Page 7 of Text Me A Kiss

Chapter Three

Graham

Thursday had been an interesting day.

I didn’t often have what people in the workplace would refer to as a “slow day”. Tracy nearly always found ways to fully book my schedule for each day. I didn’t really mind— in fact, if I was going to be at the office, I might as well be handling one of my various duties as CEO. Nothing I’d gained in life had come to me through procrastination.

So, on Thursday, after about twenty minutes had passed since my second meeting in what I had expected would likely be a slew of meetings, my confusion came to a head and I checked my schedule on my desk computer.

“From 1:15 PM to 3:00 PM… nothing,” I muttered. “Huh.” My eyes flicked to my phone, but I already knew from experience that calling Tracy would only confirm the schedule. She was meticulous like that.

Bored and with nothing else to do, I did what CEOs who would never cut it in a job like mine did all the time—I propped my expensive black Oxfords up on my desk, typed the PIN to my phone, and tapped the dating app Mary and I had chosen over lunch the day before.

Very quickly, I grew astonished at the sheer number of women the app presented for me to connect with. There were women from farms in the south with pictures of riding horses, sporty college students, dressy women assuming stylish clothes and hair who were clearly trying too hard, headshots that looked like business photos, ones with nerdy glasses and video game controllers….

Finally, after countless swipes to view the next profile, one caught my eye: K_Kitten.

If I had to put this profile into one of those categories that I’d already named, it would be “sporty college student”, but…. Every picture I tapped made it clearer that I couldn’t just put this girl in a category with the others.

First, she went to The Juilliard School. I had sponsored a student of ballet at The Juilliard School, and I’d visited the place once or twice—enough to recognize the unmistakable elegance of Alice Tully Hall, one of the buildings in front of which K_Kitten was standing in ballet attire.

If this girl was attending Juilliard for ballet, she had to be something special.

Most of her pictures didn’t show her living the New York City life, though. After recognizing various places in pictures, I finally managed to tear my eyes from her perfect smile and flawless face long enough to look at her hometown.

Chicago. My beautiful ballerina was even from my hometown.

I navigated back to her main profile page and tapped a button. “Chat request sent” a little pop-up that flashed onto the screen read.

“Mr. Emerson, are you ready for your 3:10?” Tracy asked, popping her head through the door. “Ms. Grant is here.” No recognition dawned on my face, so she elaborated. “The woman you spoke to at that fundraiser two weeks ago. She’s interested in joining your clientele?”

“Oh, yes, of course.” Blue dress cut too risqué for her age, outrageous black and green leather heels, a smile more sickly sweet than the smell rising from whatever tasteless wine she’d been drinking—how could I forget “mizz” Grant? The heavy, underlying suggestion in her introduction of herself hadn’t been lost on me. “Send her right in.”

“Mizz” Grant swept through my office door, her greeting and her demeanor careless in the fashion of someone who cares far too much.

But, somehow, the lingering touch of her fingers against mine as we shook didn’t cause me an inward grimace. I managed to verbally dance around her subtle attempts to flirt with me without losing my patience that she was dragging the meeting out or causing her irritation that might change her mind about making a deal. The smile that I plastered across my face as I shook her hand goodbye felt believable.

Why? Where had I gotten all this newfound patience?

I realized the answer when the first thing I did as I sat down after Ms. Grant left was reach for my phone and open the dating app.

K_Kitten hadn’t yet responded to my request, but that didn’t matter. I could look through her photos and try to pick out exactly where in Chicago she had been, what she liked to do, and what kind of person could work hard enough to make it to Juilliard and still smile so effortlessly.

That had been Thursday. Friday, I’d spent glancing at my phone and learning to accept the little leaps my heart gave every time the phone vibrated and the slump of disappointment every time it wasn’t a notification from the dating app. Saturday, I sat around drinking coffee spiked with Frangelico and wishing the hours would pick their crawling asses up off the ground and move along faster so I could go see Anna Karenina at The Joffrey Ballet at 7:30 PM this evening.

Then, it happened. My phone buzzed.

I looked at the blue light, watched it flick on and off two or three times before I decided to reach for it.

K_Kitten has accepted your message request!

And below that:

2 Unread Messages

My overeager fingers typed in the wrong PIN four times before I finally managed to open the app.

K_Kitten: Your name is a play on words for L’Illusion Comique, right?