No More Horrible Dates

by Kate O'Keeffe

  “A big one,” Darcy replies.

  “I will admit to being a bit of jerk a while back, though, and I probably wasn’t the world’s most trustworthy guy. But all of that has changed now.” He flicks his eyes to mine, and my heart gives another squeeze.

  “About that,” Sophie leads, and I sit more upright in my chair, wondering what’s to come. “Why were you partying so hard?”

  He lifts a shoulder nonchalantly, as though it’s really no big deal at all. “It was a phase. A dumb phase, nothing more. I got in with a partying crowd and got myself into trouble. I paid the price with the media.”

  “No particular reason for it?” Sophie asks.

  He gives a slow shake of his head. “Nope. Just me being a dumb guy. I guess you all know about that, right? Guys being dumb?”

  “We sure do,” I reply. “Avoiding dumb guys is one of the reasons we set up the dating pact in the first place.” I chew on my lip and ask, “But you’re definitely over that now, aren’t you?”

  His own lips lift into a smile. “Totally over it.”

  “Maybe you just needed the love of a good woman?” Darcy teases, and I know she means it.

  His eyes are still on mine when he replies, “I guess you could say I’ve got a thing for puppets.”

  “For puppets?” Darcy questions.

  “Because my family calls me Ernie,” I explain.

  “Right. I was beginning to wonder whether we had another weird pastime on our hands,” Darcy says.

  “Any other questions, or do I have your permission to take the girl I’m dating out now?”

  I look from Darcy to Sophie. “I’m happy if you’re happy.”

  They confer quietly between themselves, and Nick leans closer to me. “Do you think I passed?”

  I catch a hint of his intoxicating scent as I reply, “Oh, I’m not sure. It looks like they’re really nutting this one out. I bet they’ve got some serious Sesame Street-related concerns.”

  He glances at my friends and then back at me. “Well, I say we pack up your rubber duckie and make a run for it. You and me, off into the sunset.”

  I giggle. “On a horse?”

  “What else?” His eyes grow darker as he takes my hand in his. “There’s one thing I didn’t tell them.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That I think I’ve fallen for their totally hot, non-tall friend.”

  My heart thuds hard against my ribs. “You do?” I ask, my voice breathless.

  “As long as you think that’s okay under the stringent rules of Project Weka.”

  I grin at him. “I’m not sure Miranda will approve.”

  “I don’t really care about what Miranda approves of. I care about you.”

  I feel heat bloom in my cheeks as my heart does double time. “I care about you, too.”

  “So, we’re doing this thing? No more faking it, no more posing for photographs and getting talked about? Just you and me, no one else?”

  “You and me, no one else,” I echo. I feel as though I’m soaring through the sky. I’m so full of lightness and joy. This is really happening!

  Nick finds my hand and his features grow serious. “I want you to know you can trust me.”

  “I do.”

  “Good, because what I feel for you is real, no matter what crap they write about me.”

  This again? “I know that.”

  Sophie’s voice pulls me reluctantly back to the room. “We’ve made a decision, you two, when you stop gazing into one another’s eyes like freaking Romeo and Juliet.”

  “There won’t be any double suicides here,” I reply with a grin.

  “Nick Zachary, you have passed the No More Bad Dates vetting process,” Darcy announces, and I half expect to hear trumpets blaring in the background to herald this momentous occasion.

  I mouth thank you to my friends before I turn back to Nick. “You passed. Go figure.”

  “I knew I would.”

  “Don’t you go becoming an arrogant sports pro on me now,” I warn.

  “Why? Whatcha gonna do about it?”

  I look up to see Sophie’s hand in the air, waving Jason and Alex over. “You’re about to be inundated,” I say to him.

  He furrows his brow. “By what?”

  “Your biggest fan.”

  “Hey, Nick,” Jason says with his hand outstretched, right on cue.

  I look up to see not only Jason, but a bunch of other people at our table all focused on Nick. I recognize them all as café regulars.

  Nick stands up. “Jason. Good to see you again.”

