Getting to Third Date (8 page)

Fortunately, even my imagination was too absurd that time. “I want to make this Mother Hubbard third-date thing more immediate for the readers. I want them to have to come to our Web site on a consistent basis. The advertisers will love that.”

“How?” I really didn't want to know the answer to that. But he told me anyway, in a tone of voice that told me he thought I ought to worship him for having the idea in the first place.

Tyler's big idea involved a lot of work—for me. In the blog on the paper's Web site, between each week's column recapping the date, I was supposed to write about why I didn't think this guy had any shot at all at being the love of my life.

Oh joy. Joy, joy, joy. “Are you out of your mind, Tyler? We're keeping the date recaps generic, but if I start being specific, how long is that going to last?”

He waved away my objection. “You don't have to be specific specific.”

“No? Just generally specific? Great.”

“Try it. If I think there's any danger that the guy will recognize himself in your profile, I won't run it.”

I wrote quickly on a napkin:
It won't work because this guy is looking for someone who likes the shell game. Or strip poker without a full deck. And I'm not a girl who likes to play a game I can't possibly win.

He read it, laughed, and said, “Perfect.”

Perfect. Sure. If you aren't the one who's going to have her life hijacked by Mother Hubbard.

Tyler got up to leave, with the napkin with my half-serious rant on it, and then stopped. He fished in his shirt pocket and came out with two tickets, which he handed to me.

“What are these?” I looked at them. Football. The homecoming game. Despite the fact that I was still recovering from his confession that he wanted to ask Sophia out, I immediately wondered if he was asking me out.

My heart even started to skip beats (Professor Golding explained in class that this was caused by excess adrenaline), until he said, “The paper always gets tickets to the president's box for homecoming. Take Hands-On Guy. That way you don't have to pay for the date.”

“Thanks.” I tried to inject some enthusiasm into my voice even though I hated football and had planned to skip the whole thing and enjoy how empty the gym was during a game—you could sign up for the elliptical machines without having to wait an hour.

The excess adrenaline slopping around inside me with nothing else to do apparently made me sound really happy, because Tyler stopped and looked at me for a second, halfway into standing up to leave. “No problem. If I'd known how much you loved football, I'd have offered sooner.”

“Great.” Again with the too much adrenaline. That must be the problem with perky people—they suffer from overadrenalitis. I took a sip of coffee, wondering whether that would make things better or worse. Perky and peppy was so not what I was going for right now.

Tyler, typical guy, was only aware of the perky, peppy stuff in his own editorial veins. “I'm going to post that Mother Hubbard has agreed to go on third date number two. I'll advertise it in tonight's paper, too, so we can really get everyone paying attention to next week's issue with Mother Hubbard's column in it.”

He held up the napkin I had scribbled on and then stuffed it in his pocket. “This will really get things going.”

The way he said “things,” I knew he meant “good things” like readership and ad revenues. I wasn't stupid enough to believe that. Just stupid enough to go out with Blaine. Because in my little pink book, Tyler had a buzz factor of ten.

 

Which is how I ended up in Sophia's hands…my own personal fashion fairy to help me go from best friend to femme fatale in a few shakes of a mascara wand.

She was also my cheerleader, since I desperately needed a pep talk before the “casual meeting” I had arranged in order to find a way to invite Blaine to the football game.

Sophia obliged with a smile, just before she disappeared with some cute hockey player. “You look like a woman who can invite a guy to a football game and leave him helpless to say no, Katelyn.”

I was a little put out when I finally approached Blaine at the milk machine in the dining hall (which, I've learned, is a happening place when it comes to guys who take care of their bods…not that those guys don't go to the soda machine, just that the less health conscious don't bother with the milk).

I'd had to get six glasses of milk and hang out for an hour for that nonchalant, “Hi, how are you doing?” But I think I did it well, no sign of a milk mustache on
my
upper lip.

He said hi back. But there was no spark there. He was definitely sending air-conditioned vibes my way. I guess he still hadn't forgiven me for ditching the frat party. Of course, if it weren't for this stupid Mother Hubbard thing, I wouldn't be looking for another date either.

I backed off and considered giving up. But the thought of doing this again was a worse alternative than going through with the girl-asking-guy-out-on-a-date mission I'd accepted for the good of Mother Hubbard, Tyler, and the entire campus.

