Page 4 of Falling into Place

He crossed his arms. He loved his job and actually enjoyed being in the hospital. What was so wrong with that? “Should I revert back to my womanizing, asshole tendencies from high school? Is that what you want?”

“No,” Sasha said immediately.

Macy remained calm. “Of course not. We want you to consider a standard and respectful adult romantic relationship.”

In the split second before he launched into a speech about his happiness and self-worth not being tied to his relationship status, Sasha tossed out, “And we want you to save Mom’s business while you do it.”

His words caught in his throat and he frowned. “I don’t see how those are connected.”

“Did you know The Bachelor is one of the highest-ranked reality TV shows?”

He blinked, disoriented by the random question. “What?”

“Last season averaged five million viewers per episode, mostly young people. It’s been on the air for over twenty years.”

“Everyone hates that show,” Brooks said, apprehension growing again.

“People love that show, despite the fact it’s a fake, problematic mess. Everyone wants to watch people fall in love. They come back for it time and time again.”

A thick black line connected the dots between his brain cells. “I don’t like where you’re going with this.”

Sasha took a deep breath as if bracing herself.

She darted an anxious look at Macy, who nodded at her like, Go on .

“I want to feature you as a bachelor in LiveOKC . A single guy in Oklahoma City on the dating scene, showcasing some of the best places to take someone out, which would enhance our regular content, like restaurants and fun date locations. We could do a couple big pieces in the monthly print issue, and if people signed up for the newsletter, they’d get updates in between, like documenting your triumphs and failures. ”

“My failures ?”

Macy shook her head and Sasha waved a nervous hand. “Not like bombing a date or anything. We won’t do a post when that happens—”

“ When it happens?” Good God, did they think he was a total amateur when it came to women?

Maybe he should bring up his high school exploits again. Didn’t matter if it was sixteen years ago, he was. Smooth. As. Butter.

“ If , Sasha,” Macy put in helpfully. “If it happens.”

Sasha fussed with the necklace around her neck.

“This isn’t coming out right. All I want is to feature you—an attractive, young doctor on the dating scene—on a search for love.

It will get you back out there to meet people again.

Have some fun. Plus, tons of local business owners want to be involved for the promotion, too.

I pitched it to a few places just to feel things out and got a free four-month subscription to LoveInTheCity.com, gift cards to coffee shops, restaurants, and other places like that cool rock climbing gym in the grain silo for dates. You don’t even have to spend money!”

Brooks stiffened despite this being the least-concerning part of her pitch. “I’d never use a gift card to pay on a first date.”

Sasha kept going as if she’d lose him if she paused.

“You only have to do it for the length of the dating app offer. Four months. And we’re not going to, like, video your dates or anything.

I just want to write a few articles and post updates every now and then, like when you go someplace really fun you want to tell people about.

And only about things you approve. You could keep the names of the women private or use pseudonyms. You could write it yourself, almost like a dating journal, or I could do it for you. ”

She clenched her necklace in her fist. “Everyone I pitched it to got so excited, Brooks. It’s like a dating tour of Oklahoma City.

People would want to check it out for ideas even if they didn’t care if you ever found love, but I guarantee people will follow along for that.

This would give the magazine the push it needs.

Bring back subscribers who got bored and bring in new ones. This will work. I know it.”

He propped his elbow on the table and dropped his forehead in his hand. “This is ... a lot, Sasha.”

The room was silent for a beat, then came Macy’s calm voice. “I thought so, too, at first. But I sat on it for a few days, and the more I thought about it, and the more I pictured you at the center of it all, the better I liked it.”

“At first?” He glanced up. “How long have you two been cooking this up?”

“I’ve been thinking about it for weeks,” Sasha admitted. “Trying to muster up the nerve to ask if you’d do it.”

“What finally pushed you over the edge?”

She hesitated. “The tomato plant.”

What did she have against lycopene? The nurses on the unit had been excited about free produce. “No salsa for you.”

“Let us help you,” Sasha pleaded. “And help LiveOKC at the same time. Please. For Mom.”

Aw, hell. “Seriously?” he said. “That’s a low blow, even for you.”

“Forget about Mom,” Macy said, even though she had to know that was impossible. “Worst-case scenario, you go on a few dates, approve a few articles Sasha writes, and get a new wardrobe out of the deal. Wish I could sign up, honestly.”

Brooks paused. “Wait, a new wardrobe?”

“Oh, Mode is contributing a stylist and image consultant for the cause.”

So many things about that sentence bothered him. Referring to his love life as a “cause,” her apparent assumption he would eventually say yes, and the fact she thought he needed a stylist. Or image consultant, whatever the hell that was.

“What the hell is Mode?”

“It’s a service sort of like Stitch Fix or Wantable, where you get a personal stylist to choose clothes tailored to your tastes and body type.

But this one’s local and you can meet with your stylist in person for shopping.

Smaller scale. They try to find things from small stores and designers rather than chains or warehouses.

You buy the clothes you want, give back the ones you don’t. ”

“I thought you said I didn’t have to spend money.”

“The consultant fee will be waived, so you’re basically getting a stylist for free. Mode’s known for being the best. They’ve worked with some of the Thunder players! It’s a steal, trust me.”

“You need new clothes anyway,” Macy said bluntly.