  “It’s good to see you again, too,” Jason says enthusiastically. “You remember Alex, of course,” he says and continues to introduce Nick to every person in the group.

  I sit back and watch as Nick shakes hands and says hello to everyone with charm and ease. He answers their questions about the Hawks, about his chances of getting back into the All Blacks, all with a smile on his handsome face.

  I grin as I watch him, joy enveloping me. Nick Zachary: the guy I’m now officially dating, the guy who passed the No More Bad Dates vetting process. The guy who’s told me he’s falling for me.

  The guy I know beyond a whisper of a doubt I’ve fallen for, too.

  Chapter 19

  We stayed at the Cozy Cottage Open Mic Night for the rest of the evening, hanging out with my friends and sneaking kisses when no one was looking. Nick dropped me back at my apartment with the promise of seeing me for the Project Weka dinner the next day, and I’d fallen asleep with his kiss on my lips and him firmly entrenched in my heart.

  And now it’s the morning after the idyllic night, and there’s a loud rap at my bedroom door, jarring me out of sleep. I roll over and glance at the clock. It’s early, far too early to be up on a Saturday morning.

  “Go away,” I mumble as I close my eyes and attempt to recapture my unconscious state.

  There’s another rap on my door. This time Darcy bursts in. “Erin! You’ve got to wake up!” she says at a volume that should be reserved for yelling at rugby games.

  I lift my head and blink at her before I let it flop back down on the pillow. “Not now, Darce. Sleeping,” I murmur.

  “No. Not sleeping,” she says urgently. “Erin, you need to see this.”

  She thrusts something in my face, and I swat it away with my hand. “Can’t we do this later?”

  I feel my bed move as she sits down heavily on it. “Believe me, you’re gonna want to see this.”

  I blink at her. “Did you at least bring me coffee?”

  “I promise to go make you one straight away.”

  I let out a sigh. “Okay, but I want you to know that getting up at—” I glance once more at the blurry time on my bedside clock “—seven twelve. Seriously? It’s Saturday morning, Darce. This is wrong on so many levels, I can’t even begin to count.” I push myself up against my pillow and rub my eyes. “Okay. What’s so urgent?”

  “This.” She hands me her phone, and I look down at the screen. There’s an image of Nick leaning heavily on some other guy, looking like he’s drunk a gallon of alcohol. The headline screams “Naughty Nick At It Again,” and I blink at it dumbly. After a moment, I look up at Darcy. Her face is creased in concern.

  “Why are you showing me this? It’s old news. It’s from before we started seeing one another.”

  Slowly, she shakes her head. “It’s today’s news, babe.”

  I study the photo once more, zooming in on the group. Nick looks bleary-eyed and is being propped up by Bulldog, one of the guys who was chugging beer at the Kickoff Party. I recognize a couple of the other guys from his group, too. The “party boys,” Angus had called them that night. They look like they’re at a bar somewhere, with scantily-clad sex kitten girls hanging off their large, bulky arms.

  I look from the photo back up at Darcy. “He was with us last night. He might be a star player on the rugby field, but he’s not a magician. He couldn’t be in two places at once.”

&n
bsp; “I hope you’re right.” She plucks the phone from my hand and taps at her screen. “Here’s another one.”

  I take the phone from her and read the next headline. “Is Nerick Over?” I knit my brows together. Nerick is new. “What do they mean, is Nerick over?”

  “Have you seen the photo?”

  I scroll down, and my eyes land on a new image. It’s a grainy shot of someone who looks a lot like Nick, one of the platinum blonde I’m-wearing-a-belt-for-a-skirt girls from the other photo hanging off him like he’s a coat hook. He’s got his arm around her, a smile on his face. They look like they’re together. My heart begins to thud in my chest.

  I am definitely fully awake now.

  “Who is she?”

  “Read it.”

  I scroll down and begin to read.

