”
Sarah had told herself she’d let them have their conversation, but the accent wasn’t one she’d heard. Since she was speaking to the other man, she looked away from Reid. His friend, or at least acquaintance, wasn’t as pretty as he was. Where Reid looked like a model, Nico reminded Sarah of a boxer or something. He was huge and his nose made her think someone had tried to flatten it.
“Do we have a problem here?”
Glancing back at Reid, Sarah saw him cringe as the woman who ran things appeared behind him. The squeaky nature of the newcomer’s voice was something people needed to get used to.
“Do you have a problem?”
The people behind Reid couldn’t see that his eyes were intent on Sarah. He was asking her the question, and therefore leaving it up to her whether the moderator was going to get in a tizzy over his actions.
It wasn’t a decision Sarah had prepared for. She’d considered what she’d do if she forgot how to speak or had to deal with someone who bored her to death. Having someone ask her to leave with him sounded like something out of one of her books.
“I think we’ve decided that speed dating isn’t right for us. I’m sorry if that messes up the night for everyone else.”
With attention drawn her way, sticking around for the rest of the night came in around the bottom of the appeal scale. New situations were hard enough. Having all eyes scrutinizing what in the world was going on at her table made her feel sick to her stomach.
“You don’t get a refund for leaving early.”
“We got what we were looking for, so I think we’re good. You ready to go, Sarah?”
Reid scooted back from the table, making Nico have to move as well. When Reid stood, he wasn’t quite as large as his friend, but there was only a few inches difference.
Sarah wasn’t as quick to get out of her chair. Just because they were both leaving didn’t mean they were going together.
“Okay if you two have your issues figured out, number seven, you can take a seat with number three over here. We’re getting behind schedule and I’d like to get back on track.”
The woman moved to guide Nico to the next table, but a glare from the scary man had her stopping in place. Sarah hoped to never find herself on a receiving end of a look like that. The man’s dark eyes looked like they could shoot lasers out of them.
“I can find the table myself. Go help other people.”
There was a little hesitation as concern covered her face, but the woman’s agenda wasn’t important enough to figure out what Nico would do if pushed. Sarah still wanted to know where the accent came from, and how she could work it into one of her books. His voice made her think of a Russian spy or something and the idea made her want to run home so she could make notes on a character.
“She know you just need date?”
With the woman following directions, Nico took over the conversation. Sarah glanced up at the guy and couldn’t miss the look of pity directed at her. She shrugged. At least she wasn’t the only one who knew there was something weird about the request.
“Don’t wait up, okay?” Reid smacked Nico on the shoulder.
Sarah didn’t know what to think of the comment or Reid walking over and extending a hand towards her. Her inability to hurriedly get up and run from the building evidently meant she wasn’t capable of getting up under her own power.
She didn’t say anything as she let Reid guide her out of the chair and eventually out of the club. The eyes of everyone at the tables followed them. Sarah didn’t turn around to verify that, but she could feel them. The pressure of being watched only reminded her of what being part of June’s wedding party would be like.
Canceling her part of the wedding sounded like an even better idea after attempting to find someone else willing to go through with it. Both June and May were going to throw a fit, but between the pair they had to have someone else who could fill in while she hid in her new apartment.
“He’s from Yaroslavl.” When Sarah looked at Reid confused, he continued. “Russia. You asked where he’s from. Yaroslavl, Russia. He’s been living here for five or six years though, so he’s mainly got a handle on how things work. He’s worried you want to settle down and have a million babies with me.”
Sarah didn’t know how to reply to the latter part of the statement. All she’d been looking for was someone to go to a wedding. Marriage and kids weren’t on her radar after everything with Aaron.
“And you two live together? You told him not to wait up.”
Reid laughed as he put an arm behind Sarah’s back so he could lead her down the sidewalk. She hesitated letting him do so, but she had some questions she wanted answered, so a short walk would be fine. It was dark outside, with only the lights of the businesses, mostly bars and restaurants, providing barely enough light to see where she walked.
“I can assure you there’s nothing romantic going on there. We’re just roommates.”
“And you would seriously go to a wedding with me if I go to your endorsement thing that you don’t want to explain?”
Sarah knew what endorsements were. She just didn’t know what one had to do with Reid. He had to be someone famous for someone to be willing to pay him to promote their product. That only made it less likely that she was the one for the job. She was well-known to her fans, but they were primarily women.
“If that’s what it takes. I think it will work out better if we both get something out of the deal and you don’t expect something more from me. I’m not in the market for a relationship, and I’m pretty sure most of the women I’d ask would at least require a passionate night or two.”
“And you’re not into sex?”
A distraction from her own problems would’ve been nice, but sex wasn’t just an act that could easily be forgotten for Sarah. It had always taken a little while to get Aaron worked up, but once he was, well, sex wasn’t a problem in their relationship. The lack of a connection she felt during the act was a little odd, but she never had an issue feeling completely satisfied when it was over.
“It’s a distraction, and my life doesn’t need them right now. So, are we going to get some food and work out the logistics of what to wear and when to meet?”
Sarah dug her phone out of her jeans pocket to check the time. Compared to some of the women at the speed dating event, who’d dressed in slinky dresses, Sarah looked like a slob. She wore a nice silky purple shirt, but she felt better in jeans, so that was what she’d worn.
It was a little after eight-thirty, which meant the night was still early, but she needed to finish packing so she could hopefully move to her new place in the morning. If she agreed to be Reid’s date, she also needed all the time she could get to find something to wear. Jeans weren’t going to cut it.
“I’m moving tomorrow, so I need to go home and finish making sure I’ve got everything ready.”
Reid stopped walking and spun Sarah around so they were facing each other. The club had been dark, but the sidewalk made it even harder to make out Reid’s features. His blue eyes glowed in the little light available.
“But the speed dating would’ve lasted at least another hour. I think that means you’ve got some time to kill.”
There was that, but as Sarah tilted her head from side to side thinking over the options, she decided leaving Reid to think about his decision was the best idea. He had to realize that he had better options to make an impression.
“How about I give you my phone number and you give me a call to go over the details.”
Sarah was sure she could still say stupid things over the phone, but the pressure of having Reid’s eyes locked on her made it a little less likely. The whole situation was surreal.
“Okay, we can do it that way. I have a few things I need to take care of myself.”
It was difficult not to wonder what those things were, but Sarah settled for giving her phone number and waving as she walked to her car. She thought he’d maybe follow her to make sure she got there safely, but since he didn’t even offer to give his phone number, she figured he was already seeing sense.
As she got in her car, she shrugged her shoulders and decided if nothing else, she had an interesting story to tell May. Even if Reid never called, Sarah felt a little pep in her step from being noticed by someone like him.