Chapter 30 | Liz

Chapter 30

Liz

T here’s a line for speed dating. A line of divorcees, young and old, extending out the door. Walk-ins are frowned upon, which means that all these people had the same idea I did, that arriving five minutes before the start of the event was a good idea. I figured there was less of a chance that I would back out if I didn’t have time to think about it. I’d get in, and the event would start. No time for chickening out. That was the plan. I didn’t account for the line. And apparently, neither did the man behind me, who keeps shuffling from foot to foot and muttering under his breath. Maybe I should’ve taken the organizer’s advice and gone to dinner here beforehand.

The line inches forward until I’m finally standing at the check-in table.

“Name, dear?” the woman asks. She’s older than I am—maybe my mom’s age—with sun-kissed skin, deep-brown eyes, and hair an unnatural shade of blond.

“Liz Madden.”

Her acrylic-tipped finger scans the list in front of her. “Ah, yes, here you are. A newbie. I’m Kara. I run this shindig and the support group.”

I saw the host organization’s name—Divorc-ease—on the event registration page but didn’t think much about it or what it might be. It’s hard to imagine sitting in a meeting with someone I didn’t pick at speed dating, but there must be rules to make sure things don’t get awkward.

“You should come to the next meeting.” Kara holds up a diamond-bedazzled hand. “Might meet your future husband.”

I try not to laugh at the fact that the support group is run by an engaged woman. Wow. “Maybe.” I take my name tag from her. I step to the side, and Kara’s attention is already on the next victim.

As it turns out, speed dating is slow going. Three guys in, and five minutes is now an eternity. Guy 1 was shy with bad teeth. I prattled on about living in Princeton to fill the silence, but it was still forever. Guy 2 was hot, and he knew it. He worked in finance and had plenty to say about himself. His suit probably cost more than my couch. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to find out he gets manicures. This latest guy isn’t too bad. Shaggy brown hair, hipster glasses, nice jeans, and a polo with the Princeton logo. He’s a professor, which is intriguing until he says, “of history.” Now I feel like I’m speed dating a younger version of my dad. The timer dings, and Guy 3 slinks off to the next woman. Thank god. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea. I flip to a clean sheet of paper and write a big number four on top.

The setup tonight is good. Each table is separated by a curtain to prevent previewing the next date. The men move, which is a nice touch. There’s something liberating about having my pick of men, even if they do have to choose me back. There’s another ding, and I hear the shuffle of feet that signals my next date has arrived. I look up from the spiderweb I’m drawing in the corner of my paper—maybe I will ensnare this one in my web—and smile at the man standing in front of me.

Holy shit.

I blink, my smile faltering. The man blinks back at me, recognition dawning on his face.

“How are you enjoying your book?” Hot Bookstore Dad sits down and places his forearms on the table, his hands tented. His eyes don’t quite meet mine.

He’s nervous, I realize. “Almost done. I was about halfway in, but I left my copy...”

He raises an eyebrow. “Someplace you weren’t willing to go back?”

“You make it sound scandalous,” I say with a laugh.

“A man can hope.” He extends his right hand. “Spencer Williamette.” He pronounces it like the river in the Pacific Northwest.

I take his hand. “Liz Madden.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you again, Liz.” His green eyes light with intrigue. At the bookshop, I was wearing my wedding ring, and he had his son. But tonight, a sexy confidence comes off him in waves. I cross my legs underneath the table as his eyes dance with mine. This isn’t friendly neighborhood dad Spencer. This is a man seeing something he likes. Something that is now seemingly available to him.

I match his flirty gaze with one of my own. Game on.

T he rest of speed dating is a blur. It’s possible there were a few promising dates in the back half, but my mind is already checked out and focused on the plans I made with Spencer. As soon as the lady collecting our match sheets grabs mine, I sneak out. The streets are full of life. I love the Princeton downtown, equally quaint and collegiate. I glance down at my phone before turning the corner. Zoey is spending the night in Ardena with Becca. That’s her story at least, but I’m choosing to believe her. There’s been no covert texting or sketchy alibis since Wildwood. And if Zoey is with Andrew, she’s an adult, as Cecilia pointed out. Andrew is Zoey’s mistake to make.

