A Second Chance at Love

Chapter 9- What Do I Do Now?

As she stared at her dark grey A3 in front of the park, Ellie could not stop thinking of her meeting with Dean. A feeling of doubt has overtaken her since he had gone.

Have I made the right choice? The question keeps popping in her mind every now and then. Maybe he was just stressed and had to be somewhere important and I made him late. Yeah, maybe next time will be better, she encouraged herself.

Feeling lighter, she decided to find a quiet spot to write before going home to her baby girl.

She crossed the road and entered the park by the East and walked to Gapstow Bridge and sat down under a tree. As she took place on the grass, she retrieved her blue notebook from her bag with a pen. She read what she wrote three days ago, closed her eyes for a moment, opened them then started to write.

About half an hour later, she was still writing but had the nagging feeling that she was being watched. She raised her head and looked around. Someone was waving at her. I was Matthew.

She mentally congratulated herself for placing a light cardigan on her knees to cover whatever the not-so-long dress that Angie made her wear that morning would have exposed.

"Hey", she said with a smile. Why did she feel nervous?

"Hey what're you doing? Do you write your articles under a tree?" He teased her.

"Oh no" she chuckled, "it's not the article. It's rather a novel that I'm writing." She looked at the page she was currently on.

"I see, so you're a writer that does part-time journalist?" he asked intrigued.

"It's rather the other way around. I'm still to get my first novel done and published. So, I'm not really a writer." She laughed half-heartedly.

"The way I see it if you write may it be for pleasure or for money, you're a writer all the same," Matthew said with a smile.

"If that's how you see it", she smiled with a shrug. "I'm sorry for earlier on. I had to meet someone but I forgot about him and that's why I had to hurry." She added before she lost the opportunity to apologize, feeling guilty for the way that she had dropped him. For that was exactly what she had done. Drop him. "I didn't even get the chance to pay or compliment your friend for his delicious food, let alone thank him." She went to get her purse from her bag.

"Ellie, you don't have to pay for that, it was a pleasure!" He said stopping her. "I'm not even going to tell you how much it cost." He said seriously.

"I can't possibly let you pay for it, especially since we were talking about work. As by the regulations, we pay for the clients with whom we are to meet. A special allowance is given for that effect." She said frankly.

"It was not really work. Consider it as a meal between friends, alright?" he said. Suddenly, a smile lightened his features as he added, "Besides what kind of a gentleman would I be if I made a lady pay, huh?"

"A perfect one when the lady wants to be independent." She said with a mock-serious look and then broke into a wide grin, "thank you anyway. But I do hope that next time you will let me pay." She leaned back against the tree.

"Damn woman, do you ever give up?" when she only raised an eyebrow, he reluctantly added, "fine. I'll bring you to the fanciest restaurant in town then. Save that allowance for next time", he said with a cheeky grin.

She burst out laughing, "I better go steal a bank in this case!"

"I'm afraid you'll need the money to bail yourself out of jail", he said, laughing with her.