4

Knox

Saturday morning, after a hard workout at the gym, I pause outside my door to listen to the end of a chapter in Lucy Score’s Pretend You’re Mine. Again. I’ve been trying to get through this chapter for the last thirty minutes. Not the book’s fault—I’ve been struggling to get into any books this week, so I went back to an old favorite, and the narrator nails it.

No, it’s not the book. It’s me. My mind keeps wandering back to last weekend.

To wide apricot lips, vulnerable hazel eyes, and that program that’s been taunting me on my nightstand.

I pop out my earbuds and push into the apartment. Nana is standing in the living room, one hand on her walker, the other pointing a Wiimote at the TV. “Die, ducks, die!” she crows in her sweet old lady voice.

Gunshots blast on the big screen, two mallards fall, and a hound dog pops up out of the grass holding both dead ducks.

I toss my gym bag next to the island separating the kitchen from the living room and glance at the screen. “Nice score.”

“I’m not talking to you.”

“You ate my Lucky Charms. I don’t want to hear it.”

“And you went and got yourself a sugar mama who’s going to lock me up in some second-rate senior citizen home.”

It takes me a second to catch on. I forgot I hadn’t filled her in on the details of my bachelor auction date yet. We’ve been two ships passing in the night this week, and with my regional manager breathing down my neck about the patrons coming in and asking me to sign their copies of the Post with the picture of me as Tarzan, the date hasn’t exactly been at the top of my mind.

“Lila? She promised me you’d be able to see through the bars on the windows. And the nurses and doctors are very nice. They’re only cheap because they love working for free. Not because they’re not actually nurses and doctors.”

Her scowl’s adding a few layers of wrinkles, and I’m struggling to not grin as I go digging through the cabinets for a late breakfast.

Was my date with Lila fun? Sure. Was she pretty? Hell, yes. But was there chemistry?

Let me put it this way: She’s not the woman who’s been distracting me all week.

What Lila did takes money.

What Ms. P did takes balls. I’ve never been able to resist a damsel in distress.

Lila and I had a picnic in Central Park and talked about our romance novels—always a part of the full Knox Your Socks Off date experience—along with some weird shit I’ve seen while working at the library, and some of the things she’s done and seen as the personal assistant to an eccentric, reclusive billionaire. I didn’t ask why she bid so much, she didn’t offer, and we parted with a peck on the cheek.

She texted yesterday to ask if I was free this weekend. I declined.

If we’d met at a deli or a bar or a bookshop, I probably would’ve gone out with her again. But I don’t like the idea of starting a relationship—even a casual one—with a hundred grand hanging over my head.

More, though—Lila’s set. She’s smart, she’s pretty, and she’s got her life in order. She’s not looking for a temporary fling.

She’s looking to settle down.

“I’m teasing, Nana.” I pull a tin of honey-roasted almonds out of the cabinet and pop the lid. “She just wants me for my body.”

“Well, good,” she says. “Dump her. Mary Jean’s granddaughter is in town, and I told her you’d be happy to take her to your mother’s retirement party tonight.”

I’m only sixty percent sure she’s kidding. “Nana…”

“What? Is it a sin to want more great-grandchildren before I kick the bucket? You have such good genes. You owe it to the world to pass them on.”

“With Mary Jean’s granddaughter?”

“Mary Jean’s daughter-in-law won a Nobel Peace Prize.”

“A Nobel Peace Prize? Or a Noble Peas Prize?”

She humphs and takes aim at the ducks again. That’s right. I’ve got her number.

“I’m not going out with any more of your friends’ granddaughters,” I say sternly. The granddaughters that she’s set me up with the last year or so have all been nice enough, all big readers, all intelligent with great jobs. But all of them—even the ones who just needed a date to an office outing-slash holiday party-slash family reunion, or who were coming off a break-up and needed to feel special again—are getting to an age where they’re starting to see wedding dresses and bridal bouquets. There’s no going out just for fun anymore.

“I don’t know what you’re being so huffy about. Look what I did for your brother.”

“Your eyesight was better back then.” I deliver the jab with a grin.

She answers by shooting two ducks without looking at the screen. Nana’s pretty badass.

“Do you know what your problem is?” she says.

“You ate all my Lucky Charms and my peanut butter Cap’n Crunch?”

“You have irrational expectations of women after reading all those romance novels.”

“Must be. Don’t know how I’ll ever find a real woman with brains, a love of books, and a sense of humor in a city this small.”

That’s exactly what I always find—even that time I met a woman when I delivered her lost terrier home—and it’s never made me want to settle down.

Nana’s walker clicks along the scarred wood floor. “And on top of it, you have a hero complex.”

“Aw, you think I’m a hero.” I wink and toss a handful of almonds into my mouth and crunch down.

“I didn’t say that was a good thing.”

Not hard to see where this is going. “World needs more heroes, Nana.”

“You can be a hero without dating every last woman you save.”

“And what’s the fun in that?”

Yes, I’m goading my grandmother. But she wants me to settle down. I’m barely thirty. Plenty of time for forever.

Which explains why I haven’t found the one. I’m not ready for her.

But Nana’s right about one thing.

I have been pondering playing hero all morning.

Either that, or I need to toss that program and forget the whole thing.

“One day, you’re going to look back and realize what you’re missing, and then it’s going to be too late. All the good ones will be gone, and all you’ll have are those books to keep you warm.”

“And my hero complex,” I remind her.

She scowls and takes aim at the ducks again, this time getting one of the two without looking.

“You’re right, Nana. My hero complex will one day be the end of me.” I heave a heavy sigh. “Mary Jean’s granddaughter will be better off without me. At least until I’ve gotten help for my horrible addiction.”

Before she can realize I’ve just gotten the last laugh, I duck into my bedroom, grab that program, and pull out my phone.

Am I nuts?

Probably.

Do I care?

Ask me later. It’s still too soon to tell.