30 First Dates (33 page)

Devon laughed, his eyes twinkling at her. "It's true that you don't like moving fast."

She gave him a mock punch on the shoulder. "What are you saying exactly?"

He caught her hand where it connected with his arm and held it there, and then he leaned over and caught her lips with his, kissing her swiftly. He pulled back almost as fast.

"Not a thing, Crawford," he said, shaking his head with an indulgent smile. "Not a thing."

*  *  *

January 24: Date 22

Name:
Eli*

Age:
    41

Job:   
Computer programmer

List:   
Save the earth and cut back on saturated fat (aka No. 26: Give vegetarianism a try)**

I didn't hold out high hopes for the whole sans-meat thing, but it's actually not too bad. My mom keeps pushing this book "The China Project" on me, and I think she's half-baked—like I'll ever totally stop eating meat—but there are some great organic restaurants out there. I've tried two in the last week, so here's this blogger's plug for
The Daily Organic
and
Orange Blossom
, two of my fave new DFW dining options.

I met Eli* at the restaurant, and it was a serendipitous choice because he actually IS a vegetarian. Gee, nothing like this blog challenge to make me feel like a lame freaking poser. But he was a great sport about it. Actually, he was a great sport about everything—mainly because he was so quiet I couldn't tell what he thought about much of anything.

After dinner we went to the movies, a good choice for a date with a silent type. It was kind of old-school, throwback romantic, and he was very sweet. I only fear he was TOO sweet to be sucked into this date-a-thon. Seriously, I left thinking I want to find a nice girl to set him up with.

No good-night kiss after this date, then. Probably for the best. I'm moving into the home stretch of my blogging-dating experiment, and I've learned a few big lessons: A, I don't make great choices under pressure. B, That doesn't seem to matter, because I think everything happens for a reason. And C, I'm not going to find my Bachelor through this blog. If anything, the blog is tripping me up every step of the way when it comes to forming relationships with men.

Erin sighed. Her date with Elliott Cho had fallen into the run-of-the-mill category. For one thing, she'd had the feeling he wasn't a willing participant—the blog thing seemed to make him uncomfortable, even though he'd said he didn't mind if she wrote about their date.

His friend who'd set them up, Annie Chisholm, was more than a blog follower—she was an old friend of Erin's from UT. Her real life big brother was Mathew's fraternity brother, so Erin had thought from the start that it was strange to be set up by Annie. When they'd met for coffee before her date with Elliott, Erin felt like Annie was pumping her for information. She wondered if Annie and Mathew still ran in the same circles, but she hadn't felt comfortable enough to ask.

She was glad, at this point, that she only had eight more dates to go. The prospect of finding even that many was daunting, especially now that she'd realized the blog was a great jumping off point for a career but an impetus to forming relationships. She was ready for the dating portion of her blog mission to be over.

She thought about Devon's visit a few days earlier. Clearly he was trying to perpetuate their friendship, or relationship, or whatever it was they had.
Am I stringing him along?
She considered that…
hmm, maybe
. Another occupational hazard.

She couldn't date anyone seriously while she was dating others non-seriously. Maybe other people could, but she couldn't. And she especially couldn't sleep with anyone while dating other people. The emotional roller coaster was just too loopy.

Who knew celibacy would be a job requirement for a relationship blogger?
Erin gave a dark chuckle at the thought.

After submitting the post, she closed her website and opened a magazine assignment, glancing at the time. It was 1:35, which meant she had three hours to work before she needed to get ready to meet Sherri for happy hour. Within minutes, she was immersed in her research, thoughts of love, lust, and other heartaches mercifully pushed aside.

Love and Friendship

January/February: four and one-half months to thirty

When the doorbell rang again in the middle of a workday, Erin jumped, and her head flinched back in confusion.
What the hell? It's like Grand Central around here.
She took her time getting up, finishing the thought she was typing before walking to the door to peek through the keyhole.

Working from home brought all sorts of new experiences, she thought. Had people always rung her doorbell at odd hours of the day when no one was there to answer?

