One Hot Summer - Page 127

On-line dating is a joke…Amen, brother.

I pull my hands away and brush at my eyes. “And where is that, oh wise one? On Tinder? Ugh. Gross.”

“No, not on Tinder,” she says, pursing her lips, full of sass. She grabs my hands again, holding them tightly in hers. Oh, crap… “Let’s visualize.”

Visualizing. Something Leigh learned recently in Lamaze class. Something she’s been practicing regularly ever since on a reluctant me.

“What…now?”

“Yes, now. No time like the present. Close your eyes. Clear your mind. Now…see what he sees. Where’s he walking? Where’s he going?”

“How do I know?”

“Shhh! Come on, now! You have to do this!” She insists. “You figure out what he sees, and you’ll figure out where to find him.”

I feel incredibly ridiculous, holding hands with my co-worker in our bustling office, to do a half-baked visualization exercise meant to help my nonexistent love life. But that steel is back in her voice, so I comply.

“Fine,” I mutter.

“Good. Now, breathe.”

I take a deep breath, filling my lungs before letting it go.

“Now, look at the world through his eyes. See what he sees.”

When I was little, I had a book about Alaska, given to me by my grandmother, so I can easily picture Sitka, Alaska, with its harbor full of fishing boats and harbor seals. I see bright green fir trees and bright blue skies. I picture orcas and humpbacks, totem poles and an old Russian Orthodox church.

“Now turn around,” says Leigh, her voice low, soft and hypnotic, “and look at him.”

I do it. I turn away from the harbor and picture…Luke.

My eyes pop open.

“Did you see him?” she asks, her eyes sparkling and happy, her hands squeezing mine with excitement.

“Ladies, can we expect your attendance? Or do you require an engraved invitation?” asks Norman Frumplestein, giving us a deeply irritated look as he passes us in the hallway, en route to the conference room for the meeting.

His name is really Norman Frum, but he always looks frustrated, rumpled and like he’s channeling Frankenstein’s monster. Ergo… Frumplestein.

Norm is the Lifestyles Editor, and therefore our boss, but each of us—me and Leigh—have a few years of seniority on Norm, and are paid almost as much he, which makes Norm kinda-sorta hate our guts.

“Oh, I’ll take an invitation,” says Leigh, not even a little bit intimidated by Norm’s bark. “I love a pretty invitation.”

Over his shoulder, he calls, “Terrific, Ms. Stanton. Here it is: get your butt into the conference room. And Ms. McKendrick, I hope your idea for the June column wows.”

“Hey, idea-girl,” says Leigh, glancing back at me, “Is our column going to…wow?”

I still got nothin’.

“Mmm. Maybe?”

“I’ma go pee, which means you have exactly five minutes to come up with something, girl. You feel me?”

What I feel is the ground tremble as she waddles away.

Pressing on my mouse again, I note the click-bait headline: BEAR ATTACKS ON THE RISE IN SITKA, hovering just over Luke’s personal ad, but ignore it.

The only “something” circling in my head is “Luke,” a single dad in Sitka with such modest hopes, and such a theoretically hot bod, I can’t help the way his name pulls at my—ah-hem—heart.

Tags: Heidi McLaughlin Romance
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