Mismatched

Ch. 9

"Lesley, I need a really good date idea for tonight," I said the second I heard the bell ring.

Okay, so maybe I didn't have an idea last night. But I'd needed to do something to appease Riley, and it bought me some time.

"Can I at least take my jacket off first?" Lesley asked, looking perplexed.

I tapped my foot impatiently while Lesley took her damn sweet time taking off her coat and placing it on the rack at the front of the store before making her way back to her usual spot on the couch.

"Okay, lay it on me. What are their interests?" She grabbed a piece of paper and pen off my desk, ready to make notes.

"It's for Riley," I explained, and I could see Lesley's terrible attempt to hide her smirk.

"And you?"

"I know you are deriving some sick pleasure from having me spell this out for you, but can we just move on to the part where you give me ideas?"

"Why should I help you when you won't even tell me the details after?" Lesley pouted, placing the pen down on the paper. I sighed, knowing there was no way out of this.

"Help me with this and I will answer any questions you have," I conceded, and Lesley giddily clapped her hands with a squeal that had me covering my ears.

"Okay, what were you thinking?" Lesley asked, pulling up a chair next to my desk.

"If I had an idea, I wouldn't have just made a deal with the devil."

"Hmm," Lesley hummed, tapping her pen annoyingly against the desk. I narrowed my eyes at her. I was regretting asking her for help already.

But even I had to admit that I needed help. I'd never been good at this whole dating thing. I was used to dating women, who told me exactly what they wanted me to do, so at least I knew when I was disappointing them.

"Why don't you make him dinner at your place. That's always so romantic," Lesley offered, swooning inwardly, as if she was lost deep in her imagination.

"Are we trying to poison him?" I asked.

Aside from the fact it would take me a week, minimum, to clean my place up enough to be presentable to Riley, the extent of my cooking ability was making scrambled eggs. And while I thought my eggs were pretty good, I didn't think they were wooing level.

"Right, right. Sorry, I forgot what we were working with," she laughed, gesturing towards me as I scowled.

"Oh, oh! Take him to Port Elgin. It's so cute there, with all the little shops and the lighthouse," Lesley said.

"And spend an hour and half in the car together each way? No, thank you."

"Do you want to spend time with him or not, Nate?" Lesley argued, and I rolled my eyes.

She was clearly losing sight of the whole plan here.

"Need, not want. Judy is this close," I held out my fingers, barely separated, "to calling in Trevor."

"God, I hate him," Lesley spat. "Last Easter he was going on about how his grandparents are cousins and they got married and it worked out so well for them, and how we technically aren't even blood related. I thought I was going to throw up right there, all over his 'brand new, 7,000-dollar suit'."

Trevor was Aunt Judy's stepson from her first marriage, but she was the only mother he ever had. His mother had died when he was born. So, he was part of the family for as long as I could remember, and even after the divorce, he kept coming to all our family events.