When she saw who it was, her eyes widened. She flung open the door.

"What are you doing here?" Ben was shifting from foot to foot, running his fingers through the hair at his right temple. "Aren't you supposed to be at work?"

He pushed past her through the doorway and walked over to the couch, perching on the chaise at one end. He took a shaky breath and then looked up at her.

"It's Dad," he said, and Erin's hand went to her throat, imaging another hospital incident—maybe a heart attack this time, or a stroke. Her lips were beginning to form the question when Ben added, "We don't know where he is."

Her hand went to the back of the chair she was standing beside, and then instead of sitting in it as she'd been about to do, she crossed the room and sat beside him on the sofa. "What does that mean?" she asked as she walked. She placed one hand on his back. "What happened?"

Ben swiveled around on the L-shaped end of the sofa so he was facing her, though sideways. Erin drew in a sharp breath as his face stopped inches from hers. His fingers stroked his temple again, and she fought the urge to grab his hand.

"I didn't know anything until my mom called a little bit ago," he said. "She called my cell a few times, but I didn't have it on me, so she had me paged. Apparently he's been missing for three days."

Erin's jaw went slack. "Three days?" she repeated dumbly. "I don't understand…where's your mom?"
And why are you here, and not with her? Or with Catherine?

"She's at the police station," he said. "Brian is with her. She told me not to come, but she wanted to know if I'd heard anything from Dad, which of course I haven't." His foot was bouncing up and down, causing his body to rock back and forth. Erin slid her hand along his back in soothing lines.

"Is he with that woman, you think?" He was still jerking back and forth with the motion of his foot, and Erin inched unconsciously closer to him, placing her other hand on his still leg.

"I thought that too, but no," he said, looking up into her eyes. "Mom said she's talked to the woman, and she seemed to truly have no idea where he was. She actually went over to their house to talk to Mom and try to figure out what's going on." He choked out a laugh. "Apparently she hasn't gotten over him yet."

He paused. "I think the police are interviewing her now, too."

Erin was silent for a couple seconds. "Why did your mom wait so long to tell you?" she asked quietly. The movement of his foot had slowed somewhat, and he looked over at her again.

"I don't know. She didn't want to worry us, I guess. She was waiting for him to just show up. She hasn't come out and said so, but I think things have gotten bad with them again."

He put his hand over hers on his right knee.

"Will you come over there with me?" he asked. "When she's done at the police station, I mean?"

Erin gave him a confused look. "Well…sure," she said. "Of course." She paused for a long moment, feeling fully the weight and warmth of his hand on hers. The intimacy felt strange after its long absence, and her stomach stirred with emotions she worked to suppress.

She struggled to phrase the question she was dying to ask.

"Where is…what does…Catherine think?"

He gave her a blank look. "God," he said. He shook his head. "She's still at work. I didn't even tell her I was leaving. When I found out I couldn't go to Mom's I just drove straight here."

"So she doesn't know." Erin phrased it as a statement, trying to ignore the guilty way her heart soared at the idea that Ben thought of her first.

Ben gave her a look that was part shame, part misery. He shook his head again minutely. "Is it okay if we go now?" he asked. "I'll call Cat later, after she leaves work."

Hating to break their shared moment, Erin nodded and then shifted away from him to stand. She looked down at herself. She was dressed in running clothes, prepared to head out for a long run after she finished working. Ben noticed and said, "Just leave that on." He paused. "If she's going to be a while, we can go ahead and get a run in by her house. It'll help me calm down, anyway."

He stood up alongside her, and she hurried back to her room to save the document she'd been working on and grab her bag.

*  *  *

Erin stepped under the shower stream, closed her eyes and stood stock still, letting the hot, steamy water seep into her pores and clear her head. She'd spent the past seven hours navigating land mines of human emotion.

Ben had just left. She wasn't sure what he was going home to, but she figured it wouldn't be pretty. He'd waited to call Catherine until about 7—after he and Erin had completed their run and then met Ben's mom and brother as they returned from the police station.