  Is there trouble in love paradise? Rugby heartthrob Nick Zachary was spotted out with a mystery woman in the small hours this morning at Auckland hot spot Leopard. He and his lady friend enjoyed some up-close-and-personal time before they left the place together. Who is this mystery woman? And does this spell the end for the short-lived Nerick everyone seemed to be talking about? This insider suspects the nails have been well and truly hammered into that particular casket. Welcome back, Naughty Nick. Oh, how we have missed you these past few weeks.

  My insides twist painfully as my mind tries to grapple with it. I hold the image up. “Is this even him?”

  “I’m not sure, but it looks like him.”

  “It could easily be some other buff six-foot-three guy.”

  Her face lights up. “I guess it could. What was he wearing last night?”

  “A pair of jeans and a black shirt.” I glance at the image once more. Whoever is in the photo—Nick’s doppelgänger or maybe the man himself—is wearing what looks like a pair of jeans and a black shirt. I knit my brows together. “But it doesn’t make sense. He dropped me off here last night and said he was going straight home.”

  “Maybe he decided to go out after?”

  “With another girl? A girl who thinks it’s okay to go to a nightclub dressed like she’s in some rapper’s music video, at that?” I ask, incredulous. I shake my head. “This is not Nick. It can’t be. It’s a case of mistaken identity. We agreed we’re a thing now. He said he’d fallen for me. Getting photographed with some other woman doesn’t make sense.”

  “Look, I think you should call him. Get this thing cleared up. It could be that you’re right, that these are old photos, and some journo is trying to stir things up. Maybe they were short of a story or something.”

  “Exactly,” I reply firmly. “I’m really worried about him now. If this is some journalist stirring the pot, he must be feeling terrible.”

  “Have you heard from him this morning?”

  I collect my phone from the nightstand. No messages, no missed calls. I chew on my lip. “Nope.”

  “Call him.” She hops off my bed. At the door she turns and says, “I guess this is all part and parcel of dating a high-profile rugby player, babe.”

  “Well, it sucks.”

  “I hear you. I’ll go make some coffee.” She pads out of my room.

  I pick Darcy’s phone up once more and flick through the article. There’s another photo of the man sitting down with the same blonde woman draped across his lap, this one even grainier than the first. Despite my certainty that this can’t be Nick, there’s a small part of me that’s terrified these photos may in fact be from last night.

  I pick up my phone and dial his number. The phone goes straight to voicemail.

  “Nick, hey, it’s me,” I say with as light a tone as I can muster. “I’m really worried about you. Can you call me?” I hang up and immediately send him a text, repeating the same message. I sit and wait, staring at my screen. Nothing. I pull up his social media accounts and message him. If this is all a storm in a teacup, I’ll be coming off as a total stalker of a girlfriend. But better that than not knowing.

  I chew on my lip, thinking about that day in the conference room, the day he turned up looking terrible. He told me it was because he’d been training hard, and I had no reason not to believe him, but now I wonder whether he was dealing with something. He told me to trust him, that I shouldn’t believe everything I see. Did he know something was coming that would put my faith in him to the test?

  I need to stay strong. I need to trust in him.

  After a while of staring at my blank screen, I get up, throw on my dressing gown, and walk out to the kitchen.

  A few moments and no calls or messages from Nick later, I’ve only just inhaled my first coffee of the day when my phone rings. Immediately, I pick it up off the kitchen counter, hoping it’s Nick returning my calls. I’ve already left him two voicemails and sent a bunch of texts since seeing the articles. Although I know I’m definitely lingering in fully-fledged stalker territory right now, I need answers. My head is spinning so hard it’s in fear of becoming detached from my head and bouncing off the walls.

  “Is it Nick?” Darcy asks hopefully.

  My heart sinks when I see it’s Ed. “It’s my boss.”

  “Oh.” She pulls a face. “That’s not a good sign.”

  I swallow as I press the green answer button. “Good mor—”

  “Erin. Thank goodness. Have you seen the news? John just called me,” he blurts out before I’ve even finished saying hello. “He’s had a call from Bennett Motors, and they’re ropable.”

