Page 18 of Falling into Place

Chapter Twelve

Brooks

Local bachelor Brooks Martin was spotted at Hall’s Pizza Kitchen with a date last night. Things looked pretty cozy in the corner booth ... has he found a keeper already?

—Threads post by Hannah Reinholdt, Oklahoma native and social media influencer

It turned out, dating was fun.

Who knew?

Not Brooks, who’d pretty much steered clear for the last fifteen years or so.

While the rationale he’d given to his sisters for his lack of relationships—namely that he’d been way too busy focusing on his career—was true, he also just hadn’t been interested in building something that might completely decimate him if he ever lost it.

He’d primarily relied on understandings with a few women who were looking for the same thing he was: no dates, no strings, no emotions.

Hell, sometimes there wasn’t even talking.

Just a way to find release in the midst of their stressful lives, which oftentimes only consisted of fifteen minutes here or there.

After seeing what the loss of his mom had done to his dad, Brooks sort of lost faith in the whole idea of finding “his other half,” because he didn’t want to become so dependent on someone that he’d be unable to function if something happened to them.

Witnessing heartbroken spouses fall apart when patients passed in his ICU didn’t particularly help matters.

But through his epiphany about James and these first several weeks meeting new women, he’d realized he didn’t have to take it all so seriously.

Dating didn’t have to be about immediately locking someone down as a life partner or forging some unbreakable emotional connection with someone.

It could also mean interacting with new people, exploring common interests, and engaging with the community around him—none of which he’d done in ages.

Six weeks had passed since Sasha had launched Brooks onto the dating scene, and he’d been on five first dates and two second dates.

All in all, he didn’t hate it. He had hated going on a local radio show and Sip & See OKC , a morning television show in Norman, to talk about himself and his favorite date-location discoveries around town.

Sasha’d said publicity events like that were key to bringing attention to him and the magazine and reminded him why they were doing all this in the first place.

So he’d agreed to those two bookings, but only those two.

The best part was, most of the women he’d met were great.

After Abbey, the vet tech, there was Leslie, the seventh-grade science teacher.

He’d taken advantage of Sasha’s offer to book one of those wine-and-painting classes, and they’d laughed their asses off when Brooks’s dog turned out looking more like a Sasquatch.

“I do science, not art,” he’d defended, and Linh had called that a sorry excuse after the seven-year-old sitting across the table showcased her (very obviously a canine) finished product.

Then there was Amanda, a consultant who also wrote historical fiction novels on the side, and who’d pulled most of the weight to get them out of the time-travel-themed escape room they’d signed up for.

Afterward, they’d stopped for a burger, where she’d talked about traveling the world with her art historian father.

Even though he’d retired, her job still took her all over, and she hoped her next novel would sell well enough that she could quit consulting.

She hoped to move to France within the next year or two to be better situated for book research.

Because Brooks was committed to staying near his family and wasn’t open to relocation, this discovery meant they ultimately thanked each other for a fun evening and agreed a second date wasn’t in the cards.

He’d had the most fun with Desiree, an attorney he’d met for a game of pickleball.

They spent hours trash-talking each other on the court and getting to know each other during periodic beer breaks, and had so much fun that they’d arranged Date Number Two before parting ways that first night.

Unfortunately, when she’d come back to his place after another enjoyable evening at dinner and a movie, he’d learned the hard way she was severely allergic to cats.

Apparently she’d missed his brief mention of Oreo in his LiveOKC write-up and dating profile, and he’d had to raid his bathroom for Benadryl before waiting outside with her for an Uber.

He wasn’t quite ready to give up Oreo for a woman. Not yet, anyway.

Sure, there were awkward moments, and no, everything hadn’t gone perfectly (see: Izzy, the personal trainer who’d stepped away for a phone call five minutes into their coffee date, never to return).

But he was learning a lot about himself, like the fact that he liked sashimi and was deeply fascinated by the competitive senior pickleball circuit.

He met with Carly regularly, too, because even though they hadn’t purchased many items to pad his closet, he still wasn’t great at choosing something to wear.

