“Yeah, I got it,” he said. “I’m not going.”
But Rand probably would. Rand and Lissa, together again.
Now his balloon ride was not only over, the balloon was in a swamp infested with alligators. And poker night was a bust.
Just like his love life.
Chapter Two
Poker night hadn’t ended well for Kyle. Vance, the old buzzard, had picked him clean. And that set the tone for the weekend.
Saturday was nothing but chores and errands. He filled the evening playing War on Planet X with a bunch of online gamers, which left him feeling unsatisfied. He was getting too old for this crap. He needed more in his life. It seemed like everybody was getting paired up but him.
He was even more aware of this fact when he went over to his folks’ house for Sunday dinner and learned that his baby sister had gotten engaged. Of course he’d seen it coming for months and he was happy for her. But now it was official—he was the last of the three siblings left unattached. And Kerrie was four years younger, which didn’t help. Neither did remarks like, “We have to find somebody for Kyle.” He didn’t need his baby sister finding someone for him.
He’d found someone. All he had to do was make her realize he was the man for her.
Well, the weekend was over and it was a new day. TGIM—Thank God It’s Monday. He walked through the glass doors of Safe Hands Insurance Company and into the lobby with its modern paintings, the strategically placed metal sculpture of two giant hands stretched out in a gesture of insurance paternalism, and plants that looked like they’d escaped from an African jungle. He kept his eyes front and center, because there, straight ahead, was the receptionist’s desk.
Behind it sat a vision. Jillian. She had long, reddish-blond hair that she tossed over her shoulder when she talked, full, glossy lips he dreamed of kissing, a perfect nose and sky-blue eyes. Blind sky-blue eyes. One of these days she was going to see him, really see him. Maybe even this morning.
He sure saw everything about her. Today she was wearing a white blouse that plunged in a V pointing to her breasts—as if a man needed any help finding them—and she’d worn a necklace made up of glass baubles to fill the gap between neck and heaven. She’d tucked her hair behind her ears, showing off dangly earrings that matched the necklace. She had a funny little habit of tapping her pencil on the desk as she talked on the phone, which she was doing now. The call only lasted a moment. She pushed a button and sent the caller on, probably to one of the bosses. Such an efficient woman.
Now she smiled as she caught sight of him walking down the hall in his gray slacks and his white Oxford shirt, his hair slicked into the latest style (at least according to the new barber he’d gone to at Sweeney Todd Barbershop—the one highlight of his weekend). He puffed out his chest and donned his best smile. He did have a good smile; even his sisters said so.
Oh, man, look at the way her eyes lit up at the sight of him. It was the hair, had to be. He forced his chest to swell to its fullest capacity.
Look at that smile. She had a great smile and she used it a lot. When a woman smiled a lot, it meant she was happy and easygoing. That was exactly the kind of woman Kyle wanted.
He was almost at her desk when he realized they weren’t making eye contact. She was looking beyond him.
Then he heard a rich tenor voice behind him say, “Jillian, you’re especially beautiful this fine morning.”
Ted Darrow, the ass-wipe. Kyle’s supervisor. Kyle could feel his smile shrinking even as he shrank inside. He mumbled a hello to Jillian and slunk by her desk.
“Hi,” she said absently as he passed. Then for Ted it was a sexy, “Hi, Ted.”
“Hi, Ted,” Kyle mimicked under his breath as he strode to his cubicle. Jillian shouldn’t waste her breath saying hello to that fathead. Men like that, they flirted with women, they used women, but they didn’t appreciate women. Kyle flung himself into his chair with a growl.
“Starting the day off well, I see,” said a soft voice from the cubicle next door.
Unlike some people, Mindy Wright always had the decency to acknowledge his existence. It didn’t make him feel any better, though. Mindy was no Jillian.
“Hi, Mindy.” His hello probably sounded grudging, so he added, “How was your weekend?”
“Well, it was interesting.”
Mindy had been trolling the internet for her perfect match. So far she’d hauled in a truck driver who was ten years older than she was and about forty pounds heavier than he’d looked in his picture on the dating site, a man who claimed to be a churchgoer but hadn’t gone in two—okay, make it five—years, a shrink who Mindy said was the most screwed-up person she’d ever had dinner with and someone who’d seemed like a great catch until she learned he had no job. “And he wasn’t planning on finding one anytime soon, either,” Mindy had confessed. “He’s writing a book.”
“Oh, well, that’s good,” Kyle had said, trying to put a positive spin on the latest loser.
“About mushrooms.”
“Bound to be a bestseller.”
That had made her laugh. Kyle made Mindy laugh a lot. If only he could work up his nerve to ask Jillian out. He was sure he could make her laugh, too. But so far, his attempts to get her attention had all been thwarted.
Shakespeare had it right. The course of true love never did run smooth. For Kyle, it seemed to run into nothing but dead ends.
At least Mindy was getting some action. “So, who’d you go out with this weekend?” he asked.
“No one I want to keep, that’s for sure. I think I’m done looking.”
“Hey, you can’t give up. Your perfect man may be right around the next corner.”
“The next internet corner?” She peeked around the cubicle wall, a grin on her face.
It was an okay face, fringed with dark hair and decorated with glasses, a turned-up little nose that made him think of Drew Barrymore and a small chin that seemed to sport a zit once a month. (What was with that, anyway?) As for the bod, well, not a ten like Jillian. Still, she was pretty nice. Someone would want her.
“Yeah,” he said. “The next internet corner. Or maybe at the Red Barn.” If you wanted cold beer and hot music, that was the place to go.
She shook her head. “I haven’t gone there in a long time.” Then she disappeared back behind the cubicle wall.
“Why’s that?” he asked, booting up his computer.
“Too much competition.”
“I know what you mean.” Funny how the walls of an office cubicle could make you feel like you were in a confessional, willing to say things you wouldn’t share face-to-face. Not that he’d been in the confessional for a while.
Maybe he needed to spend some time there. And maybe he should be talking to God more. God saw him, even if Jillian didn’t. Maybe God would consider working a miracle and opening Jillian’s eyes. At the rate things were going here at Safe Hands, improving her eyesight was going to take a miracle.
* * *
It was nine o’clock and time for Jonathan’s morning ritual. He grabbed his bowl of cereal with sliced banana and turned on the TV to a station in Oregon. “Barely made it in time,” he told Chica, who’d settled on the couch beside him. “We shouldn’t have taken such a long walk.”
Her only response to that was a big