Date in the Dark (2 page)

I glare at my brother. “Yes, clearly she said
“no”. Well, it was more of a mumbled “I can’t” followed by a quick
exit and now, a dash in the opposite direction any time she sees
me.”

“I think you should try again.” He says.

I laugh and shake my head. “I don’t think
so.”

“I think you should reconsider.” Miles slaps
a hand on my shoulder. “We promised Sara that we’d both have dates
by the end of the day today, or we’d attend that stupid event Tim’s
parents are hosting. Dark Dating or some shit.”

I nod slowly. Who could forget the possible
chance of dating a complete stranger in the dark for three days? I
just don’t remember why I agreed to it. Not completely anyway. “I
know, trust me, I haven’t forgotten the deal we made with our
sister. She’s lucky we love her. Does she even care that we can’t
see our dates?”

“Sounds like she doesn’t.” He shrugs.

“This is just bullshit!” a man hollers from
his place in line and storms past us out the door. A few others
follow him, and we move up in the line.

“I’ll have a date by the end of the day,
don’t you worry.” I glance around the coffee shop once again.
How can they fit this many people in here?

“Anyway, like is said, I think you should
reconsider. I’m going to skip coffee today. Call you later,
okay?”

“Yeah, have a good day.”

Miles walks out the door and I move up in
line.

If only he knew how many times I reconsider
asking Allie out. He might actually be a bit disappointed on how
hung up I am on this woman, but if he worked with her, he’d know
exactly why. She’s smart, funny, and a great people person. She
helps anyone who asks her without hesitation. She has this soft
voice that can instantly make you relax, her laugh is always
contagious, and when she smiles, the entire room lights up.

Some people might call it obsession, but I
call it observation. We’ve worked together for over a year now and
it’s hard not to notice a woman like Allie.

****

I swing my coat onto the back of my chair and
set my coffee down in front of me. I look around to see everyone
has already taken their seats for our morning meeting. I basically
just ran here from the coffee shop to get here on time, so I’m a
little out of breath when I finally sit down.

“Mr. Louis, so glad you could make it today.”
Harold Martin, the Library Director, says tapping his pen against
the table. “Now, that we’re all here, let’s get started.”

Great. Now, I’m on his radar and I wasn’t
even late.
Come on Parker, you’re twenty five years old. Get it
together.

“As you all know, we have the end of the year
upon us. Allie has kindly put together a few events to help us
celebrate and bring in more members.”

I steal a glance her way to find her
blushing. She does this anytime Harold points her out in front of
the others.

“Sadly,” Harold goes on, “Lynn is going to be
out of work for a few more weeks. This means, I need a volunteer to
help Allie get things in motion. Someone who can help her lead the
events and manage them while they’re taking place.” His gaze
circles the room. Not a single person speaks up.

“I’ll do it.” I say, looking back and forth
between Allie and Harold.

“I can handle it on my own, Harold. It’s
fine.” Allie says, looking directly at him.

“Nonsense,” he replies. “Parker, you think
you can do this? Your expertise is upstairs in the tech department
not running events.”

“Yeah, I can do it.”

Shit
. Even my own voice sounds
unsure.

“Perfect. You and Allie can get started today
and Ben can cover for you upstairs until after the New Year.”

I don’t hear anything else he said after
that. All I can think about is how I’m finally going to get to work
with her. Maybe this can be an ice breaker for us. She may not want
to date me, but we can at least be friends, right?

Chapter Two

Allie

Crap, crap, crap!

I’m not going to get any work done today. Or
for the next week. All I can do is think about Parker, and it’s
driving me mad. And not in a bad way. Right now, I’m focused on the
way he’s sitting in my office. He’s got one leg crossed over the
other resting his ankle over his knee as he reads the pamphlets I
gave him about the events for next week. He hasn’t complained once,
and a part of me wishes he would. Then I could argue with him. I
could find a reason to truly not like him. To hate the way he
smells both woodsy and of fresh linen. To loathe the way his eyes
shine when he looks at me and to hate that stupid half grin he
makes every time he sees me. If I could just find something bad
about him, I could kick the silly school girl crush I’ve had on him
since the day he started working here.

