Katherine Harrison sighed as she sat down, her bowl of chicken noodle soup rotating in the microwave behind her. The break room at Clean Sweep needed a thorough cleaning, ironic considering this was a maid service.
The biggest, best maid service on the island of Getaway Bay. With a dirty break room. As the owner of the company, she should clean it, but she couldn’t get up the energy to do much more than swipe right on her phone as she looked at her dating app.
Getaway Bay Singles promised to be the “directional compass in your dating life” much like a GPS was to help someone get around the island. GBS boasted high percentages of singles getting together and staying together right here on the island, and Katie had decided to join the service because she was tired of managing the seventeen people at Clean Sweep and then going home to take care of her ten-year-old daughter.
Heather was awesome, and Katie didn’t mind being a mother or a business owner. She was just lonely. So lonely.
And GBS helped with that, so she was glad she’d joined though she hadn’t made much of a love connection yet. She tapped and swiped through the app, reading quick sentence like AndrewB and JoanS went to Spam Hut, and MikeT and TerriL enjoyed an island tour.
GBS helped with restaurants, date ideas, and more. She’d filled out all of her favorites the first night she’d downloaded the app, staying up well past her bedtime to do so. But if she ever were to meet a man in real life from the app, she felt certain they’d have an excellent meal at a restaurant they both liked. The app would not lead them astray, that much Katie knew.
She’d been chatting with a man named TeddyF for several days, and a message from him popped up on her screen. Surviving the week?
Sort of, she typed back to him, a smile brightening her face and her day. Sooo busy this week.
Cleaning, right? his next message said.
Right. Katie had told him about herself, as many as the surface things as she felt comfortable with. Favorite movie, favorite food, what she liked to do in her spare time. The thought of spare time was actually laughable, but she wasn’t laughing.
She had one more thing to tell him before she’d be comfortable getting together with him, and she set her phone down as she thought through their few weeks of conversation. She liked him. He was witty and smart. Thoughtful and inquisitive. He’d been kind, and while his profile picture was a cartoon rendition of him, she thought he was probably attractive, in an older, closer-to-fifty silver fox kind of way.
Because Katie had faced it—she wasn’t exactly a spring chicken at age forty-six.
TeddyF liked Chinese food, and warm island rain, and the view from the highest point in Getaway Bay. He worked in the technology sector as an app developer. He’d only been on the island for thirteen months, and he claimed he hadn’t had a serious relationship in years and years.
One or two dates is all, he’d told her. And then the spark is gone.
When she’d asked him if he was looking for serious, he’d given her one word: Yes.
And while Katie had had serious twice now, she had to admit she didn’t want to move into her fifties and then sixties by herself.
I have something to tell you, she typed, her fingers moving in a methodical and slow way. And you can take your time responding. Think about it. All of that.
Oh, boy, he said. All right. Go ahead.
I have a ten-year-old daughter named Heather. Katie stared at the words. She’d only told three men on GBS about Heather, and all three of them had cooled considerably afterward. But honestly, did they think they were courting a forty-six-year-old woman without any ties or responsibilities?
TeddyF was forty-nine, at least according to his profile. She’d learned that most men didn’t lie on GBS. There wasn’t really a point, as it was an app for singles in a very limited location, not across-the-ocean correspondence.
Am I meant to guess the thing you need to tell me? ;)
Katie startled at the ding and resulting vibration in her hands from his message. A light laugh tickled her vocal cords, and she tapped on the arrow to send her sentence through the magic of the WiFi to TeddyF’s phone.
Then she flipped her phone over and pushed her chair back. She realized in that moment and with that motion that she didn’t want TeddyF to cool considerably after he found out about Heather. She didn’t want that at all, and if he asked to meet her, she’d say yes.
“You should ask him,” she said aloud just as Lacey entered the break room.
“What?” She pulled open the fridge and pulled out a can of Diet Coke—her lunch.
“Just talking to myself again,” Katie said as her phone chimed once, twice, three times.
“Ooh, someone’s popular.” Lace sat down beside Katie and grinned. “Is that GBS?”
“How did you know?”
“That notification sound is unique.”
“Are you using the app?”
“Who doesn’t?” Lace shrugged and took a swig of her soda. “So, who’s the guy? Are you meeting him?”
“Thinking about it,” Katie said, telling her office manager the truth. If there was someone who cared about Clean Sweep as much as Katie, it was Lacey Moon, and she’d been with Katie since the beginning.
She’d also been as unlucky in love, and Katie said, “Have you ever met up with someone on GBS?”
“Yeah, a couple of times.” She tossed her dark ponytail over her shoulder. “The app is pretty amazing and matching up what the two of you like and suggesting the type of date you’re likely to enjoy.”
“That’s what I’ve heard.” Katie’s phone bllliinged again, but she still didn’t dare pick it up.
“You want me to see what he’s saying?”
Katie covered her phone with her hand. “No….” She looked at Lace, a flicker of fear rumbling through her. “I just told him about Heather.”
“Oh.”
Yeah, that one word said it all, and Katie nodded, her palm still flat against the plastic case of her phone. She drew in a deep breath and said, “Here I go.”
Ten years old, Teddy had said. That’s great. My youngest nephew is ten. Great age.
I like kids, if that’s what you’re wondering.
And then, his last message was Did I lose you?