He regarded his faded jeans and T-shirt. “What’s wrong with my clothes?”

“How much time do you have? I could spend fifteen minutes on those jeans alone.”

Brooks glared at her. “Do you want me to do this or not?”

“Yes,” Sasha cut in, directing her own scowl at Macy before focusing on him again. “Does it help that you know the stylist? My friend Carly works there, remember her? Working with her’s better than a stranger.”

Carly had been one of Sasha’s closest friends in high school, and one of the few he hadn’t messed around with.

Only a year younger than him, Sasha’s group of friends mixed with his often, and as the “hot older brother” and star of the basketball team, he’d received a lot of attention from the more outgoing ones.

At the time, he hadn’t minded one bit.

He’d never hooked up with Carly, though.

He hadn’t known her all that well, but the words that came to mind when he thought about her were nice, smart, and shy.

She’d gone to college out of state and stayed there several years but had moved home about two years ago.

Sasha hadn’t shut up about it when she found out Carly was coming back, and from what he could tell, the friends had picked up right where they’d left off.

It might be marginally better to have someone familiar, soft-spoken, and kind be the one to tell him his fashion sense sucked. Sort of like the way food poisoning was marginally better than the Ebola virus.

Sasha dropped her hands to her lap. She swallowed, her eyes turning glassy. “Please, Brooks?”

He closed his eyes. Dammit . He wanted to help her, but it sounded miserable. Just a step shy of torture. “I don’t know. I need time to think about it.”

She opened her mouth as if to argue, but seemed to think better of it. “Fine.”

He went for more nachos and had only gotten his hands on one chip when she spoke again.

“How long do you think you’ll need?”

“Don’t rush him,” Macy said quietly.

Sasha sighed. “Okay, you’re right. Sorry. I’ve just been thinking about it nonstop, and I got excited. There’s so much we could do with it, and I can’t wait to see my brother finally fall in love.”

He snorted. “Doubt that’ll happen.”

“Name one thing I put my mind to that I’ve failed at.”

“Basketball,” Brooks said at the same time Macy shouted, “Chess.”

“Something I actually care about!”

Brooks swung his gaze to Macy. “She didn’t specify.”

“Agreed.”

Sasha tried to glare at her older siblings and failed, never having been able to stay mad at them for long.

She gave up and smiled, eyes bright. “Just wait. If you agree to this, I’ll put every connection I have at your disposal, including all the available women in the greater metro area.

Watch—you’ll meet the love of your life, and who will you have to thank? ”

“The stylist, probably, if things are as bad as you say.” He angled his head. “Macy, too, because if anyone can talk me into this, it’s her.”

Turned out, it wasn’t Macy who talked him into it. Brooks came to the conclusion on his own with a little indirect help from his friend James.

They’d hit the coffee shop near the hospital a few days after the meeting with his sisters, and while they waited for their drinks, James had surreptitiously tilted his head toward the barista. “What do you think of Aly?”

It had taken Brooks several seconds to realize who he was talking about. “What do you mean?”

His friend, usually confident bordering on arrogant, had appeared almost sheepish. “She’s cute, right?”

Brooks blinked, disarmed. Now that he considered it, yeah, she was cute. Beautiful, even. “Definitely. Why?”

James shrugged, and Brooks could have sworn he blushed.

It was hard to tell with his russet-brown skin and the fact Brooks could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen his friend embarrassed .

.. but still. This was new. “I noticed her several weeks ago. I’ve come in a few times without you, and we’ve talked some. I was thinking about asking her out.”

Something shifted in Brooks in that moment, a troubling internal realization even as he said, “Do it, man. You’re a catch.”

Brooks hadn’t noticed Aly before.

He never noticed anyone. At least, not once he left the hospital.

Inside those sliding doors he felt at home.

He felt prepared, confident, and useful.

While he wasn’t super social or one of the physicians that sat around cracking jokes in the break room, he knew everyone’s name and they knew his.

People respected him and took what he had to say seriously.

He’d worked his ass off to become an intensivist, and watching over the people lying in those beds, their bodies at their most vulnerable, gave him the sense of purpose he’d been searching for.

But when he left, he just sort of checked out.

If he wasn’t standing here right now, he wouldn’t have been able to recall any of the employees working at this shop, which he frequented often.

It wasn’t that he didn’t care—he loved this place.

He tipped well and smiled and said thank you with every interaction.

It was just ... he’d been inside his own head for so long.

Always studying, thinking about his patients, his next shift, that email blast with new clinical trial results he wanted to read, and when he’d be able to crash on his couch with his cat and a beer to watch the game without the code-blue alert screaming in his head.

Honestly, he hadn’t thought much of it, because it seemed normal to decompress after a shift, especially with the kind of work he did.

Until he witnessed James, his colleague and friend who had just finished the same kind of grueling training program and kept the same schedule as Brooks, comment on a complete stranger he wanted to get to know.

Socializing with people other than his colleagues had become so foreign that he hadn’t even realized he’d forgotten how to do it.

Even though he’d never admit it to their faces, maybe his sisters were right.

Maybe he was a little lonely. He just hoped Macy’s worst-case scenario was on point and this whole dating thing wouldn’t crash and burn.

He waited a couple of days just to make Sasha sweat, but he finally called her with his answer.

“Okay. I’ll do it.”