Though Ben had left the room for the call, Erin overheard their conversation. She had the feeling if she hadn't been there, Cat would have waited for Ben at home. She rushed over though, and once she arrived she didn't join Ben so much as take possession of him.

Erin had found, in the months since she and Ben had been together, that it was harder to feel guilty about what they'd done when she was in Catherine's presence, simply because Cat was so very unpleasant. Still, the guilt she did feel threatened to eat holes in Erin's stomach. Once Cat arrived, Erin could barely even look at Ben, and she tried as much as possible to fade into the background at his mother's house.

She could still feel the sting of Catherine's stare when, upon leaving, Ben told her he had to take Erin home.

"Can't Brian take her? He lives in Addison, right?" Catherine had asked in a low, nasal whine. She didn't look at Erin, or at Brian, for that matter.

"Sorry, Bro. I think I'm spending the night here." Brian glanced between Ben, Erin, and Cat in confusion, causing the tips of Erin's ears to turn red. She couldn't get out of the house fast enough after that.

Afterward Ben lingered at her apartment, seeming reluctant to leave, and Erin  wondered for the hundredth time what went on behind the scenes in Ben and Cat's relationship. She'd only been around her a few times, and it was clear Catherine didn't like her, but Cat was both dry and domineering—nothing like the woman Erin imagined would be right for Ben.

He was such a nice guy, so easygoing, that Erin wondered if he stayed with Catherine simply out of guilt. If so, that was just one more thing that was Erin's fault, one more repercussion of their betrayal—maybe even the biggest one. The thought made her feel sick inside.

Her mind traveled back over the day. For a while, their old intimacy had almost felt intact. At her apartment Ben turned on the TV while Erin grabbed them each a beer—just like old times, except she knew things could never again be as simple as those times. And worse, having him there in her apartment, just the two of them, Erin's skin pulsed with an electric current, as if he were touching her or might at any moment, though he seemed to try as hard as she did to avoid proximity.

Erin sighed, feeling uncharacteristically depressed. She forced herself to change the direction of her thoughts from Ben to Ben's family.

The location of his dad was still a mystery—after four hours at the police station his mother had more questions than answers. She'd spent most of the time Ben, Brian, Erin, and Catherine were at the house calling friends and co-workers to ask if they'd seen or heard anything out of the ordinary in recent weeks. Mr. Bertram had left after a fight. Erin hadn't been able to glean from the conversation what the fight was about, so she and Ben were both left wondering whether he had a new girlfriend. That question had dominated their talk on the ride back to her apartment.

*  *  *

When she got out of the shower and walked into her room, Erin heard Sherri key into the apartment. She contemplated keeping her door closed and going to bed—she wasn't sure she had the energy to recount the whole story—but then she towel dried her hair, put on PJs and went out to the living room. Sherri was in the kitchen, brewing her favorite chamomile tea from Trader Joe's.

"Want some?" she called out when she noticed Erin.

"Sure," Erin replied, thinking she could use something calming.

When Sherri came in and curled up in a chair, Erin gave her as brief a version of the night's events as possible. Sherri, of course, latched on to one detail.

"So Ben came home with you?"

"Nothing happened," Erin answered in a flat voice.

"You didn't even talk about it?" Sherri sounded disappointed.

"Not a bit." Erin sighed into her teacup. After the emotionally exhausting afternoon and evening, not to mention the long run she and Ben had fit into it, she was tired to her very core. She didn't have the energy to discuss the mess that was her and Ben's relationship. A thought popped into her head.

"Hey, I've been meaning to ask you this…want to go on my Napa trip with me?"

She'd had such a blast with Sherri in France and in Utah. She wasn't sure if Sherri had the vacation time for another trip, but she didn't want to go with anybody else and didn't know who else she'd ask, anyway. She was still avoiding Hilary. All the other old, close friends she could think of were busy with their lives and families (aside from Sherri, most of their college friends were married now, and at least half of them were pregnant), and she hadn't done the greatest job keeping up with her teacher friends. Her only other option was her mom, but she hoped to fit a blog date into the trip somehow, and her mom would hardly make a good wingman.