As I adjust my scarf, Rowan’s eyes follow my moves for a few seconds. Does he like the way I look in it? But that’s a ridiculous thought, best dismissed, so I sweep it into a corner as I say, “Allow me to tell you what I see in you.”
He huffs, but when he says, “Fine, have at it,” there’s a note of…interest in his tone.Real interest.Well, that’s not surprising. Most people like it when you talk about them.
“You’re protective,” I announce, then write it down, capping theiwith a fun, frothy dot and taking a sip of my latte to punctuate my point.
When I look up, his I-can’t-be-bothered attitude is gone, replaced by curiosity. He leans closer to me. “Where’d you get that?”
I wave my hand. “Oh, that was easy.”
“Tell me then.”
“You want your daughter to eat only organic food,” I begin.
“That means I’m protective?” he asks, more intrigued than I’ve seen before.
“Yes. It’s a form of protecting her—in this case, from toxins. But I bet it applies to the broader world.”
He narrows his eyes, then hums. “Seems a stretch.”
Slowly, deliberately, my gaze drifts down to the little cutie in his lap. “And you held your dog the entire time we were in the store. Keeping her safe.”
“She’s seven pounds. Didn’t want her to get stepped on.”
“Hence, protective.”
“What dad isn’t concerned about his kid’s welfare?”
I smile, shaking my head with amusement. “Oh, Rowan. You can say that, but I think we both know you’revery protective. Of her and the dog, and I bet of your whole family. I suspect you’re that way with all the people you love,” I say. Am I going out on a limb with my conclusion about him? Maybe. But it’s a sturdy limb. “I’ve noticed, too, the way you hold Mia’s hand, look around to make sure she’s safe at all times. It wasn’t hard to connect the dots…” I screw up the corner of my lips, then throw down with, “But if I’m wrong, I can just cross this out?”
It’s a challenge. A dare, really. I hold the pen over the word in my notebook, poised to scratch it.
With a sigh, he relents. “Fine. Maybe you’re right. It’s not like I think about it that much. You only get one chance to take care of them, you know?” He owns it at last, but in a way that kind of warms my heart.
“Exactly. It’s a good thing,” I say.
“Glad you think so,” he says, the gruffness gone from his tone for a brief second, replaced by warmth.
“I do. And I’ll make sure it’s part of your profile…Protective,” I say, underlining it.
“Fair enough,” he says, and those two words embolden me—partly because of how he says them.Simply. Without irritation about this whole matchmaking thing. I’ll take it as a good sign, a tiny crack in his grumpy armor, that maybe, eventually, he’ll come around and see the benefits of what I do.
Since he’s just given a little, I decide to go for something easy next. “And presumably, you love sports? All sports, right? You have an open mind about them,” I ask, keeping the momentum going.
“Fuck yes,” he says.
“You did bid on the women’s hockey tickets,” I add, since I want him to know I didn’t just figure that out from him being an athlete. I observed him.
For a few seconds, as a pair of latte drinkers weaves past our table, Rowan shoots me a quizzical stare, either amazed I remembered or that I’ve put it together.
“The women’s team plays hard. I love playing hockeyandwatching hockey.”
“So, we want to find you a match who loves sports and who doesn’t mind a protective man? Just for starters.”
His sigh is so long it could inflate a fifty-foot inflatable yard Santa. His jaw ticks like he’s weighing something—likely concession. “Fine. You’re right there too.”
I nearly squeal. Possibly, I preen. I channel all my victorious energy into writing a fantastically large and unnecessarily bubble-sized checkmark next to the words in my Rowan profile.
“What is that exactly?” he asks, gesturing to the notepad.