Spencer Williamette stands outside the restaurant. He doesn’t fidget or shuffle. He isn’t even looking at his phone. I take him in, the same and yet different from the man I met at the bookshop. Then he was friendly in the way that you are when someone you find attractive mistakes you for a bookseller. He respected my wedding ring. Tonight, standing in a fitted button-down, slim straight-leg jeans, and black leather shoes, he looks like my own perfect mistake. One I want to make, maybe more than once.

My insides feel like mush as I step into his line of sight and offer a smile. I haven’t been on a date in almost a decade, since high school, really. In college, there wasn’t dating. You made out at a party, and you either were or weren’t a couple after that. And with Lucas, we fell from friendship into a couple without really trying.

I wonder how long it’s been since Spencer’s been on a date. In our five minutes together, he told me he’s been divorced for two years. But I can’t imagine doing this with a kid. He has to be doubly careful with whomever he brings into his life because it’s not only his life. The thought gives me pause. I’m not the best option for Spencer. There are so many strings attached. Relief washes through me. What if I had been pregnant? What if that test said Pregnant and then I found Sheila? It’s possible my decisions would’ve been wholly different.

“Hello again,” Spencer says, taking my hand and breaking into my spiraling thoughts.

His face is relaxed and open, and I want to be here so badly. I push Julian and strings and doubts away. Spencer has picked a nicer restaurant in a town full of nice restaurants. They have a killer bar burger that I would die for right now, but the bar is crowded, and there’s no outside seating. I rarely miss being shore adjacent, as I was in my youth, but tonight, it would be nice to sit outside and share a drink, the cooling ocean breeze on our faces in the lingering summer daylight, sand between our toes. Princeton, for all it has to offer, doesn’t have that.

“Do you want to get out of here?” I ask before he even opens the door.

His eyes shoot up in surprise before he notices my less-than-suggestive expression. “What did you have in mind?”

I shrug because I have no idea. “You want to walk? It would be a shame to waste this night.” As if on cue, a light breeze tousles my hair.

He offers me his elbow. “Works for me.”

And so we walk, in silence at first, before expanding on the basics we shared during our first five minutes. Tidbits turn into stories and laughter. I’m comfortable with Spencer in a way I’m not usually comfortable with people. He laughs easily and smiles often. Every story he tells is genuine, and he listens to me, asks me questions. He wants to know me. I glance around at the other people walking tonight. How many of them are doing the same thing on these same streets? How many others snuck out of speed dating’s social hour to meet Guy 4?

We turn the corner into Palmer Square. In the winter, everything will be lit up, and a tree will brighten the dark nights. Now, everything is lush and green. The fountain glows, giving off the feeling that we aren’t in Central New Jersey, steps from a major university, but in the smallest of historic small towns.

“How many times have you been to speed dating?” I keep my tone casual. The answer doesn’t really matter unless this is a ruse. Not that I get that vibe from him. What I do get from him is the same sense of wonder I have at this turn of events, at the kismet that brought us together, as if we both realize what a gift a night like tonight is. Chance encounters, serendipity, fate—whatever you want to call it—seem to be working in our favor.

“First time, actually. Though Kara’s been trying to rope me into it for a while now.”

“You’re in the support group?”

Spencer nods. “I know how it seems. Trust me, I never thought I’d be in a divorcee support group, but”—he smiles—“Kara was my neighbor when I first moved out. She brought me cookies as a welcome gift and was always friendly, asked after Ryan. One morning, maybe three months after I moved in, there was a flyer under my door with a note that said she was picking me up at seven and I had better get a haircut before then.”

Having known Kara for all of seventy-five seconds, I can totally see this happening. Kara is an adopter, and Spencer, it seems, was one of her projects. Something tells me I’m next.

“And you went?”

“Yup, and it was surprisingly fun. I mean, it’s sad to admit, but by that point in my life, all my friends were husbands of my ex-wife’s friends. My social life went to her in the divorce.” His face turns serious. “My whole life had been wrapped up in my son, and there was this gaping hole where he had been.”

