Page 18 of The Boardroom: Cassidy
Chapter Twelve-Eliza
What exactly do you wear to a date where the guy tells you to bring your dog?
I looked through my suitcase at the small selection of clothes I had to choose from…and it wasn’t much. My stomach lurched at the thought, and I missed my closet back in South Dakota, with its large assortment of floral dresses and wedge heels.
I decided on jeans and a pink t-shirt…it was pretty casual, yes, but the jeans were tight and the shirt was low-cut, so it would look pretty flattering, at least. It was a good way to look hot without implying that I had tried too hard to look hot. I put my hair up in a high ponytail that showed off my cheekbones and made the brown curls of my hair bounce happily. I put on my favorite lipstick, a shade somewhere between mauve and pink, and some gold eyeshadow, and kept the rest of my makeup low-key. I finished it off with a simple pair of pearl earrings that had belonged to my great grandmother, and a dainty silver heart necklace. Casual, but cute. I found Maggie asleep on Sabryna’s bed, completely unaware that we had an important outing on the horizon.
I pulled a yellow sparkly ribbon out of Sabryna’s craft drawer and tied it around Maggie’s neck, and she wagged her tail happily.
“Perfect,” I said, attaching her leash. “Now we’re all dolled up, eh?”
I smiled as I walked out the door of Sabryna’s apartment complex and made my way towards the Torver offices. I had that lovely pre-date glow about me…I assumed this was the kind of feeling you can only really get when you know that there’s a handsome man eagerly awaiting your arrival. It was refreshing and new, and I loved it.
It was a pretty afternoon, unseasonably warm for this time of year, and the faces of the people around me knew it too. Maggie wasn’t the only dog being taken out for a long walk in the afternoon sun, and people were out jogging, eating outside the restaurants for the first time in ages, or just wandering around to see the sights. It was the first time I had really seen Seattle in the full swing of things, and I started to understand why people had such an affection for the city that I was still seeing as only grimy, miserable, and over-caffeinated.
I walked a little while longer until I got near the Torver Corporation offices, and then I saw Cassidy standing over on the corner with a smile on his face. I waved at him excitedly and quickly jogged over.
“Hey!” I said, when I got over, and Cassidy hugged me and kissed me on the cheek.
“Hey yourself,” he said, and then bent down to Maggie. “And hello to you too!”
I smiled, and Maggie wagged her tail excitedly. She had a good instinct when it came to people, I’d found…except with Ben, who she had never been very fond of for some reason. Cassidy looked stunning as usual, which was no surprise. He wore a light blue button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up and dark navy jeans. There was always a polished crispness to his clothes that I loved, like he ironed them and hung them up—it was obvious that he had not grown up like the American boys I had gone to school with, the ones who would throw on wrinkled basketball shorts that had been sitting on the floor for weeks.
In a brief but heart-stopping motion, I felt Cassidy take my hand in his, and we began walking across the street. I loved the feel of his hands already…they were thin and muscular, unlike Ben’s softer, pudgier ones, and they had a delicate strength to them that made me feel safe and warm. And then of course, there were all the thoughts I had going on underneath the surface about those hands, imagining all that they could do when they traveled to other places.
“So, where are we going?” I asked, and Cassidy only smirked.
“It’s a surprise, but I promise you’ll love it,” he said with a sneaky smile.
“What makes you think you know me so well?” I asked.
“You underestimate me,” Cassidy laughed, giving my hand a quick squeeze, and I felt my heart race again.
We turned a few more corners until we got to a tiny red brick café at the end of a street. The yellow lettering on the front saidAnnie’s.
“Annie’s?” I asked. “What? You think just because I’m a country girl I like mom and pop restaurants?”
Cassidy laughed. “That’s not exactly what it is. You’ll see.” I raised my eyebrows with skepticism.
We opened the door and walked in, Maggie included.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “I mean, I love dogs, but you’ve got to admit this is some pretty extreme city hipster bullshit, Cassidy.”
“Well of course,” he said. “But why not enjoy it?”
Cassidy had taken me to a cupcake shop. A cupcake shop fordogs.The tiny store was run by bright-faced teenage girls wearing paw-print adorned hats and t-shirts and was decorated in more dog-themed items than I even knew were possible. The walls looked like they were decorated by an old woman who loved dogs, (poodles especially, I’d noticed) and were filled with all sorts of ceramic figurines and plates featuring, you guessed it, more dogs. The counter at the front had a selection of cupcakes made from dog food and were decorated with tiny baked dog treats. It wasinsane.I could never imagine a place like this where I was from. These people would be laughed at and would be out of business in less than a month in South Dakota.
“Let’s pick one out for Maggie,” Cassidy said, approaching the counter happily and very normally, and as a strange reflex, I simply burst out laughing.
“What?” Cassidy said, and I noticed some of the girls behind the counter staring at me.
“I don’t know,” I said, giggling. “It’s just, two months ago, I would have never imagined I would be hanging out with a ridiculously hot British guy in a cupcake shop fordogs.I mean, that sounds fake to me.”
“We have eight different kinds of human cupcakes available as well,” the girl behind the counter clarified, as if this was the kind of thing she had to say a lot. “They come in vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, lemon, red velvet, and dulce de leche.”
“Thanks,” Cassidy said, and ordered a red velvet for him and a dulce de leche for me, along with a bacon bits delight cupcake for Maggie. I could hardly stop smiling, whether it was Cassidy or whether it was the absurdity of the cupcake shop, I would never know.
“And now,” Cassidy said as he held the door open for me. “We go to the park.”
