because he didn’t press me about it anymore.
Another man came up behind Max and tried to make eye contact with me. “Brooke?” he asked.
Max turned around and realized that my blind date had arrived. He looked between the two of us and then gave me a small smile before leaving. The guy in front of me was checking my face against the photo on his phone.
“Yes, that’s me,” I laughed. “You must be Scott.”
Scott sat down next to me and ordered drinks. He was cute—really cute—and he had a young, sporty look to him. He had short blond hair and green eyes and looked like he worked out enough to be pretty ripped beneath his T-shirt. He talked about traveling the world and about the dog he had rescued. He said he wanted to be some sort of freelancer so that he could be free to work for himself and go where he wanted to go. He didn’t seem to care too much about the rat-race of the business world or the status elements of being in some of the city’s social circles. Scott was essentially everything that Tim wasn’t.
Scott was super nice, and we had a great time talking, but all throughout the date, I couldn’t stop thinking about Tim. I thought about what Max said and about giving Tim one last chance to prove that he cared about me more than he cared about letting some woman put her hands in his pants for the sake of a profitable contracted project.
But it didn’t matter how much my head told me it was time to move on, my heart still dragged behind, protesting every inch of the way that it wasn’t going anywhere without Tim.
When we decided to leave the bar, Scott asked me if he could see me again. This was my chance. He was a handsome, nice, and an interesting guy my age to spend time with. This was my chance to say yes and give him my number and actually make an effort to move on from Tim.
“I had a really nice time. Thank you. But I’m just not ready to go on a second date with anyone right now.” Seriously what the hell was wrong with me?
Scott was super cool about it all. He gave me a hug, walked me to my car, and thanked me for a lovely evening. I knew I shouldn’t have ended that before it even started. Maybe it was seeing Max at the bar before my date that threw things off. Regardless, I just couldn’t seem to get rid of the hold Tim had on me.
When I got back to the apartment, Kate was practically standing at the door, ready to grill me about all the juicy details of the date. Nick had gone back to his place tonight, as he sometimes sporadically did just to make sure his roommates hadn’t trashed the place. I really felt like he should just move in here with Kate, even though there wasn’t much space, he was practically always here anyway.
“Well?” she said as she jumped up and down in her pajama shorts. “How was it? Tell me everything.”
“It was good,” I said as I walked toward my bedroom to get changed.
“Good? Just good? Not fantastic?”
“Kate, no one is going to be fantastic for me. I’m already too hung up on Tim.”
“You need to forget about him for a minute and tell me about your date with Scott.”
She stood in the doorway as I changed into my pajamas. I didn’t care about being naked in front of her; we’d known each other for years and seen each other naked more times than I could count.
I told her about Scott and about how nice and how attractive he was.
“Did he have a nice body?” she asked as if she was living vicariously thought my date.
I nodded. “Yes, he’s a very hot guy.”
“What else?” she asked.
I told her about some of the things we talked about and the cool things that he wanted to do in the future. Then I told her about how he asked me out for a second date and how I declined.
“You what? Why? You just said all of these wonderful things about him. You even said that he was hot and you were attracted to him. So what on earth is the problem with going out of a second date?”
“The problem is that I don’t love him.”
Kate froze and looked at me like a deer in headlights. “Oh, no, no,