She looked up at Lace. “He said he likes kids.” She wasn’t sure why, but her voice held a measure of awe. “What should I do?”
“Ask him out.” Lace grinned and finished her can of pop.
“Really? Just like that.”
“Just. Like. That.” She really hit that last T, and Katie felt the vibrations of it down inside her stomach. Which may not be as flat as it once had been. Maybe she could get together with TeddyF in a couple of weeks, after she’d had a chance to hit it hard on the treadmill, really get that ten pounds off she’d been slowly putting on since moving to paradise and eating more fresh fruit smoothies than was humanly sane.
After all, fruit had calories too. As did the coconut milk and sugar added to the smoothies that made them so delicious.
“Okay,” she said, letting her fingers fly over the screen. “I’m going to do it.”
Want to get together sometime? She read the sentence aloud to Lace and waited for the thirty-something to give her approval. When she nodded, Katie hit send.
Absolutely, Teddy said almost instantly. What are you doing tonight?
“Tonight?” The disbelief in Katie’s voice felt like a lead weight in her lungs. “He wants to get together tonight.”
“Great,” Lace said, snatching the phone from Katie’s fingers. “You’re free, right?”
“I need someone to watch Heather.”
Lace gave her a semi-disgusted look. “Duh. I’ll do it. It’s Friday night. You should go out with this…TeddyF. Oh, he’s hot.”
“His profile picture is a cartoon.”
“Yeah, and he’s gorgeous, even as an animated head.” Lace’s thumbs tippity-tapped, and she grinned as she hit send and handed the phone back.
Katie almost didn’t dare to look at it. “What did you say?”
“Read it.”
Katie rolled her eyes and said, “Doing nothing tonight. Let me see if I can get a sitter.” She glanced at Lace. “I’m tired.”
“And you’re never going to meet the man of your dreams if you take a nap every Friday night.”
“It’s not every Friday night,” Katie grumbled as her phone blinged at her.
I hope you can. I’d love to meet you.
A warmth started in her stomach and radiated outward to all of her limbs. She could make him wait ten minutes before saying she’d found someone to babysit. So she did.
* * *
Katie sat at an outside table, her heeled foot tapping while she waited. She wasn’t being impatient—Teddy wasn’t late yet. No, it was nervous energy that had her heel clicking against the stones with the rhythm of a metronome.
Heather had homework, but Katie never made her do it on Friday nights. So there’d been absolutely no reason why she couldn’t go on this date, and while she didn’t really want to cancel, the anxiety over the unknown had her wishing she’d put on a wig and a giant pair of sunglasses before coming to the bistro.
She fingered the ends of her hair, which she’d actually let down out of its customary ponytail, the curl it held naturally quite nice when she wasn’t trying to keep it out of the toilet. She’d let Lace switch out the black cardigan for a bright red one, but with the blue and white dress, she felt more like the American flag than a woman ever should.
Every man who walked by sent her heartbeat into a tizzy, but none of them veered into Bora Bora’s. Seven o’clock came and then went, and still Teddy hadn’t shown up.
The three minutes she waited felt like three years, and then someone said, “Katie?” in a deep, luxurious voice that reminded her of melted chocolate and marshmallows.
It also sounded very much like… “Theo?” She turned, sure she would not come face-to-face with her ex-husband.
That couldn’t happen.
But she stared right into the blazing blue eyes of Theodore Fleming himself. Very much an older version of the man she’d married twenty-five years ago. She blinked, wanting to rub her eyes with her fists.
“Theo?” she said again, half-hopeful that he wouldn’t remember her. Which was the most foolish thing she’d ever thought. Of course he’d remember her. They’d shared a house and a bed and a life together for five years.
His eyes widened, and he fell back a step. “Katherine?”
She had enough time to take in the gorgeous quality of his silver hair, still with some of that dark brown in there. My, he’d aged very well. Very well, indeed. Those eyes hadn’t changed, nor had the fact that he kept his face absolutely clean-shaven.
He wore a black pair of slacks that looked like they’d cost as much as her mortgage, and a cornflower blue polo that accentuated his chest and upper arms. He certainly hadn’t put on ten pounds in the past few years, and Katie wanted to flee very, very badly.
“I can’t believe you’re going by Teddy now,” she said with a hint of acid in her voice. He’d never used that nickname in all the years she’d known him. But of course, one of the reasons they’d gotten divorced was because she hadn’t known him at all.
“Just on GBS,” he said easily, like seeing her after two decades hadn’t affected him at all. Had he ever thought about her? Did he even miss her after she’d declared him having an affair with his obsession to start his own business and walked out?
“It gives me a certain sense of…anonymity.” He flashed a smile that definitely held some nerves, and Katie was glad for that. “You never went by Katie.”
“Well, I do now,” she said, remembering her early twenties when Katherine carried more dignity, and Katie was for little girls.
He pulled out the chair like he would sit and stay. Horror snaked through her. “Mind if I sit?”
“I’m surprised you want to.”
He did and gazed at her, an unreadable expression on that handsome face. She’d give Theo that. He’d always been charming and handsome. She’d never doubted him, or the fact that he’d own and operate a very successful business one day. She just didn’t want to come second or third or sometimes last to his whims, ideas, dreams, and career.
“So,” he said. “Where did the Harrison come from?”