I move my hand from his elbow and slide it into his. His fingers slip between mine, and a shock of electricity runs from my fingertips all the way up my arm. “How often do you see him?”

“We split the week and alternate weekends now. Neither of us wanted to be a dick about it, but when I first moved out, the papers hadn’t even been drawn, and Natalie had him almost all the time.”

His pain, even now, is evident. Those months—I hoped it was only months—haunt him. How much did he miss in his son in that time? I don’t know what it’s like, seeing the daily changes in your own child. How from day to day, new things emerge, big and small. But I watched Zoey grow up intermittently, and Jane often shares a similar sentiment when she talks about her boys. My heart wrenches at the thought of the boys. Will they still be my nephews if I end my marriage, or am I forfeiting watching them grow into men if I walk away?

“I’m sorry,” I say, though it’s wholly inadequate.

“Yeah.” He squeezes my hand. “The group was really helpful in getting me back out of the house, but I have been able to avoid speed dating until now.”

“What changed?”

“I guess I felt ready to date again,” he says tentatively. “My ex-wife and I... It wasn’t anything bad. We... We wanted to be in love and perfect for each other and in sync. We caved on things when we should’ve pushed. We settled for less than we wanted for ourselves. And that caught up to us. Especially after Ryan.

“There’s less time for each other when you have a kid, and to survive that, your relationship has to be strong. You need to have accepted each other’s flaws for real, not have ignored them or lied to yourself that the other person would change if you willed it enough. Nothing quite brings out the worst in someone like not having a full night’s sleep for six straight years.”

He’s rendered me speechless. It sounds too much like what I could say about me and Julian and our rom-com-esque love story. But Spencer’s not looking for a response, and the silence between us grows comfortable as we continue to walk.

“Is Kara still your neighbor?” I ask a few blocks later.

He shakes his head. “I moved out of Northgate about a year ago.”

I laugh as the name of my apartment complex comes out of his mouth. Of course that’s where he lived and where Kara lives.

“I moved into Northgate recently.”

He smiles, and it’s warm and sweet and too sexy. There’s a hint of all the things that could’ve happened if we were still neighbors. What a sexy summer that could’ve been.

“Small world,” he says.

I look away, my cheeks flushed, at the certainty that all my dirty thoughts are on full display. “Where do you live now?”

The question is innocuous enough, but after that sexy smile and all its promises, it feels heavy with expectation and innuendo. And I’m not ready for what that means. Whatever I expected from speed dating, it wasn’t Spencer and conversation and hand-holding. It wasn’t him pointing to a house two blocks away and claiming it as his own.

“It’s a rental, but it has a yard, and Ryan loves being able to walk into town. Sometimes, he’s nine and worried about all that comes with being a kid, and other days, he’s engaging anyone in Princeton apparel for details on their college experience.”

“Princeton is a pretty good dream to have at any age,” I say, thinking of the young boy from the bookshop quizzing a freshman on the street.

“Spoken like an alum?”

I shake my head, as if my Rutgers-professor father would’ve paid for Princeton. It was only scholarships and sheer force of will that got me out of town and state, and even then, it was only to Philadelphia.

“Drexel,” I say, remembering how the seventy miles between campus and my house felt like a thousand. I was never so happy as the day I lugged half my belongings into the dorms with Jane by my side, which was saying a lot considering how heartbroken I was then and how much my best friend resembled my ex-boyfriend. Damn twins.

“Not to be forward...” Spencer runs a hand through his hair. “But did you want to come back to my place?”

I freeze, my hand loosening against his. The smallest of hiccups escapes my lips. It is forward. Very forward. And what does it mean if I go back to another man’s house? What are your rights as a separated wife?

“Liz.” Spencer reaches for my hand again and offers me a wan smile. “For a drink. I can get the fire pit going?” The corners of his lips rise in a half smile. It’s the sexiest thing I’ve seen in my life. “I’m really enjoying talking with you, and I don’t want the night to end, but I also already ran a 10K today.”

I laugh and glance down at my smartwatch. I’m also several thousand steps higher than most days. I turn so I’m facing his house. “The fire pit sounds nice.”