Since he'd been very standoffish on my first greeting, I made sure to have the tickets visible when I approached again—filling my glass for the seventh time—“Hey, I have some box seat tickets for the homecoming game, and I was looking for someone to come with. You like football?”

The frost was receding as he took a sip of his chocolate milk, his eyes on the tickets, not on me. Sophia would not be pleased at the fashion fairy failure. “Who doesn't?”

Me. But I managed to keep that to myself because I knew instinctively that a guy who felt so strongly about his fraternity letters wasn't going to love my candid feelings on the silliness of a game where men wear skintight uniforms and run into one another in the pursuit of an oval of pigskin with no inherent value.

“So. Want to come?”

Like a
WALK
light that turns on when someone gets near, he lit up. “Wow. Football. A sunny day. A beautiful girl. How could I possibly resist?” Sudden. Abrupt, even. But, just like that, the magnet factor was as strong as the buzz factor. I was a little relieved I hadn't imagined the attraction between us last time. Don't get me wrong, I had a good idea it was the box at the football game that had won him over. Which didn't mean I wasn't glowing from the sudden attention from a very interested Blaine.

There was even a little relief underneath the glow. It never feels good to know you've alienated someone you thought you were clicking with. Who doesn't hate that nasty moment when the sparks start dying instead of flying? I had had no idea that a girl who wasn't appropriately reverential to the fraternity system was such a loser in his eyes.

Another part of me realized that it wasn't actually all that flattering that he'd turned on his magnetic charm after I'd flashed the tickets. Oh, well. There wasn't anything I could do about it.

 

When I finally was face-to-face—or should I say femme fatale to hot guy—with Blaine again for the official Third Date #2, I was surprised at the way his eyes got a little bigger and his smile lanterned on with no tickets in sight. “Katelyn, you're hot today.” His focus, needless to say, was not on my face. Sophia, unhappy at my report of the fashion fairy failure at the milk machine, had convinced me to wear two garments that I am not normally in at the same time. A push-up bra and a low-cut top. Clearly, her magic had worked this time.

I doubt he had forgotten the football game, but there was no question that I (or my modest, but rather exposed, cleavage) had his attention. The way he turned “on” to me was an amazing sight—focusing on me, smiling, sending energy waves of interest. Which reminded me why I'd been worried about this date in the first place. I hadn't called him Hands-On Guy for nothing. He liked to touch.

On technical merit Third Date #2 actually started well. We met for coffee before heading for the game. We were both on time (well, Blaine was ten minutes late, but I already knew that could be considered on time for him). I had a double tall. It tasted good. But that was the last thing on the date that worked entirely as planned.

He didn't hold doors—yes, before anyone asks, I can open my own doors. But, I mean, he walked through every door in front of me and let it close behind him. I really hate swinging open a door that's already in the process of closing. Some of those pneumatic hinges really don't want to stop in the middle of a good close. I suppose the plus was that at least my arms got a good workout.

It turned out I was glad after all that Tyler had scored the football tickets. A football stadium was a very public place. With security. Because despite the lack of door holding, Blaine was definitely finding ways to make me feel like he was interested in me. I was a little uncomfortable at how easily I was sucked back in by his attention. Especially since I had already seen how quickly he could turn it on and off. But I liked the way he couldn't take his eyes off me. And I enjoyed feeling like a sexy date instead of a best-friend date.

He held my arm and touched my back and shoulder frequently, and at first it was great. If you had to go to a football game in the first place. The weather was sunny, not too cool. The guy was hot and definitely interested. The buzz factor was high. What could go wrong?

Where do I start? The nice thing about being in a box in the stadium is that you're covered. The bad thing is—you're covered. People can't really see in the boxes all that well (and why would they bother to crane around and look behind them when they came to watch the game?)

Fortunately, we weren't alone. Tyler had warned me that the president's box held a dozen people and was likely to be at least half full. At the homecoming game there were usually some bigwig alumni there that the president wanted to impress out of their money.

Besides the president, there were four men. In suits, so you knew they weren't there just to enjoy the game. Although, they stood up and shouted every time our team had the ball.

Blaine—after waiting a beat, which I later realized meant that he'd expected me to introduce him to the president and his guests—stuck out his hand and said, “Pleasure to meet you, sir, you run a tight campus.”