“So,” I begin and Parker immediately glances
up. Oh, crap. I’ve blanked. What was I going to say again?
No,
no, don’t smile at me. Think fast, Allie, before he can read your
mind.
I quickly look away and focus on a photo of me with my
mom.

“So…” he repeats.

“We need to get to work as soon as we can.
I’m not sure what information Harold has told you about the events
or if he’s given you any information at all, so why don’t you tell
me what you know and we’ll go from there?”

“Other than him mentioning it in the meeting,
a few flyers around the building, and this pamphlet, this is all I
know. Everything looks pretty much laid out and ready to go and the
events seem interesting enough.”

“Are there any specific ones you’d like to
take charge of, or would you rather I run them all and you can be
there to help? I’ve already scheduled them to work out perfectly
and I know exactly how each one should go. We can look them over
and you can tell me which ones you feel most comfortable with.” I
stop to take a breath. I’m beginning to ramble and I’m not sure if
he caught a single word of anything I just said.

“Whoa there,” he says, holding his hand up.
“Slow down. This might be my first time assisting to host a few
events, but I wouldn’t mind taking over some of them for you. It
sounds like you could use the help and I’d love to be the one to
help you. I think what you have planned is great. More libraries
should do things like this to bring people together.” He gaze falls
on mine and immediately I blush.
How sweet of him
. After a
moment, his smile returns. “Which events would you like me to
take?” He tosses the pamphlet onto my desk and uncrosses his legs.
He rests his forearms against his thighs, and my eyes follow the
movements. His white shirt rolls up to a quarter sleeves and when
he grips his hands into a fist, the veins in his arms make a quick
appearance before disappearing.
I wonder what those arms would
feel like if they were wrapped around me.

Wait, what? Where did that come from?
He
is your coworker Allie. Dating him would not be a smart
move.

I take a deep breath and let it out as I pull
myself together. I can’t think that way. It’s completely
inappropriate. When I look up, Parker is watching me with a
shit-eating grin on his face.

“You still with me?” he asks, holding back a
laugh. “I thought I lost you there. I mean at first I thought I had
something on my shirt, but then I realized you were just staring. I
was thrown off because of the direction your eyes were facing. I’d
say you were staring at my—”

“Computers,” I blurt out before he can finish
that sentence. “You’re good with them, right?” He nods slowly, but
his smile doesn’t falter. “Tuesday morning is for Digital Learning.
You’d be teaching members how to use the computers for looking
information up, using an audio book, and using the online catalogue
to search books within the library.”

“Alright, I can handle that,” he says. “What
else?”

Somehow I’ve managed to forget all the events
planned for next week. I scan a flyer quickly. “The book signing,
Monday afternoon. You can host that one. Make sure the authors get
set up the way they want and are comfortable, and also that
everyone is ready to go by two o’clock. Does that work? Most of the
ladies are older and if my instincts are correct, they’ll just love
to have a man like you greeting them as they arrive.” I start
sorting through the papers on my desk until I find the one with the
list of authors who will be at the signing on Tuesday.

“A man like me?” he asks as I hand the papers
to him.

“Yeah, you know. Younger and…”

“Good-looking.” He grins.

I settle my eyes on him.
Do I think that
was cocky or sexy?
He knows he has great features and damn him
for knowing that I know it too. “Then,” I say, getting our
conversation back on track, “I was thinking Wednesday you could do
the children’s reading in the afternoon. There’s an ice cream bar
after the reading and you can have that, too.” I smile to
myself—kids were never a strong area for me. I get flustered and
panic when there’re too many around. If Parker can handle hanging
out with a group of kids, he will come in very handy.

“Awesome, I love kids. I’ve got a niece I
read to every time I see her, and a nephew who is a few weeks old,
I think I can read to a few more.” His smile is bright and
refreshing. He likes kids. That’s so cute.

Crap
. Parker is a good guy.

