Dating in the Dark (Dating Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  She reaches for another bite as her date sits down in the seat across from her. “Hey, I’m—shit, sorry. I keep forgetting about the no names thing. You’d think by now I would know better. I’m your last date for the evening.”

  Tinley’s ears perk up at the sound of his voice; it’s super low and incredibly sexy. She feels along the table for her glass of wine and takes a large gulp of liquid courage before responding. “That’s okay, I’ve always been a fan of rule-breakers. Some rules were just meant to be broken. For now, I’ll just call you Mystery Date Number Four.”

  A husky chuckle floats across the table, and she can’t help but be instantly attracted. She can’t see his face, but with a voice like that, it doesn’t even matter what he looks like. “Is that because I’m your fourth date or are you ranking us? What’s my competition look like?”

  All thoughts of being ladylike go out the window as Tinley lets out a full-blown belly laugh. If this guy only knew. “If by ranking, you mean which date was the worst, it’s hard to tell at this point.”

  “Is that so? I had some pretty bad ones myself.”

  She laughs internally at the disastrous dates she’s had so far. There’s no way he can compete. “I don’t know, my dates were pretty awful. I don’t think you can top them.”

  “You want to bet?”

  “Oh, we’re making bets now? I guess our relationship just cranked up a notch. Instead of it just being a blind date, we’re now at the blind acquaintance level.”

  She’s not sure where this level of confidence came from, but she’s liking how easily the conversation is flowing with this guy. It’s completely effortless and she’s just comfortable. It’s never been this way with anyone before.

  “Is that a thing?”

  “It is now.” She finds herself nodding along as she answers until she remembers he can’t actually see her.

  “Fair enough.”

  “How about we go back and forth and find out who truly had the worst dates?”

  “I’m game, but I’ve got to warn you, mine were pretty bad.”

  We’ll see about that. Hers went from bad to worse. “My first date, the guy had anger management issues, as in screamed at me from the very beginning and wouldn’t even let me get a single word in.”

  “That’s pretty bad, but the woman I had for my first date wanted to call me ‘daddy’ and kept asking me to spank her.”

  “Without seeing your face? I get being into some kinky stuff, but don’t you have to trust the person you’re doing it with first?”

  “Apparently not. Now c’mon, spill on the second date.”

  “Oh, that guy was a real winner. He was twenty-one, pretty sure he was a frat guy, and he wanted to have a four-way with himself, me, my sister, and my roommate.”

  His laugh surrounds her, and she just wants to wrap herself up in it.

  “I need to know, how did that discussion come about?”

  “They’re the ones who signed me up for this and it just came out, and I guess to college boy, that’s an invitation to bring them to the bedroom. So gross.”

  “Yeah, that’s a little weird. My second one wasn’t all that weird, just a crazy cat lady.”

  She knows exactly which woman he’s referring to; it wasn’t very hard to peg her as a cat lover based on everything she was wearing. “There always has to be at least one in the bunch. My last date, he definitely takes the cake. He told me he was an alien from another planet, had a whole story about the name of his people and the planet he comes from.”

  “You’re right, you win. I can’t top that at all. Where do these people even come from? Do they just suddenly come out of the woodwork for shit like this?”

  She can’t just win because he says she wins; that’s boring, and she’s such a snoop. She has to know what actually happened. “C’mon, you have to tell me. What happened on your last date?”

  “It was pretty uneventful. We got two minutes into the date and she got up and left. She didn’t say anything either. So, I couldn’t tell you if she went to the bathroom or if I got a complete brushoff.”

  “You’re right, I totally win.” Even if she won in the sucky date category, everything is looking up with her current date. At least they are having a conversation together—it’s more than she can say about the other guys.

  The bell rings for the fourth and final time for the evening and Tinley’s shoulders drop. She is actually enjoying herself on this date and doesn’t want it to end. They didn’t really get to know each other, but the conversation was flowing easily and they had a fun banter going on. Who knew something like that would happen?

  “It was nice meeting you. Maybe I’ll be hearing from you again soon.”

  “Yeah, it was good meeting you as well.”

  Her shoulders slump forward even more. That was a brushoff if she’s ever heard one. No point in trying to get this guy’s number after that.

  “Okay everyone, thank you all for coming. We’re going to have all the guys leave the room and then we’ll turn the lights back on. We’ll have everyone fill out a comment card with the date you’d like to see again. If there are any matches, you’ll each get the other’s phone number.”

  It doesn’t take long for the guys to leave the room, and suddenly everyone is blinded as the lights come back on. It takes a few minutes as Tinley blinks over and over, but finally, her eyes adjust. Looking down, she finds the comment card that was just mentioned and grabs the pen lying next to it.

  She quickly fills in the information about her fourth date, but doubt starts to set in. What if he doesn’t want to see her again and she waits around to be told that? Rather than risking rejection, she quickly fills it out, writes in her permission for him to be given her phone number, and drops it off at the table at the front of the room. Only time will tell if he actually reaches out or not.

