Sandcastle Beach (Matchmaker Bay #3) - Jenny Holiday Page 0,130
around the tips of her icy fingers, struck with an almost involuntary impulse to warm her up. But as quickly as he did so, he pulled back because, hello, that was wildly inappropriate.
“Meeting at my place sounds great.” Her cheeks had gone pink. Even though her hands were cold, her face looked…warm. “I’ll text you.”
“Well!” Stacey clapped her hands together. “By my calculations, Jay, we only have forty-five minutes of open bar time before the program starts, so chop-chop.”
Right. Stacey. The gala. He grabbed his keys and gestured for both women to precede him out the door. No one spoke as they were waiting for the elevator. When they got on, it was occupied by a woman named Annabelle. She worked in another company in the building, and they had a friendly elevator-and-parking-garage relationship.
“Looking good, Jay,” she teased, and he dipped his head in acknowledgment, a bit embarrassed. He’d had kind of a crush on Annabelle when he first met her, and she knew it.
Annabelle got off on another floor. “That was another of Jay’s ex-girlfriends,” Stacey said.
What? “That’s just plain not true.” What the hell was Stacey’s problem today? Had she gotten started on the open bar early? He turned to Elise. “I asked her out once. Years ago. She said no. And because I’m not an asshole, that was it. Now we chat in the elevator like normal people.” God. Why was this so embarrassing?
“Okay…” Elise looked uncomfortable as the elevator hit the ground floor. And maybe he was an asshole, because why had he felt the need to give her that big disclaimer in the first place?
And why did his chest suddenly feel tight, like he was having trouble getting in a good breath? It must be the stupid bow tie. He concentrated on filling his lungs as he held the elevator door open for the women.
As they emerged onto the street, Elise turned to him. “I’ll text you to set up the meeting.”
“We’re going to hail a cab,” he said. “Can we drop you somewhere?”
“Thanks, but no. I’m meeting a friend who works downtown.”
And then she was gone. And he could breathe again.
He turned on Stacey once they were in the cab. “What the hell was all that?”
“What was what?” She took out a compact and examined her reflection in its mirror.
“You’re not my ex-girlfriend.”
“I am, though.”
“Stacey. I’ve known you for seven years. And we dated—not very successfully—for, like, two months in there near the beginning.”
Stacey smiled at her reflection. “I was testing the waters.”
“What does that mean?”
“I wanted to see what the reaction would be.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Whose reaction?”
“Yours. Hers. Either.” She turned to him. “You like this woman.”
He sighed and slumped against the seat. There was no use denying it. Stacey could sniff out laundered offshore bank accounts buried under mountains of decoys. She didn’t miss anything. “She’s way too young.”
“She looks like she’s thirty at least.”
“Which is too young.”
“Jesus Christ, Jay, for a guy who’s generally one of the good ones, you can be such a misogynistic jerk sometimes.”
“Excuse me?” Jay would admit to his faults, but he was fairly certain misogyny wasn’t one of them. No, that was one of his father’s faults. And Jay was not his father.
“How arrogant do you have to be to just assume that every woman you meet under the age of forty-five wants kids? To just assign that stance to her? Some women—even young ones—don’t want kids. Don’t you think it’s better to find out before you just write off—”
“And what am I supposed to say? ‘Hello, I like you, but I don’t want kids. Might you, too, not want kids?’ That’s a great way to approach a first date.”
“Why not? It’s not like things are working out with your chosen demographic.”
He tried to object, but Stacey held up a hand. “Don’t interrupt.”
Resigned, he settled in to listen to her little speech.
“I mean, yes, you can date older women exclusively”—she gestured at herself—“but it’s not like you’ve found one of us to ride off into the sunset with.”
“But that’s just bad luck,” he said, though it was probably useless to argue. “That’s just life.” She raised her eyebrows at him. “Anyway,” he pushed on, still knowing it was pointless, “I’m closer to forty than thirty now. The gap is shrinking.” He made a face, going for humor. “Soon I’ll be able to date women my age.”
She was not amused. “Are you listening to yourself? Could you be any more inflexible?”