Page 47 of Falling into Place
Carly:I’m happy for you.
Brooks:me too, actually. it was more fun than i expected
Carly:What’s next? A second date with tonight’s winner? A first date with someone new?
Carly:I.e., how much help will you need from me next week?
Brooks:for clothes or for general dating tips?
Carly:Clothes, because clearly my job preparing you for date conversation is done.
Brooks:i wouldn’t say that
Brooks:it could have been a fluke
Carly:I doubt it, but just know I’m here for whatever you need.
That night when Carly fell asleep, she had a dream that she was on a date with a man who made her laugh and her skin tingle. The next morning she woke up with a silly smile on her face, still a little groggy but slowly remembering the details of the scene that had played out overnight. But then her smile faded as everything came back to her, and she groaned loud enough for Pepper to meow in response.
Even though it was just a dream and it meant absolutely nothing, it didn’t bode well for her that the man sitting across from her was none other than Brooks Martin.
Chapter Twelve
Brooks
Local bachelor Brooks Martin was spotted at Hall’s Pizza Kitchen with a date last night. Things looked pretty cozy in the corner booth ... has he found a keeper already?
—Threads post by Hannah Reinholdt, Oklahoma native and social media influencer
It turned out, dating was fun.
Who knew?
Not Brooks, who’d pretty much steered clear for the last fifteen years or so. While the rationale he’d given to his sisters for his lack of relationships—namely that he’d been way too busy focusing on his career—was true, he also just hadn’t been interested in building something that might completely decimate him if he ever lost it. He’d primarily relied on understandings with a few women who were looking for the same thing he was: no dates, no strings, no emotions. Hell, sometimes there wasn’t even talking. Just a way to find release in the midst of their stressful lives, which oftentimes only consisted of fifteen minutes here or there.
After seeing what the loss of his mom had done to his dad, Brooks sort of lost faith in the whole idea of finding “his other half,” because he didn’t want to become so dependent on someone that he’d be unable to function if something happened to them. Witnessing heartbroken spouses fall apart when patients passed in his ICU didn’t particularly help matters.
But through his epiphany about James and these first several weeks meeting new women, he’d realized he didn’t have to take it all so seriously. Dating didn’t have to be about immediately locking someone down as a life partner or forging some unbreakable emotional connection with someone. It could also mean interacting with new people, exploring common interests, and engaging with the community around him—none of which he’d done in ages.
Six weeks had passed since Sasha had launched Brooks onto the dating scene, and he’d been on five first dates and two second dates. All in all, he didn’t hate it. Hehadhated going on a local radio show andSip & See OKC, a morning television show in Norman, to talk about himself and his favorite date-location discoveries around town. Sasha’d said publicity events like that were key to bringing attention to him and the magazine and reminded him why they were doing all this in the first place. So he’d agreed to those two bookings, but only those two.
The best part was, most of the women he’d met were great. After Abbey, the vet tech, there was Leslie, the seventh-grade science teacher. He’d taken advantage of Sasha’s offer to book one of those wine-and-painting classes, and they’d laughed their asses off when Brooks’s dog turned out looking more like a Sasquatch.
“I do science, not art,” he’d defended, and Linh had called that a sorry excuse after the seven-year-old sitting across the table showcased her (very obviously a canine) finished product.
Then there was Amanda, a consultant who also wrote historical fiction novels on the side, and who’d pulled most of the weight to get them out of the time-travel-themed escape room they’d signed up for. Afterward, they’d stopped for a burger, where she’d talked abouttraveling the world with her art historian father. Even though he’d retired, her job still took her all over, and she hoped her next novel would sell well enough that she could quit consulting. She hoped to move to France within the next year or two to be better situated for book research. Because Brooks was committed to staying near his family and wasn’t open to relocation, this discovery meant they ultimately thanked each other for a fun evening and agreed a second date wasn’t in the cards.
He’d had the most fun with Desiree, an attorney he’d met for a game of pickleball. They spent hours trash-talking each other on the court and getting to know each other during periodic beer breaks, and had so much fun that they’d arranged Date Number Two before parting ways that first night. Unfortunately, when she’d come back to his place after another enjoyable evening at dinner and a movie, he’d learned the hard way she was severely allergic to cats. Apparently she’d missed his brief mention of Oreo in hisLiveOKCwrite-up and dating profile, and he’d had to raid his bathroom for Benadryl before waiting outside with her for an Uber.
He wasn’t quite ready to give up Oreo for a woman. Not yet, anyway.
Sure, there were awkward moments, and no, everything hadn’t gone perfectly (see: Izzy, the personal trainer who’d stepped away for a phone call five minutes into their coffee date, never to return). But he was learning a lot about himself, like the fact that he liked sashimi and was deeply fascinated by the competitive senior pickleball circuit.
He met with Carly regularly, too, because even though they hadn’t purchased many items to pad his closet, he still wasn’t great at choosing something to wear. How Carly was able to mix and match to come up with a million different outfits from six pieces of clothing, he’d never know. They texted often, too, because she gave great advice and he didn’t have anyone else he felt comfortable asking, like was it a good sign Linh had texted him two days after their date to say she had a good time (yes) and was it a bad idea to risk ordering the Fifth Amendment taco at the Midtown taco joint on a date (absolutely yes). He’d also kepther up to date on his garden progress and whined about something Sasha’d changed in one of the articles he wrote up.
Sometimes he texted her for no reason at all. Just because he wanted to.
She’d become sort of a safe place for him throughout this ordeal, and he was glad she didn’t seem to mind because he wasn’t even halfway done yet. Maybe she was just humoring him because she stood to gain something she really wanted out of his success, too, but he couldn’t help but hope she enjoyed talking to him as much as he did her. Enough that they’d remain friends even after this whole thing was over, because now that Carly Porter was back in his life, he honestly couldn’t imagine it without her.
