Pairings app and Sylvie’s app. As of now, we already had dozens of people signed up to participate, and they’d all agreed to be part of our ad campaign, which meant we could track their dating success and use it as part of our full-scale ads after the Christmas season passed.
Both Mrs. Pratt and Sylvie were thrilled with the progress we were making.
Kathryn and I were more than satisfied as well. It felt good to see all our hard work paying off. Now at the end of a very long week, I was looking forward to getting out of the office and seeing my family for dinner. I wasn’t too excited about the hour and fifteen minute long drive I had ahead of me in order to get to Abbotsford but I knew it would be worth it once I sat down with my family and dug into whatever meal my mother had been working on all day.
I had my fingers crossed it was carb heavy and loaded up with cheese. That was the reward I needed that week.
I didn’t get out of my office until seven o’clock. I called my mother to let her know I was running behind and they could start without me, and as I crammed my arms into the sleeves of my jacket and rushed for the elevator, I nearly collided with Kathryn who was coming out of the break room.
“Hey,” she said. It was unusual to be greeted by her with a civil hello instead of a scowl and a tongue lashing. “All done for the day?”
I nodded as I fixed the collar of my coat. “Yeah. You?”
She stifled a yawn. “I think I’m going to head home too. I’m beat.”
“I’ve never heard of you leaving the office on a Friday night before nine o’clock.”
“Stranger things have happened.”
“Have they?” I mused.
She laughed. “There’s a box of Chinese food leftovers in my fridge with my name on it and a bottle of cheap but drinkable white wine. I’m not sticking around any later than I have to tonight. It’s been a long week.”
I spoke before I realized what I was saying. “You should come to my mother’s house with me for dinner. After the work we’ve done all week, it hardly seems right that you’d go home to an empty house and day-old leftovers.”
“Three days old actually,” she mumbled before giving her head a shake. “That doesn’t matter. Why would I come to your family’s house for dinner?”
“Why not? My mother always cooks too much food.”
“Look,” she said sternly, “just because I went to the Christmas market with you and maybe got caught humming a Christmas carol or two does not mean I want to drive out to farm country for dinner with your family.”
I laughed and nudged her shoulder. “Come on. My mother is an exceptional cook and she’s one of those ‘more the merrier’ kinds of people. Besides, I’ve told them a lot about you. I’m sure they’d like to meet you for themselves.”
“Told them about me? Well, I find it hard to believe you’ve said anything nice.”
“Nonsense.”
“I haven’t said anything nice about you to my friends,” she said.
“Ouch, that stings a bit.”
She smiled. “Can you blame me? You were a nightmare to work with all the way up until last week.”
“You weren’t a ray of sunshine yourself.”
“So you have trash-talked me to your family?”
“I didn’t say that,” I said, backpedaling.
She rolled her shoulders as we made our way to the elevator. “I find it hard to believe your family would want me sitting at their dinner table. They probably think I’m the devil.”
I said nothing about the fact that I used to refer to her as Satan or a She-Devil as the doors closed behind us and we began our descent to the underground parking garage. “You’ll love it in farm country. There’ll be snow on the ground. It’s not as wet out there as it is here by the coast. And there’ll be fresh food on the table and good wine, not three-day-old Chinese food and a ten-dollar bottle of Moscato.”
She frowned but said nothing. She was out of excuses. I grinned in victory.
The elevator doors opened, and we made for my car, but Kathryn stopped and didn’t get in the passenger seat. She looked at me over the hood of my white Lexus. “I have a condition.”
“Yes?”
“I need you to call your mother first and tell her I’m coming with you. I hate showing up at someone’s house unannounced. It’s