  Chapter 10

  Another start to another week, but after how this weekend went, Tinley’s feeling a little less manic this Monday morning. She actually woke up smiling, and that is definitely a first. For once in her life, she’s feeling pleasantly optimistic. She has no idea whether or not her last date will reach out to her, but she’s crossing her fingers that he does so they can continue getting to know one another.

  “So, you never told me how it went on Saturday. You have to tell me everything.”

  It went amazingly. It was wonderful. It was one of the best dates Tinley has ever been on. She shrugs and mumbles, “It was okay. There are definitely some crazy people out there.”

  “You’ve got that right.” Dakota finishes typing up an email and then hits send. “So, was it a complete bust, or was there anyone there that could have potential?”

  She contemplates that for a minute. Mystery guy number four was amazing. She’s pretty sure she could easily fall in love with a guy like him and they’d make gorgeous babies and live happily ever after. The only problem is that it seemed like it was going great until he got dismissive at the end. Knowing her track record, she’ll never hear from him again. “You tell me. Which guy should I go on a second date with? The one with anger management issues, the twenty-year-old frat boy who wants to have an orgy with you, Tara, and myself, or the alien who also believes in vampires? I’m pretty partial to that last one, but I’m not really sure how that would work out. I mean, do aliens even have penises?”

  Dakota starts coughing like crazy and takes a giant sip of her coffee before turning back toward Tinley. “Say that again? One of the guys actually told you he was alien?”

  “Oh yeah. He told me he was an alien and warned me off of vampires. I had dates with a bunch of real winners.”

  She’s still laughing as hard as she can which of course has disturbed the few people sitting around them. She stops long enough to say, “I’m sorry. That sounds hilarious, but I’m sorry it was a bust and little Tinley won’t be getting any extra attention any time soon.”

  “Domestic,” the whisper says, alerting Tinley to a new call coming in
, and she puts her finger up to let Dakota know it will be a moment and her roommate turns back to her own computer.

  For the millionth time since she started this job, the idea of quitting crosses her mind. She doesn’t enjoy the work and yet she’s been doing it for five years now. The entire routine and robotic aspect of this job just bores her. She needs to figure out what it is she actually wants to do with her life because she can’t stay here until she retires, that’s for sure. She plasters on her fake smile and says, “Thank you for calling Wanderlust International, my name is Tinley, can I cure your lust for adventure with a European cruise today?”

  Sometimes she likes to mix it up and not always push the Caribbean cruises. She’s never sold a European cruise before, but the bonus check on one of those would pay half of her month’s rent, so it’s always worth a shot.

  There’s a cough on the other end and the guy mumbles out, “Um…yeah…let’s do one of those Europe cruise thingies.”

  Her heart rate speeds up as she gets excited at the thought of finally booking one. The smile on her face has completely transformed from fake to real. She pulls up a list of itineraries and starts right in. “Perfect. I can definitely help you out with that sir. When would you like to travel? And do you have an idea of which countries you’d like to visit?”

  There’s a long pause and Tinley has to look down at her phone to make sure the call is still connected. After a full minute, he comes back and says, “Well, ya know…I’m not really sure. To be honest, I haven’t really thought much about that part.”

  Weird. Red flags are going up, but Tinley decides to push forward and give this guy the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he has a lot of places he wants to see and needs ideas. So, she changes tactics with her line of questioning. “Is there a special reason you’re planning a trip? Or are you just getting the itch to travel?”

  Again, there’s a long pause on the other end, but fortunately, this one doesn’t last quite as long. “Oh, um, I’m planning on proposing to my girlfriend.”

  Well, hopefully you’re a little more assertive with the proposal than you are with planning this trip.

  “What was that?”

  What was what? “I’m not sure what you mean, sir.”

  The voice on the other end of the line comes back a lot more forceful, and his entire persona changes. “I’m sorry my social anxiety is causing you issues. This is a big step for me and just thinking about it makes me nervous, but if you need a more assertive customer, maybe I should give this sale to someone else. Transfer me to a supervisor now. I don’t want to have this conversation with you anymore.”

  No! That did not just happen. She was thinking those thoughts, but did she actually say them out loud and to a customer? She feels completely defeated as the reality of what just happened sets in. So much for thinking about quitting this job—she’s probably about to get fired. “One moment sir.” She mutes her phone and hits the transfer button to the supervisor line. She immediately puts her phone into do not disturb mode and turns to her roommate. “Holy shit. Dakota!”

  “Yeah?”

  Her roommate continues typing away while Tinley is having a mental breakdown. Her fingers tap on her keyboard and all Tinley can ask is, “What have I done?”

  That gets a little attention from her and she looks away from her screen but continues typing. “Okay drama queen, what’s going on now?”