The president seemed a bit surprised, but I had the tickets out, just in case anyone challenged us, so he shook Blaine's hand, introduced him to the alumni—all about eighty and ready to croak, as far as I could tell. For a second I had an unpleasant flash of Blaine sixty years from now, standing in line as one of the guys being primed for a mention of the university in the will.

We split up into age groups, the over fifty crowd on the left and the under twenty-one (Blaine and me), on the right. Near the food. Another good thing I should mention about being in the president's box is food. Real food. A couple of big round platters of cheese and crackers. Another one of fruit. And a cooler of drinks nestled in ice.

Blaine was very impressed. “This is great. How'd you score these tickets?”

I was feeling the moment—me hot in his eyes, the gorgeous day, the exclusive president's box, so I said without thinking, “The paper gets some perks.”

He seemed a little shocked. “The paper? You work for the paper?” He said it loud enough that the president looked over for a moment.

“Umm.” Great going, Katelyn. Why don't you get on the megaphone and just tell everyone you're Mother Hubbard. “Just this once. They needed someone to write up a story on the homecoming game.”

“Do you like football?”

I could have said yes, but then he might have wondered why I'd closed my eyes during the last big rushing tackly move the opposing team did to get one over on our team. At least, as far as I could tell from the boos on our side of the stadium. “No. But there wasn't anyone else, and I didn't want to pass up free tickets.”

“Really? I'd think there'd be lots of people who'd want to come to the homecoming football game.”

I thought of the four people who'd been mad that Tyler had given me the tickets. “You'd think. But the regular sports person got sick suddenly, and I have a class with the editor, and…there you are.” I leaned forward a little, using the cleavage Sophia had helped me showcase as a distraction. It was bad of me, but I was desperate to distract him from this topic before I got into real trouble.

“Good news for us, bad for him.” Blaine took a soda out of the cooler and popped the top. “Want one?”

I took one, just for something to do. He sat down close to me, draped his arm around me, and squeezed me tight as he leaned in to pop my top.

He didn't move his arm, even after I took a nervous sip of my drink. My hand was shaking so hard I thought for sure I'd dump the contents of the can right into my cleavage zone. But I took tiny sips and avoided that humiliation.

Blaine was having no trouble adjusting to the relative luxury of watching football from a private box. He cheered when the running and jumping and kicking were good for us. And booed when they weren't. But he didn't let go of me while he did it.

When I felt his hand creep a little too far up under my shirt, I just moved it back down with a nod to the geriatric squad on our left. I'd been worried he might sulk at not getting his way, like he had before when we'd gone out. But he smiled and didn't protest, except to brush his lips against my ear and ask if I wanted more to drink.

I'm not sure I'd have said yes if I'd known Blaine was going to take a flask from his pocket and make the bland soda more interesting. But I may have anyway. There was a reason I'd given Blaine a top buzz factor. He tended to make everything sound like a great idea. He was the kind of guy who was used to hearing yes. When you were around him, you wanted to say yes.

By halftime I was ready to leave, but that wasn't an option. Blaine was still into the game, not to mention he'd think it was odd I was only going to report on half the game. Especially considering the score was close: 14–7. Not in our favor.

The cheerleaders and marching band were taking the field—and doing a good job.

So I pretended to be having a great time watching people run—or march—around the field so he'd think I actually cared and wanted to see the end of the game.

All was good, until suddenly the geriatric brigade got noisy. I looked over to see what was up and caught the president's eye. He leaned over and whispered something. All I heard was “paper” but I could imagine the rest. The president has to put up with student newspaper reporters and their nosy questions because of the whole free speech thing. But he was still annoyed about the article that had been done on how, when he renovated the university's president's house, the furniture had been thrown out, or given to the workers. All the student groups were outraged that they didn't get to inherit some of the stuff. It didn't really mean anything, except that it made him look bad. Presidents don't like looking bad. It makes the board of trustees and the parents ask questions he doesn't want to answer.

Everyone looked over at our half of the box, and suddenly they shuffled out, the president saying, “In my office we can be more comfortable.”

I watched them file out and thought about letting them know that I wasn't interested in exposing administrative or alumni secrets, I was just trying to have a nice little date. But I was pretty sure they weren't going to take my word for it.