She had work to do and better things to think about than a romantic-looking guy who, if she were to believe today’s bride, was too handsome for his own good.
* * *
WELL, HELLO, CALEB thought as he read the message on his phone from Ms. Dogfan while he waited for his takeout, sitting in one of the plastic chairs in his favorite Chinese restaurant. Like the tables, the chairs were mostly for decoration. No one ate here—they ordered off the sign above the counter and got their food to go. The food was good and the restaurant catered to the busy professional who didn’t have the time or energy to figure out how to use the kitchen.
Or, as in Caleb’s case, only swept the crap off the kitchen counters when company was due over.
He’d shove everything into his office and shut the door for Ms. Dogfan. She hadn’t written very much, but it was cute. Short. Succinct. Charming enough to make him want to know more. That and her smile was enough to write back.
Ah, yes. Busy Bee had the best tater tots. And huevos rancheros. You could never go wrong with their brunch. It’s not a bar and it’s not tots, but have you had the fries at Chuck’s? I’m partial to those. And the milkshakes don’t hurt.
Seamus, huh? That seems like a good name for your dog. Does he have a green collar? And do you buy him a little green bow tie on St. Patrick’s Day?
—Caleb
There. That was enough to keep the conversation going. After all, these emails were really about deciding if they wanted to meet in person. Best not to give too much away and either not live up to the email charm or say something so phenomenally stupid that the woman wouldn’t be interested in meeting at all.
Not exchanging lots of emails was part of the trick, too. Emails gave you time to think about what you wanted to say, to edit your words and your tone. To rethink. He’d been on a couple of dates with women who’d been absolutely enthralling over email but flat in person.
Likely, a few women had thought the same about him before he’d learned to offer a date early—like three quick exchanges in.
“Thirty-five,” the man barked from behind the counter. Abby, his daughter, must be at soccer practice tonight, because she wasn’t working the register. She was a bubbly girl who chatted with the customers as she rang up their orders; she even shared little details of her life with her favorites. Caleb knew how to ask questions, so he knew what college she wanted to apply to—North Carolina State University. What she wanted to study—Fashion and Textile Design. And what her parents thought about her dreams—nothing good.
Caleb felt for the girl. He’d disappointed his parents, too, despite trying to do the opposite when he’d started writing for his college paper and discovered that he loved it. Whenever Abby complained, Caleb gave her the same advice that every young adult needed to hear—life was long and your life almost never turns out as planned, but it usually turns out okay if you let it.
Much like online dating, Caleb thought as he accepted the plastic bag of food Mr. Lin shoved across the cracked laminate.
His phone rang as he approached his car. Only after he’d opened the passenger door and shoved enough papers out of the way to have a place to put his food was he able to reach into his pocket. A missed call from his sister, Candice. After he got settled, he called her back.
“Caleb, you have to get me out of this date.” Her voice echoed against the hard surfaces of whatever room she was in—probably the bathroom.
The hairs on the back of his head stood at attention. “Do I need to come get you, get you out of this date?”
“No. It’s not that bad. Just, I said yes to a date with a coworker and I shouldn’t have, because, awkward if it doesn’t work out.”
“Just tell the guy that you’re not that into him.” He was backing out of the parking spot, which is why he didn’t notice the silence on the other end of the line. “You’ve slept with him already, haven’t you?”
“Is it better if there wasn’t any sleeping?” He groaned and she tsked. “Not like you have any room to judge.”
“Dating is a game and it’s not an even playing field.” Like life and all the best sports, there was a strategy to dating, and Caleb had studied it. Not that he abused the tricks he knew—he wasn’t out to prey on women or trick them into a date they didn’t want. But he wasn’t going to sabotage himself, either, and he fully expected the women on the other end of the computer to be using the same tricks—or be in the process of learning them.
But he knew the rules were stacked in his favor. Candice generously shared with him all the dick pics she’d gotten, even though he assured her that one was enough. But he’d rather look at “the log,” as she called them, than any of the screenshots she’d sent him of men calling her a bitch when she wouldn’t show them hers.
“You say that...” He didn’t need her to finish her sentence. They’d had this argument many times, usually when she called him because she’d gotten herself into a sticky situation.
“You’ve got to think about,” he started to say, stopping when he heard her voice finish the admonition, “what your desired outcome is.”
Candice said her desired outcome was a steady job, steady housing and a steady boyfriend. Then she would do something like have sex with her coworker before she knew if she liked him, put her job at risk and—this was his baby sister, after all—then she’d likely find out the guy was also her new roommate’s favorite cousin.
“You sleep around.” A familiar argument for a familiar ride home.
“I like women. I’m looking for company for a night or two. Nothing else.”
He liked how soft a woman’s skin was and all their laughs and the variety of their bodies and their smells. Whenever his coworkers said he was a lady’s man—almost always with a raised eyebrow and a twinge of jealousy in their voices, even the married ones—he told them they could be, too, if they started liking all women and approaching them with metaphorical open arms. Women knew when a man was listening to them just because he wanted to get some. And make no mistake, Caleb liked sex and usually wanted some with the woman he was on a date with, but he’d enjoy the conversation and the company whether sex was on or off the table.
He’d watched a few of his coworkers approach women at bars during happy hour. Some women they wanted to listen to. Some they just wanted to bang. And in other cases, it only seemed to matter that they had two X chromosomes. Women could feel the difference in the way a man approached them, and they responded accordingly. And men couldn’t fake it. They were either genuine or creeps.
The car in front of him stopped suddenly and Caleb had to slam on his brakes, holding out his arm to stop his dinner from flying forward into his dash. The phone, sitting in the center console, nearly spilled out onto the floor. If his sister landed in the pile of papers covering the floor mat, he’d never find her. And he’d never hear the end of it. He might have embraced the idea that all journalists are pack rats, but his sister still called him a slob and wondered what the appeal of the unkempt writer was.
When this special series on election maps was over, he’d bundle all this paper up in a box, nicely labeled, and pack it in his attic, until the next story buried him.
He recovered enough from the near accident to pay attention to the phone call and hear his sister’s voice fill his car with, “Maybe all I want is a man’s company for a night or two.”
“Then walk out of the stall you’re in, head to the guy’s table and tell him the one night was fabulous—”
“It wasn’t.”
“You’re about to dump him. You can lie about the fabulousness of