A Date?

Raina

I watched the dog for one more moment before I turned and headed out the door. I was a little sad, leaving him behind like that—well, I was always a little sad when I had to leave a dog behind, but even for me, I was sadder than usual. Maybe because I knew that that dog was the only connection I had to one of the only men in years who had actually turned my head, and now that I had handed him over, there was no reason for him to get in touch with me again.

I decided to treat myself to some Greek takeout on the way home. There was a beautiful restaurant not far from me that made an amazing vegetarian gyro, and I was obsessed with them. I inhaled the deliciously savory scent as I tucked it into my bag and carried it down the last couple of blocks to my house. The fact that I had walked most of the way home meant that I had totally earned this, right?

Right.

I tried not to get too hung up on my body. I was tall, and I had the body to match my height. I wasn’t tiny and lean and little like Rita had been before she’d gotten pregnant, and I knew that I was never going to be. I didn’t get a lot of time to go to the gym, and my job was physically demanding enough that I had a decent amount of muscle anyway.

I knew that I wasn’t everyone’s type, but then, I was hardly trying to be. I hadn’t been out on the dating scene in a while, so I wasn’t much concerned with what other people might have been thinking about me.

Still, Reed sometimes got on me about not ever just going out to have a good time, and I supposed he had a point. I could have let loose a little and still been able to do my job as well as I ever could. But my job came first—always had and always would—and I didn’t want to lead anyone into thinking anything different.

My commitment to my career had scared off plenty of men in the past, and I was happy to let it keep doing so. I felt like it acted as an asshole detector. The people who were only interested in me for the way I looked were filtered out after they got bored of waiting for me to stop talking about animals already.

I made it back to my apartment and walked inside gratefully, dumping all my stuff down on the counter and grabbing my food as I set up a cheesy reality show on TV to watch. I needed to kick back and catch my breath a little. That was for damn sure.

I felt like I was exhausted constantly from the amount of work I was doing, and I knew I didn’t give myself enough time off. But for some reason, this evening, I felt particularly tired, as though something that had happened over the course of the day had flicked some switch inside me that had made things worse.

Just as I finished up my food, my phone rang. It was Reed. I answered it at once.

“Hey, bro,” I greeted. “What’s up?”

“Very little,” he replied. “I just wanted to tell you something.”

The way he was talking, I could tell he had something a little devious on his mind. I cocked an eyebrow. I had seen him pull enough pranks when we were kids to know when there was trouble on the horizon.

“Do you care to come out and tell me what that something is?” I asked.

He sighed heavily, as though he knew that I wasn’t going to have the best reaction to this. “All right, but you’ve got to promise that you’re not going to get mad at me, okay?” he commanded.

I took a deep breath. “Reed, what the fuck have you done?” I asked bluntly. I just wanted to hear it already. I was looking forward to having the rest of the evening to myself, and I didn’t want to have to concern myself with other people any more than I already had.

“I signed you up for a dating service,” he replied.

I practically dropped my phone in surprise. “What the fuck!”

“Okay, okay, calm down,” he said. “It’s not that big a deal. I just wanted you to have the chance to get out there for a change, and I knew you weren’t going to do that without a little nudge in the right direction.”

“And you were the one to give me this nudge,” I muttered back.

“Who else could?” he replied.

I sighed and sank down into the chair. “And why, pray tell, would you be coming clean about this now?” I asked, though I was quite sure I knew the answer.

“Because you have a date this Friday night,” he told me. “And I’ve already agreed to it. So you have to go.”

“Reed!” I exclaimed. “What if you set me up with a serial killer or something? You have no right—”

“Then I’ll make sure to crack some really good jokes at your eulogy,” he replied. “Come on. Just give it a try, sis. For me?”

I massaged my temples. I had no idea what to say to him. There I was, foolish enough to think that I was going to get a nice night all to myself. And no. My brother had come swinging in and made it so that I was going to have to spend it chewing him out instead.

Typical Reed.