“What date do I get this time?” she asks, her voice suddenly monotone.
We step up to the third stop, and I go first, finally sinking my ball without struggle. Once I’m finished, I wave a hand for her to go next.
“Where do you see yourself in five years?”
The heel of her shoe digs into the turf when she whirls toward me, figuring out quickly the type of guy she’s on a date with now. “That’s a loaded question for a first date.”
“It’s important that we see if our futures align before we waste our time, isn’t it?”
“You’re not . . .wrong.”
I lean against a small half wall separating our hole from one further along the course and motion for her to continue. “I know. So, your future?”
“I haven’t thought about much more than where I want to be in my career,” she says a bit cautiously while lining up her shot.
“Tell me about what you see there, then.”
Once she’s swung, she glances back at me and chews on her lip. Neither of us watches where her ball ends up.
“I want to be a name partner at my firm and at least triple my current client list in that time frame.”
“What comes after that? Marriage? A family?”
Her discomfort is obvious in the way she fidgets with the gold bracelet around her wrist and avoids my eyes. “I don’t know about those things yet.”
“Are you scared of them? What are your other weaknesses?”
“Fears aren’t weaknesses,” she snaps, immediately paling. “They’re not.”
I debate putting an end to this persona right now but decide to push forward just a bit more. She’s closing up fast, and these are questions she’s going to need to have some sort of answer ready for if she’s serious about dating. Even I know that, and I’m not currently ready for anything like this.
“On a scale of one to ten, how emotionally available are you?”
“Finn!”
“Just answer the question. This is what first dates are all about.”
“If a guy asked me these things so quickly, I’d already be running out.”
“Exactly. But you can’t do that if you’re searching for something real. If you want fake, Bree, I can give that to you without all of this work, but if you want Spencer to buy any sort of relationship, you need to stop stalling like this.”
She presses her lips into a straight line before stalking around the open-mouthed clown housing her ball and dropping into a crouch to grab it. “Let’s move on to the next date, please.”
“I haven’t even hit my ball yet.”
“Go first at the next hole.”
“Aubrey.”
“Finn.”
Standing with her ball in a white-knuckled grip, she pins me with a look that tells me there’s no room for argument here.
“That was the overly serious guy, by the way,” I say lightly.
“Mark him down as a no go.”
I chuckle, rounding the clown to join her. “We’ll work on it.”
