The sight of Tori’s name popping up on my phone brought a wide, inexplicable smile to my face. I hadn’t seen or talked to her in days, not since we’d spent the night together in Chicago, and I couldn’t get her off my mind.
“What are you smiling about over there, Ace?” Nick was standing in the open doorway of the office at the shop, looking at me with his eyes narrowed, head cocked to the side as if he wondering if the guy he was looking at was really me.
“Nothing you need to be concerned about,” I said, replying to Tori’s text to ask her what time she wanted to meet.
Nick chuckled, stepping into the office to plop himself into the chair positioned across from the desk. “So it has nothing to with you sleeping with Tori again this past weekend, huh?”
My head shot up, and I scowled at the amused grin on his face. “How do you even know that, man?”
“I didn’t. You just confirmed it for me. What happened to your poker face, dude? I’m gonna have to change your nickname.”
“Shut the hell up, Nick.”
He laughed again, throwing his head back. “Damn, man. Cool your heels, I’m messing with you. Seriously though, you walked in here from your weekend in Chicago with a cheesy grin, bouncing around as if your balls were ten pounds lighter. It was obvious you got some.”
“What made you think Tori though?”
“Wild guess.” He shrugged, lifting an eyebrow at me. “Why are you so damned uptight?”
I scrubbed a hand over my face, glancing down at my phone to see Tori had sent back a response.
“ASAP. Can you be here within thirty minutes? — Tori K.”
“This was supposed to be private, just between Tori and I. I don’t want her thinking I’m spreading her business around,” I explained.
“Ace, Relax. You know I’m not going to repeat this to anybody. I thought we were brothers?”
I smirked. “Well, I’m a brother… you…”
“Shut the hell up, man.”
I chuckled, pressing my head into the back of the chair. “Nick, I don’t know what to do. I like this woman. Like… really like her, but she’s not feeling it.”
“Wack sex?”
“Hell no. It’s… complicated.”
Nick shook his head. “It’s never that complicated, not really.”
“No… this shit is for real complicated. At least for her.”
“So simplify it. When are you seeing her again?”
“Today,” I said, glancing at my watch. “I actually need to leave now.”
Scratching his chin, Nick thought for a second before he spoke again. “Okay… here’s what you do…”
— & —
I felt dumb as hell riding up the elevator to Tori’s office with a bouquet in my hand, pumping myself up to tell her, as Nick had suggested, that I didn’t want to go on another one of these dates, unless it was with her. I had rebuttals ready for every possible counterpoint she could throw at me, and I was ready. When I stepped off the elevator and into the Matched waiting area, Melanie looked up at me, surprised.
“Avery… What are you doing here?”
“Tori asked me to meet her here, as soon as I could… she’s here, right?”
Mel lifted an eyebrow, looking at something on her computer screen. “Yeah, she’s in her office, but she has a client back there. Let me see— oh, wait, she just messaged me to send you back. I guess she heard the elevator.” With a heavy, exasperated sigh, she glared up at me. “I’m guessing you haven’t looked at the file I sent you with your matches, huh?”
“No, I haven’t. Is this meeting related to that somehow?”