“Follow me,” Eric said to Nancy as he stepped over a pet carrier and hurried to the solitude of his office. “All right,” he said when she shut the door behind her. “What’s going on?”
Her smile was inappropriate to the stress of the situation. “My guess is they’re all here to see you.”
“Me?” Eric shook his head. “I don’t know what’s going on here.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Look,” he said with what he hoped would be a calmer voice, “I know you don’t know me all that well, but I’m usually a guy who can laugh right along with the rest of them. The catch is, I need to be in on the joke. So, why don’t you tell all those people to go home so I can have my parking place and my office back?”
Nancy gestured to the folded copy of the Gazette that topped the stack of periodicals on the corner of his desk. “See for yourself.” She paused. “You might want to sit down.”
“Surely all of this insanity wasn’t caused by that ridiculous ad in the classifieds. Who reads that section, anyway?”
His vet tech shook her head. “Don’t know about that but I’m pretty sure everyone reads the headlines.” She shrugged. “See for yourself. If you don’t need me for anything else, though, I probably should get out there and help.”
“No, go ahead.” He waited until Nancy left then carefully opened the paper to read the headline. “Daddy’s Little Matchmakers.”
Before he could read past the first paragraph, the intercom buzzed. “Yes?”
“Phone’s for you, hon,” the receptionist said. “And you’ll probably want to take this one.”
“What?” He shook his head. “Not right now.”
“No, seriously,” she repeated. “You want to take this.”
Eric leaned back, exasperated. “And why would that be?” he managed.
“Well, it’s some reporter from the Houston Chronicle. Said she read the most interesting story about you on the newswire this morning. Wants to know if you have any comments she can put in the story she’s writing.”
“Great,” he said weakly.
“Line three.” Nancy’s voice dissolved into a giggle as she skittered out of the room and left him alone with the red light blinking on line three and a Houston Chronicle reporter asking for details of his search for a bride.
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