Parker

After we separate out the events for the next
week, Allie explains to me what her plan is with each one. For The
Book Mobile on Monday morning, we’re working as a team, and then
she’ll step back and let me take over in the afternoon. She is very
adamant that she hold the poetry slam on Tuesday afternoon since I
will be leading the event the morning. Then on Wednesday, together
we’ll start Children’s Day out with Arts and Crafts. I’ll take over
in the afternoon for the reading and ice cream party.

I’m not going to object to any of the events
she wants me to manage. She has them planned out perfectly and I
don’t see why or how any of them need to be changed. I only wish we
could host more of them together. Something about this woman has me
intrigued. And it’s not just because she turned me down. Everyone
at the library is always talking about how kind she is and how a
woman like her is hard to find. I agree, especially because she
avoids me, but now, we’re working together and this is my chance to
get to know her.

I peek up from my reading to look at Allie.
She’s concentrating on some paperwork and is mindlessly tapping a
pen against her head. We’ve been completely focused since our lunch
break and with only an hour to go before we call it a day, I
realize I’m bummed out that a work day is almost over. I should be
extra happy since it’s Friday.

I set the papers I’ve been reviewing on her
desk and stand. Allie’s head snaps up from my movement, but she
doesn’t say anything. She only watches me. I smile, nod, and glance
around.

Her office is organized all the way down to
how each book rests on the shelf. This doesn’t surprise me
considering her admirable work ethics. A large wooden desk sits in
the middle with one chair on each side. Two of the four walls have
built-in shelves jammed with books and photos. A bright yellow
frame with a picture of Allie and the girl from this morning
catches my eye. Allie’s gripping a large black lab by the collar,
while her friend is holding a yellow cat in her arms with wide eyes
and tears running down her cheeks. I laugh.

“Nice picture,” I turn to face her.

A smile takes over her lips. “That day was
both terrible and comical. My friend Kelly had just bought herself
a new cat. She brought him over to introduce to Bell, my lab, and
Bell didn’t exactly like the cat. I’d warned her what would happen,
but she set the cat down anyway.” She laughs. “My apartment was a
mess by the time we had caught the two of them. Kelly’s boyfriend
at the time thought it would be funny to capture the moment.”

“Has the cat been around since?”

“Nope, and neither has the guy was
seeing.”

I glance over my shoulder as her words fade.
She’s fully focused on the papers in front of her once again.
Shaking my head, I return to examining her bookshelf. Every form of
romance novel fills the space. Historical, Young Adult, New Adult,
Suspense, Thriller, and…
holy shit
, she has erotica in
here.

“I don’t take you for much of a romance
reader, let alone enjoying something like this. I’ve never even
heard of you to be dating anyone.” I say. It doesn’t hit me about
what I’ve said until I turn around to see her starring at me. “I’m
sorry, that’s none of my business.”

“It’s alright, if I could find a man half as
sweet as the ones in those books, I’ll be sure to let everyone
know.” The humor in her voice takes me by surprise.

“Not one guy has come close?”

She shrugs. “I read a lot of books.”

“Well, I happen to have a very open attitude
toward any type of genre. Romance might not be my first choice, but
I wouldn’t mind reading one of them if it meant we would have more
to talk about than work.”

I place the book back in the intended spot.
Allie’s observing me and there’s no mistaking the curiosity in her
yes.

Ask her now or you’ll lose your chance.

“Maybe sometime we can—”

“Hey, Allie?” One of the receptionists, Amber
I think, knocks on the doorframe, capturing our attention. “Can you
help me for a moment? I’m trying to check this gentleman out and he
needs a new card, but we’re out and I can’t find them.” Amber’s
gaze darts in my direction and she blushes. “I hope I wasn’t
interrupting anything.”

“No, not at all, follow me. I’ll get those
cards for you.” Allie’s voice sounds cheery as she heads for the
door. “It’s almost time for us to be getting home anyway. Is Levi
still here? Are you both alright to close everything up?” She asks,
walking past Amber, who follows her down the hallway.