Dating-ish (Knitting in the City Book 6)

by Penny Reid

  “Yes. You’re nuts. Don’t email me. Don’t call me. Pretend we never met.”

  I was no longer sweating as I pulled on my jacket and grabbed my things. This was an odd quirk about my personality: put me in an innocuous situation where I need to be normal, and I’m bouncing off the walls. But send me into a dangerous or emergency situation, and I’m cool and focused.

  Derek—or whatever his name was—started to stand so I held out my hand.

  “Don’t. Don’t stand up. Don’t even look at me. And don’t think about following me either or I’ll call the police.” Lunatic.

  Without another glance, I wove through the tables and out the door, anger, indignation, and frustration spurring my movements.

  Wow.

  WOW.

  Wow.

  The first thing I’d do upon arriving home would be reporting that freak to FindUrPartner.com.

  The second thing I’d do is delete my profile. I’d been with David, my ex, for six years, and because we’d met in college, I’d missed out on the early years of Internet dating. No great loss. Clearly it wasn’t for me.

  I’d had some terrible first dates since breaking up with David, but this one took the cake. It took all the cakes. In less than twenty minutes, my perfect match had irrevocably propelled himself to the top of my worst-date list.

  Thanks, dating algorithms, for pairing me with a psycho.

  I moved to retrieve my cell from my purse. I needed to call my friend Sandra immediately. I couldn’t wait until knit night to tell someone about this fiasco. But then my attention snagged on the spine of my book—the book I’d purchased in a rush so as to not seem prosaic for Derek—and I stopped short, gaping at the title and author.

  It read, The 120 Days of Sodom, by Marquis de Sade.

  2

  Artificial Diamond (aka Synthetic Diamond, Cultured Diamond, or Cultivated Diamond)

  A diamond created in a laboratory rather than by geological processes. While the term synthetic is associated by consumers with imitation products, artificial diamonds are made of the same material (pure carbon, crystallized in isotropic 3D form) and are, in fact, real diamonds.

  Source: 16 C.F.R. Part 23: Federal Trade Commission

  Roaring laughter, complete with heads thrown back, hands over stomachs, and tears rolling down faces. This was how my six knitting group friends reacted to the punchline of my date with Derek.

  Elizabeth—my sarcastic with a heart of marshmallow ER physician from Iowa—held her face in her hands. A long rope of braided blonde hair fell over her shaking shoulders.

  Sandra—my potty-mouthed psychiatrist from Texas—was sprawled backward on the sofa, her green eyes screwed shut as she clutched her abdomen. Silent hysterics apparently having momentarily paralyzed her.

  Ashley—my silly, quick-witted ICU nurse from Tennessee—was bent to one side, her face planted into the couch at her left. She’d Skyped in from Green Valley, Tennessee, where she’d moved over the spring to be closer to her family. We’d placed a laptop on a chair to one side of the living room, close enough to the circle that we were all visible but far enough away so she could still see all of us.

  Fiona—my graceful and wise retired CIA field agent from Baltimore—gazed at me with her dark, soulful eyes, an expression between sympathy and reluctant humor warring for dominance.

  Kat—my poised, sweet, usually shy administrative assistant and woman of mystery from Boston—had folded her arms on the coffee table and hidden her face, but her giggle-snort gave her away.

  Janie was the exception. My walking, talking encyclopedia of Amazonian adorableness—also from Iowa—wasn’t laughing. She looked perturbed.

  But I was laughing.

  How could I not? What other choice did I have?

  Crying? Nah. I was finished with crying. Crying was my past, laughing was my present and foreseeable future. Unless it was crying induced by laughter or an allergy to cats. Because I’d recently decided I would be adopting cats. All the cats.

  Forget men and romance. The answer to my aching loneliness would be all the cats.

  “Tears. On my face.” Sandra waved her hands in front of her eyes and then wiped at the corners. “I’m wearing mascara, thank God, so you can all get the full effect.”

