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“Oh no,” I whispered loudly, looking around for Scarlet. Had she noticed? “Oh no. This’s bad.”

“I don’t know, it seems pretty great to me,” he grinned puckishly. “Your glasses are crooked.”

I gasped again, straightening them with both hands. I heldthem in place like they were trying to pedal off my face. “You shh-ould go,” I slurred with wide eyes.

Cal shook his head once, his handsome features pulled into a “yeah right” face.

“I shh-ould go,” I mumbled, scrunching my face in thought. I pushed my chair away from the table, intending to stand and go… somewhere. Anywhere but here. But my chair suddenly sucked up hard against the table with ascrrtch.It pressed my stomach against the edge of the table, and I slapped my hands to the surface to steady myself. I hinged a confused look down at the legs. Cal had reached under the table with his feet and hooked them around the legs, pinning my chair in place. I rotated an open mouth his way. “’Scuse you.”

Keeping one foot hooked around the leg of my chair, Cal sat up and leaned his elbow on the table. His eyes flashed with humor as he leveled his gaze with mine. “I’ve just decided who I’m taking home tonight.”

The speed dating bell dinged like a wedding chime.

Chapter five

Cal

Cal

Somehow, I’d missed it the first time. I’d known the matchmaker was beautiful the first time I’d seen her. I’d taken note of her gray-blue eyes with the ring of sunshine yellow around her irises that reminded me of sunflowers. I’d known she had curly, short hair, but I hadn’t realized how soft and springy it was, how it bounced with every little movement of her heart-shaped face. I hadn’t realized how captivating she was. Or, maybe I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge how strongly it affected me.

As she stared at me with half-lidded eyes and a dopey, confused expression pulling at her features, I found that I couldn’t look away. Her glasses were sliding down her straight little nose again, and her cheeks were flushed from intoxication in the most squishable way. I tried not to stare, but she wasso drunk, she didn’t seem to notice anyway. She was staring back at me just as cluelessly.

“Home with you?” she echoed. Her lips were that shade of pink that brought to mind English roses and bubblegum, and she had them parted in question. I loved it when brainy types got drunk—they did the most random things. And I’d gotten drunk with a lot of smart people in medical school.

“Well,” I clarified, letting my eyes bounce all over her short frame. “Either you’re going home with me, or I’m going with you. I’m not going to send you out there on your own, that’s for sure.”

“Oh,home with you,” she snickered suddenly, like she’d forgotten completely that she was sitting across from one of her dissatisfied clients. “I thought you meant, you know,” she rolled her eyes, smiling in a self-deprecating way, “homewith you.” Like it was absurdly funny that a man would want that.

I knew for a fact that the blond guy behind me would take her up on that second offer in a heartbeat. He’d been about to before I’d cut in. Annoyingly. My reaction to that didn’t make a lot of sense, especially having known her for all of thirty caustic seconds beforehand, but that look in his eye had kind of pissed me off. And it had spurred me on to ignore my speed date companion and sit with Dr. Coldwell instead.

Now I was glad I had. She was in a room full of slavering, single men, she was drunk as a skunk, and she looked tastier than a puff pastry in a room full of sugar addicts. “I think I have to change my mind,” I said to her, leaning my cheekbone on myfist. “We should be on a first-name basis. Since I’m taking you home and all.”

She snorted inelegantly before folding her torso over the table in an effort to reach her Long Island iced tea. “Sure,Cal. Whatever you say.” She flopped, stretching her fingers out for the glass, but her hilariously short arms didn’t come anywhere near reaching it.

I inched it away from her anyway. “And yours is?”

“Thas a long islan’ ice’ tea,” she slurred, turning her head to hook me with an irritated scowl.

“Not the drink. Your name.” I picked it up and took a sip. “Oh God.” I pulled a face, angling away from it. “Jesus Christ, did they put the entire stevia factory in this?”

She snorted again and then dissolved into a laugh. Still folded over the table with her round ass hanging off the edge, she let her head fall onto her arms. “That was funny. You’re nice. This is very nice.”

I peered at the glass. “What else did they put in this?”

She gasped, picking up her head suddenly. It sent her curls flying everywhere, and they settled over her cheeks. “I’m working.”

“So you said. No offense, but I don’t think you gave great dating advice sober,” I pointed out dryly. “You might need to abandon the effort.”

She rotated an irritated look my way. “That was offense… I take… I have offense. Is not hard. There’s jus’ one date, then two, then you run all the bases and,” she made an explosion soundand mimed it with her hand. “Homerun.”

“Wow, Shortstop, a baseball allegory. That was deep.” I half-stood, and putting a hand on her slight shoulder, I maneuvered her so she sat back in her chair. “Drink some water,” I suggested.

“You don’t understand,” she insisted, and her hands framed her face again like they had before. Her cheeks went cherry red, and her long fingers pressed her glasses against her eyes like she was going crazy. “They’llfireme.”

“Who, you? The Love Doctor?” I teased ruthlessly. “No way.”

“I’m not a love doctor,” she whispered loudly, her long lashes batting in distress. She caught my gaze in a panicked kind of way. “And I don’ haf a husband.”