  What is going on now? She got cocky and stopped paying full attention to what she was saying to her customer. Just because she had one good date doesn’t mean she’s suddenly invincible. This is not the kind of person she has ever been and she has no idea what just happened. The entire conversation plays over and over in her head like a broken record. This right here will be her downfall. Years from now when she’s locked up in a padded room, they’ll be able to trace it back to this day.

  Any minute now she’ll be getting fired and the conversation she just had will haunt her. She’ll wake up screaming every night as she continues repeating this moment over and over when she goes to sleep. It’ll be enough to drive her mad. All because she had a measly date that distracted her from what’s important. She is so incredibly screwed. She opens her mouth to start recounting the conversation when she’s interrupted.

  “Tinley, can I speak to you for a moment?”

  Shit. This is not good. Her entire face heats up and she stares down at the keyboard in front of her. When she transferred the call, apparently Marek was the one who picked it up. Now he’s going to drag her to their boss’s office, the dude who runs the whole freaking call center, and he will fire her right on the spot. This is not good at all.

  “Why are you over here Marek? This whole power trip thing you’ve got going on is super unattractive. It’s not like you supervise either one of us, so you really have no reason to be over here.”

  “Cut the attitude, Dakota. I’m talking to Tinley, and I’m pretty sure she can speak for herself.”

  “Are you kidding—”

  She needs to stop this. All Dakota is doing is making the whole situation worse. Tinley got herself into this mess and now she needs to go face the consequences, no matter how bad they may be.

  “It’s fine Dakota, just stop.” She gets up from her chair and is completely surprised when Marek leads her outside rather than to the department manager’s office. She follows him over to the bench in the smoking area, and surprisingly, it’s empty for once.

  He takes a seat and looks up at her. “You want to tell me what happened?”

  “Not really.” She takes a seat next to him and mumbles out, “I feel like such an idiot right now.”

  “I’m not going to pretend like we’re friends. We barely even talk, but is there something going on in your personal life that has you distracted?”

  All she can do is nod, and her eyes turn down to the ground. This whole situation is so embarrassing.

  “I covered for you this time, but I don’t want it to happen again.”

  Her eyes go wide as her focus switches from the ground to his face. “You did what?”

  “I apologized to the customer and explained that your desk is right next to the break room, so he probably heard a combination of conversations in the background. I said you would never say something like what he heard. I also explained to him that I would have a conversation with you about it and we would see about moving you away from that location so something like this wouldn’t happen again. I did end up salvaging the sale and booking the trip, so I took the commission on it.”

  Is he serious right now? She jumps up and wraps her arms around his neck in a tight hug. “Oh my gosh! Thank you! I don’t even care about the commission. Five seconds ago, I thought I was going to get fired. My bigger concern was still having a job.”

  His entire body is stiff and he coughs slightly, reminding her that she is, in fact, hugging him. Oops, might have gone a little overboard. She releases her hold on him and mouths, “Sorry.”

  He steps back and runs his hand along the back of his neck. “It’s fine, it’s just not very professional. So, we’re good, right?”

  She nods enthusiastically. “We’re perfect, and I won’t ever let that happen again, I promise. Thank you again, so much!”

  “Tinley, I know we give each other shit all the time, and I can be a dick, but that doesn’t mean I want to see someone lose their job. So, if you’ve got something going on that’s distracting you outside of work get it figured out because next time I won’t be able to cover for you.”

  She nods slowly unable to think of a coherent response to offer him. She has no idea what she did to deserve Marek being a decent human being for once, but she’s not going to push her luck by asking why he’s being so nice.

  “Unless you have anything else to say, I think we’re done here. You should probably get back to your station.”

  “Absolutely.” She hurries back inside before he suddenly decides to change his mind. She’s almost breathless as she makes it back to her des
k and takes a seat.

  “So, you want to tell me what all that was about?”

  She shrugs, puts her headset back on, and unlocks her monitor. “Honestly, I don’t even know. One minute I thought I was going to get fired and the next Marek decided to be completely cool about it. I don’t think we know who that guy really is.”

  “That’s for damn sure.”

  Dakota goes back to working on her computer and Tinley’s eyes trail Marek as he walks back to his desk. The situation is giving her whiplash, but she can’t help herself from seeing him in a new light. Maybe he isn’t such a bad guy after all.

  Chapter 11

  Until she started working at the call center, lunch wasn’t that big of a deal to Tinley. Some days she would actually forget to eat and not even notice, but now that she works in a pretty sucky job, she starts counting down the seconds until lunchtime as soon as she steps foot on the floor. That should probably tell her something about her current work situation, but she still sticks around. She and Dakota have different lunch times since they work different schedules, so typically she just holes up in the corner of the break room and scrolls through social media. She lifts up her sandwich to take a bite then is surprised to see there’s a text message from an unknown number waiting for her on her phone.

  Unknown: Is it completely dorky of me to be texting you already?