  “What are you talking about?” Elizabeth, still in her ER scrubs, asked from Sandra’s left, nudging her with an elbow while snickering. “What full effect?”

  “You can literally see how funny this story is by the black trails of mascara running down my face.” Sandra pointed to her cheeks, subduing an errant giggle. “Sodomy jokes. They get me every time.”

  “I didn’t know that book was even in print, The 120 Days of Sodom, by Marquis de Sade.” Janie, the only one who hadn’t laughed like mad, frowned at me. “I know it was translated a few years ago, but I thought you could only get it as an e-book.” She stood hovering to one side of the couch, several red curls having come loose from her bun, her black, horn-rimmed glasses giving her the aura of a stern librarian.

  Holding a two-liter bottle of water, she was stretching her back and appeared to be agitated by the news that The 120 Days of Sodom was available in paperback yet no one had seen fit to notify her. Everything irritated her these days. She’d had the worst morning sickness for fourteen weeks, and had been dwelling in a perpetual state of perturbed dissatisfaction—her words, not mine—since entering her second trimester. This was her first pregnancy, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be her last.

  “How is it possible that you didn’t read the title of the book before you bought it?” Fiona’s sympathetic look persisted as she rubbed her belly; like Janie, she was also pregnant; unlike Janie, she seemed to take her pregnancy woes in stride.

  Where Janie was remarkably tall and carried her pregnancy entirely in front, Fiona was short and her rounded belly was visible from all angles. This was Fiona’s third child with her husband Greg. They’d been married for fifteen years and were still ludicrously in love with each other. But strangely, it wasn’t at all nauseating. Neither of them were perfect and they embraced each other’s faults with adorable aplomb.

  #RelationshipGoals

  “I don’t know. I just rushed into the bookstore—which, as it turns out, was an erotic bookstore, so make a note of that—and grabbed the book closest to the cashier. I was in a hurry.”

  “But why did you need a book at all?” This question came from Kat, the youngest member of our knitting group at twenty-four, and also historically the least vociferous. Although lately, I’d say during the last year in particular, she’d become more talkative.

  “I didn’t want to be that person staring at my phone. It felt too normal. I wanted to seem cultured, interesting.” Even as I said the words they felt puerile.

  God, I hated dating.

  I hated it.

  Hate.

  “You are cultured and interesting.” Elizabeth shot me a pointed look before returning her attention to the sweater-in-progress on her needles.

  “Yes, but you don’t know how it is out there. Men have this FOMO—fear of missing out. I feel like they’re always looking over my head, looking for her. First impressions count a lot when meeting an online match for the first time. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like the stakes are higher these days. You don’t warm up to a person, no one seems to have time for that. You only have fifteen seconds or less to make a good impression before the person makes up their mind.”

  “That sounds very stressful.” Ashley sighed discontentedly. “What ever happened to taking the time to actually know a person?”

  “People don’t do that anymore.” Sandra flicked her wrist toward Ashley’s image on the laptop. “It’s all swipe left for sex or right to murder.”

  “Not quite, but, yeah. It’s pretty bad out there.” Kat chuckled, the sound was shaded with sorrow. “Split decisions based on what a person looks like, how impressive their job title is, and how much money they make. It’s all about ego w
ith these men, as if people can’t just like each other anymore. They have to check certain boxes. At least, that’s how my last few dates felt.”

  “That’s unhealthy.” Sandra appeared to be offended on Kat’s and my behalf. “And it’s unwise. I was just reading a study out of Princeton where perceptions of attractiveness change dramatically over time. A group of college students rated each other’s attractiveness at the beginning of a semester and then again at the end. Lo and behold, the best-looking guy and girl at the beginning were more often considered dogs by the end, because they were fundamentally unlikable.”

  “Not all of us can be admired from afar by genius hackers disguised as waiters, Sandra.” I gave my friend a teasing smile, referring to her husband, Alex. They’d been married just under a year and a half and were the image of marital bliss.

