Blind Date

Relief flooded her chest when he said, “Yeah, I do.” His fingers brushed hers in the darkness. “You have beautiful hands, Annie. So delicate.” She flushed at the compliment, but didn’t respond, wondering if he had been looking at her hands with the same ulterior motive. Compliments often felt more like sharp barbs to her than anything else, but this particular arrow landed softly, with precision.

“What about that girl out there, the one sitting next to you?” he went on.

His words jarred her, and she turned to look at him even though she could only see the outline of his profile in the darkness. “A little overweight, not conventionally pretty…”

“I…do you know her?” Annie asked, slinking down the wall a little.

“No, not really.”

Annie felt that flood of relief again. “I didn’t really mean it, you know. I wasn’t trying to be cruel.”

“No one tries to be cruel.”

“Well, that’s an unbelievably rosy view of the world, isn’t it?” Regretting the words immediately, she admonished herself and wished she could take them back. She certainly wasn’t succeeding in making a good first impression. She found it harder in the dark, and the irony didn’t escape her.

He sighed. “Maybe I’m too much of an idealist.”

“Or a romantic at heart. I can understand that.” The silence grew uncomfortable, and Annie tried to think of a way to say she was going to get up and leave. This was just too strange. Besides, she needed an aspirin. Her head was beginning to ache. She surprised herself when she asked, “What’s your name?”

“Eric. You?”

“Annie.”

“Well, Annie, since we’re on the superficial questions, what do you do for a living?” She laughed, nudging him with her hip. She could almost hear him grinning.

“I’m a psychologist.” She enjoyed telling people that for the varied responses she received, ranging from fear to curiosity. People were either afraid she was trying to analyze them, or they asked her to.

“Should I pull up a couch?”

She laughed again, giving him another nudge.

“Hey, I bruise easy, watch it.”

This time she was sure she could hear the smile in his voice. She found herself genuinely wondering for the first time what he really did look like. “What about you?” she asked. She knew this was always the big question for guys, as if everyone of the masculine persuasion was defined by his profession.

“Me? I’m a matchmaker.” He said it without a hint of hesitation or pride, just a simple matter of fact.

Annie gasped out loud, covering her mouth with her hands in shock. “Oh, you’re kidding!”

“Nope.”

“Oh my god. Just my luck to be under the table with a matchmaker at a matchmaking party. Did my sister hire you?” she asked suspiciously.

“No. Which one is your sister?”

“I have two. Chloe and Rebecca. In that order.”

“And you’re the pretty one. Where do you fall?”

“At the end, the baby. And I’m really not that pretty.”

“Don’t lie. How’s your head?” There was that genuine concern again. In her playfulness, she had nudged herself quite close to him in the dark, and she was enjoying the warmth of his thigh, hip and arm touching hers.

“It hurts,” she admitted. “I think I need an aspirin.”

“I bet I can help. Do you want me to rub it?”

Annie hesitated. That was a fairly intimate thing to be doing anywhere, let alone in a dark kitchen under a table. Remembering how good his hands had felt when he’d checked to see if she was bleeding and then had continued to rub the growing knot, she relented. “Sure.” She suddenly didn’t care if it was sending him the wrong message. Then again, maybe it wasn’t the wrong message at all.

“Come here, then. Just put your head in my lap.”

Annie lay down on the tile, resting her cheek against his denim-clad thigh.

His fingers slid through her hair, first finding then caressing the throbbing knot.

The sensation seemed to lift and change as he touched her.

“This is cozy,” she murmured.

“Mmm.” His concentration seemed too focused for him to say much more.

His hands worked over her like magic. She closed her eyes and sighed happily. Eventually the silence stretched too taut for her. “You know, it was appearances that caused that whole scene out there in the first place.”

“Yeah?”

How could he show so much feeling in just one simple word, one genuine expression of interest? Feelings were the domain of her profession, for the most part, and she was well-attuned to them. This man could emote without any effort at all. That intrigued and disarmed her.

She sighed. “My sister’s husband, John. He came on to me for the first time at their engagement party, drunk off his ass and feeling me up on their own bed while I was looking for my coat. He’s never stopped. Sometimes I think my sisters got what they settled for in men, you know?”

“You don’t have a very high opinion of men, do you?” His fingers slipped lower, digging into the soft curve of her neck. She sighed, letting out a soft moan as he worked out the kinks. “Like that?”