  John Rogers, Ed’s boss and the head of the Hawkes, is involved? I’m suddenly dizzy. “Yes, I’ve…I’ve seen it.”

  “Right. Good. I’ve told Miranda to meet me at the office. We need an urgent strategy meeting to mitigate these stories as quickly as we can. John’s coming back to the city from his place at the lake. When can you get in?”

  “Oh, err, I could get there soon. I’m not dressed yet or anything though.”

  “Throw on some clothes and get here as soon as you can. We need to work out how to fix this.”

  My heart sinks to my toes. If Hawks management and Bennett Motors are reacting like this, does it mean the photos are really from last night? And if so, what does that mean?

  I nod, even though he can’t see me. “Of course.”

  “Right. See you soon.”

  “Ed?”

  “Yes?”

  “What if the photos aren’t real?”

  “What do you mean, not real?”

  “What if it’s some journo stirring things up, and the photos are from a while back? I mean, people do all sorts of things for a story, right? This could all be totally fabricated. Nick might be the victim of some nasty troll here.”

  “It’s a possibility,” he replies, and the tight grip on my belly loosens a fraction.

  “I know him, Ed. He’s changed. I’m really worried about him. I think he’s the victim here.”

  “Your compassion does you credit, Erin, and you may be right. Let’s talk about that in the meeting. I’ll see you soon.”

  “Sure.” Encouraged, I hang up. I take a final swig of my coffee, and tell Darcy, “Strategy meeting at the office.”

  She twists her mouth. “Right.”

  Ten minutes later, and still no word from Nick, I’m in my car, thankful not to be sitting in the weekday traffic.

  As I turn onto the main road, I’m smacked between the eyes with the billboard of a bare-chested Nick smiling down on me as though he doesn’t have a care in the world. So not what I need right now. At the lights I check my phone. When I spot a message from Nick asking me to call him, a potent cocktail of worry for Nick and relief he’s back in touch grip me. I pull off the road and park then dial his number. It goes straight to voicemail.

  “Hey, Nick. It’s me again. Call me when you can,” I say lightly, worry gripping my chest.

  When I arrive at the office, it’s eerily dark with the lights off for the weekend. Quickly, I make my way to the conference room, swing the door open, and burst inside. Ed is sitting at the table with Miranda, an
d they whip their heads to look up at me with tense faces.

  “I got here as quick as I could.”

  “Take a seat,” Miranda instructs.

  “Have you heard from Nick?” I ask as I pull up a chair.

  Ed shakes his head. “Nothing. His phone has got to be switched off, and he doesn’t have a landline, which doesn’t make any sense to me.”

  “I told you, Ed, people don’t have landlines anymore,” Miranda snaps as I sit down.

  “I’ve got one,” he sniffs. “I use it all the time.”

  “Whether he should have a landline or not is completely irrelevant. Nick doesn’t have one,” Miranda replies in obvious irritation.

  “He texted me, asking me to call him, which I did. Same issue though, straight to voicemail,” I say.

  Miranda directs her glare at me. “Ed says you’ve called the stories fraudulent.”

  “Well, they might be. Who knows when those photos were taken?”

  “They were taken last night,” she replies as though she’s only just tolerating an insolent child.

  With a raise of my chin I steel myself and reply, “We don’t know that, and we won’t know until we talk to Nick. They could have been file photos. In fact, I’m almost sure they are. Both articles are written by the same guy, someone called Stephen Taylor. I think he was looking for a story, and Nick was his target.”

  “Why do you think that?” Miranda asks.

  I glance at Ed. With a nod of his head he shoots me an encouraging smile. “Because I don’t think he was out at some bar with that girl last night. Not because I know that for sure, but because I’ve got faith in him. He’s serious about turning his reputation around.”

  “What?” she snaps. “How would you know that he wasn’t at that nightclub last night?”

  “Because,” I begin. I take a breath and say, “Because he was out with me.”

  Miranda pulls her brows together. “You were with Nick last night? There wasn’t anything scheduled.”