  “Can we go back to your date? You didn’t realize until you left that by asking if kidnapping and sexual torture sounded like fun to you, the guy was referring to your book and not trying to make a lewd proposition?” Kat asked. She was sitting on the floor and gazing at me, her elbow on the coffee table, her chin in her palm.

  “Exactly.” I nodded once, remembering the odd encounter and feeling both embarrassed and indignant. “However, in my defense, I’d been very distracted by his bizarre behavior by that point. Like I said, he didn’t look at all like his picture—”

  “I hate it when that happens,” Kat lamented flatly, lifting her martini glass toward me.

  “Thank you.” I mirrored her gesture, lifting my glass as well. “Why do they do that? What’s so difficult about accurately representing oneself on dating websites?”

  “I know I missed out on online dating,” Elizabeth twisted the end of her braid thoughtfully, “but it seems like this is par for the course, right? The picture not matching the person?”

  “Yes, well, sometimes. Except in this guy’s case it didn’t make sense.”

  “How so?” Fiona asked, her gaze moving between her knitting and me. She was working on a baby hat with yarn so soft it felt magical.

  “For one thing, he was heavier in his picture online, softer in the middle. Less fit.”

  “That’s your type, right?” Sandra licked the edge of her glass, peering at me. “You like the cuddly kind.”

  “Exactly. But this guy, in real life, clearly worked out several times a week. At the gym. With weights.” I made a face of distaste. “Who misrepresents that? Usually it’s the other way around.”

  “You said his eyes were the wrong color too, right?” Ashley had righted herself from her couch and was also sipping from a martini glass. As much as possible, she tried to coordinate her beverage choices in Green Valley with ours in Chicago.

  “Correct. His profile had listed gray, but his were brown. Not that I minded at all,” I rushed to add, “because he had gorgeous eyes. I don’t know why he’d list the wrong color.”

  “But no beard,” Ashley added. Her Tennessee twang and wrinkled nose made the observation sound like an accusation. “What kind of man claims to have a beard, posts pictures of said beard, and shows up beardless?”

  “That just ain’t right.” Sandra nodded her agreement, pointing at the laptop screen and Ashley’s image. “You don’t cry beard. Where is the trust after that?”

  “Gone,” Ashley proclaimed with a snap.

  The sound of Fiona’s front door opening and closing had me glancing over my shoulder. I spotted Greg and Alex strolling into the family room. The tall Brit was dressed in his exercise gear but he didn’t look like he’d gone running yet, and Alex, naturally, wore his signature black.

  “But why did he do it?” Fiona asked, drawing my attention back to her. “Do you think he was ashamed of how he looked? Or do you think he used someone else’s picture?”

  Alex crossed to his wife, but instead of sitting next to her, he bent and whispered something into her ear, his fingers fiddling with a strand of her hair, then stroked her neck. She nodded and winked at him as he leaned away. He straightened and left the room, strolling into the kitchen without speaking to anyone else.

  Alex Greene, gorgeous and genius hacker, was an unending mystery. He wasn’t sullen, though he was distrustful and remarkably socially awkward. At first, his silent, withdrawn ways took some getting used to. As a group, we’d warmed to him as a lurking figure in the background. We’d even embraced it, mostly because he always wore whatever we knit him and seemed genuinely surprised and grateful for every nice thing sent his way. I made him cookies once and he gave me a hug that lasted for what felt like a full minute. He’d even thanked me for them several months later.

  Having Alex around made us all feel like we had a little brother to spoil. A tall, dark, handsome brooding little brother. Admittedly, the dynamic was unusual, but I think that’s what made it remarkable.

  “That’s the thing.” I shrugged, sitting back in my seat. “The guy was attractive. Very attractive.” In an efficient, nerdy but fit way. “He just didn’t look anything like his picture. Maybe it was someone else in the picture.”

  “So weird.” Kat wrinkled her nose. “Why are men so weird?”