How Carly was able to mix and match to come up with a million different outfits from six pieces of clothing, he’d never know.

They texted often, too, because she gave great advice and he didn’t have anyone else he felt comfortable asking, like was it a good sign Linh had texted him two days after their date to say she had a good time (yes) and was it a bad idea to risk ordering the Fifth Amendment taco at the Midtown taco joint on a date (absolutely yes).

He’d also kept her up to date on his garden progress and whined about something Sasha’d changed in one of the articles he wrote up.

Sometimes he texted her for no reason at all. Just because he wanted to.

She’d become sort of a safe place for him throughout this ordeal, and he was glad she didn’t seem to mind because he wasn’t even halfway done yet.

Maybe she was just humoring him because she stood to gain something she really wanted out of his success, too, but he couldn’t help but hope she enjoyed talking to him as much as he did her.

Enough that they’d remain friends even after this whole thing was over, because now that Carly Porter was back in his life, he honestly couldn’t imagine it without her.

“Linda said she saw you on one of her morning shows.”

Brooks set down his coffee mug and scratched his jaw. “What did she think?”

It was early on a Saturday morning, and Brooks had stopped by Coach’s place on his way home from the gym.

He’d missed the last two weeks—the first because he’d been on service at the hospital, and then again last week because of Carly.

She’d driven to Tulsa to check out a few stores that didn’t have OKC locations and was so excited to give him first dibs on some items she’d bought that would work well for both him and another one of her clients that she invited herself over on her way back into town.

She hadn’t arrived until after nine, and as they often did, they’d started talking. She hadn’t left until after midnight.

Instead of their usual spot in the kitchen, Coach had set up the chessboard on the back patio. Brooks never stopped trying to best the old man, even if he rarely succeeded.

Coach moved a pawn, then rested one hand on his belly, which had grown significantly rounder since his retirement. “She said you did great. I think the word she used was ‘charming.’”

“Really?” Linda McKee was a no-bullshit kind of woman, so that was high praise, indeed. “I thought I came off awkward as hell.”

“Well, she said you were that, too.”

Brooks barked out a laugh. “I’ll take what I can get.” They both fell silent for a moment while Brooks regarded the board, and Coach only spoke again after Brooks made his move.

“So how’s that whole thing going?”

“Honestly? It’s not that bad,” Brooks admitted. “I’m kind of enjoying it.”

“You did have a little pep in your step this morning. I think I see a little spark coming back to your eyes. Have you met a special lady? Is that why you bailed last week?”

Brooks didn’t miss the coming back part of Coach’s comment, further broadening the number of people who’d noticed his antisocial tendencies over the last several years. “Nah, nothing like that. I’m just having fun right now.”

Coach frowned, pausing with his hand on his rook. “You can have fun and meet someone special, you know.”

“Easy. I’m just getting back out there, alright? I don’t need that kind of pressure.”

After making his decision—playing his bishop, not his rook—Coach sat back, palms out like, Fine . “I just don’t want to see you open yourself up only to close yourself off again.”

Brooks made a face. “You sound like Carly.”

“Carly?”

“Porter, remember? The stylist Sasha’s making me meet with?”

Coach’s expression cleared and he nodded.

“She said something similar the other day. Last Friday night, actually, which is why I didn’t come last week. We stayed up talking way too late, and since you only want to be social at the ass crack of dawn, I couldn’t drag myself out of bed.”

Coach cocked a brow. “Fashion people make house calls?”

“If they need to, I guess. I think I might be getting special treatment with this one, though, since she’s Sasha’s friend.

” Brooks cracked a small grin. “She’s sort of become my dating guide, too.

She let me practice small talk since I hadn’t done that in forever.

Honestly, I was more nervous about that part than anything else, but at one point, I was telling her about the work I do and how it’s one of the only places I feel confident and in my element, and I realized I sort of felt like that sitting there with her, too.

It made me think maybe I can do this, you know? ”

“Well, it’s good you have her around. You definitely needed all the help you can get.”

“Just for that ...” Brooks started, and made his move.

Coach blinked. “Shit.” He sat for a long moment, staring at the board.