  “We have to be weird,” Greg cut in, settling on the couch next to his wife and tucking her under his arm. “Because if you knew how simple we were, you’d figure out a way to procreate and find satisfaction without us.” He held his hands up before any of us could contradict. “Wait. Now, I know what you’re going to say, that you already find satisfaction without us. You don’t need another person in order to be happy. Sure. Okay. Just like men don’t need a woman in order to be happy . . . except, people need people. Being alone might yield satisfaction, but it’s not what we all really want.”

  Finding true fulfillment for myself without men, without a romantic relationship . . . now that sounded like a worthwhile endeavor.

  My attention lingered on Fiona and Greg as he placed a soft kiss on her temple and nuzzled her hair with his nose. He whispered something to her and she smiled, her hand reaching for his where it rested on her shoulder, their fingers tangling together.

  They were such a unit.

  My heart twisted uncomfortably and I recognized the root emotion: envy.

  “Of note, it’s already possible for women to procreate without men.” Janie, still looking perturbed, rubbed the base of her spine and glared at Greg. “Through a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer. You can take cells from a woman and—”

  “I don’t want to know.” Greg shook his head adamantly. “Let me live in my delusions of being essential. Can’t you see my male ego is as fragile as it is beautiful? And speaking of fragile male egos, where is Nicoletta?”

  Elizabeth smirked, turning her work in progress and leaning forward to grab her drink. “He’s in Los Angeles filming until the end of the month, but I’ll let him know you’re missing him.”

  Nico—or Nicoletta as we’d started calling him—was Elizabeth’s husband. He also happened to be a movie star and comedian. When he was in town he was a regular fixture at knit night, except he crocheted.

  “I’m not missing him. Not precisely.” Greg shrugged. “It’s just that he’s a good running partner.”

  “What about Alex?” I asked, “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “I did. He says he doesn’t like to run unless it’s from law enforcement. Plus, swimming is his exercise of choice.” Greg made a face.

  “You could go with Quinn.” Janie’s eyes moved to the side thoughtfully. “Except he likes to run early in the morning.”

  “Yes, I know. I’m familiar with Captain Never Sleeps,” Greg mumbled, referring to one of his nicknames for Quinn.

  “I thought you and Matt were running this evening?” Fiona asked softly.

  “We were,” he sighed, and it sounded aggrieved. “Or, we are. But he’s late, some work business. Should be here any minute.”

  “Who’s Matt?” Elizabeth asked distractedly, her eyes on the knitting pattern to her left.

  “Our next-d
oor neighbor.” Fiona lifted her chin toward the far wall, presumably to where this Matt person lived. “He’s a professor at the university, in computer science, I think.”

  “Fiona has seen his penis,” Greg added cheerfully.

  Wait, what?

  I could almost hear everyone’s eyebrows raise in unison as our collective attention shifted to Fiona.

  “Really? Do tell.” Of course, Sandra was the first to recover from Greg’s odd declaration.

  Fiona gave her husband an exasperated look, then sought to explain. “I used to babysit him when we were kids, back in Baltimore. Our parents know each other. He moved out here last Christmas and by chance we ended up neighbors.”

  “He also has a TIG welder.” Greg glanced at his watch.

  “Oh, good.” Janie twisted to one side and then the other, stretching. “I’ve been looking for someone with one of those.”

  “Of course you have.” Elizabeth gave Janie a bewildered but amused look. “Why do you need a TIG welder?”

  “I don’t need it now, but it’s always good to know someone who can weld. Just in case.” Janie, sitting on the arm of the couch, picked up and fiddled with her work in progress. She crocheted rather than knit and was currently working on a baby blanket.

  “I agree with Janie,” Ashley’s voice sounded from the laptop speaker. “It’s good to surround yourself with professionals or hobbyists of varying skillsets, at least that’s what my brother Cletus always says.”

  “You know what I could go for? A professional hand-holder.” Kat spoke to the green ball of yarn on the coffee table. “I love holding hands, there’s nothing like it. I’d pay money for someone to hold hands with me.”

  “I’ll hold hands with you!” Elizabeth smiled at Kat. “Anytime.”

  Kat gave Elizabeth a warm smile. “Thanks. I might take you up on that.”