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“Well,” Marsie continued after Jason stepped beside her, “he also told me that what I really needed in my life was a man to make all my decisions for me.”
He laughed so hard that he had to stop walking and bend over, his hands on his knees. While he recovered, he heard Marsie exchange brief pleasantries with Françoise, the head of the social justice and poverty center. The next time Jason was on that side of the building, Françoise was sure to ask him what had been so funny.
Jason wasn’t sure he’d be able to explain.
Finally, he stood, able to talk, though he was still wheezing and clutching at his chest. “He said that with a straight face?” His stomach muscles hurt when he talked. “To you?”
“What do you mean, to me?” Marsie had turned around and was standing, looking annoyed, with her hands on her hips.
“Some women want a man who will make all their decisions for them. And hold on.” He held his hand up to stall her from protesting. “Some men want the same from a woman. It’s not about sex. Some people don’t like to take personal responsibility and some want too much. He sounds like the kind of guy who wants too much.”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t trust him to make a decision for a flea, much less for me.”
They fell into step together again. “Clearly, not the right man for you.”
“Is he the right man for anyone?”
Jason was silent for the few steps it took them to get to the elevator. “Everyone’s got the right person out there for them somewhere.”
She pressed the down arrow with a little more force than he thought necessary, until she responded and he realized that the statement he found reassuring had ruffled her feathers. “You think so? Really? What if they don’t find them? What if all we’re looking for is the perfect person to settle down with?”
The elevator dinged and the doors opened. “Settle down isn’t the same thing as settle,” he said as they stepped into the elevator.
“There’s math reasoning behind settling. Basically, you decide how many people you think you could ever date in your life—want to or could have the potential to have—reject the first 37 percent of them and then pick the next person who beats out every person who came before them.”
“Is that settling? That sounds like you’re picking the best.”
Her head tilted and the ends of her hair swung. “It’s more advice for people who are looking for perfection. For people who are wondering if the next person they date will be the one. And the next, and the next, and never able to commit.”
Oof. Marsie’s words hit a little too close to home there. What she said almost exactly echoed what Allison had said about him on their date. But, no, he wasn’t always looking at the horizon for better landscapes. His quest was different. He was waiting for the spark. The sizzle. The love his parents had had. That was different from looking for someone better.
It was looking for someone.
The doors opened, and they stepped out into the comparative brightness and noise of the lobby. The cafeteria served several companies from a couple different buildings, so it had several different rhythms. Judging by the badges, there were a bunch of people from one of the tech companies coming for coffee right now.
“We really should be online dating buddies. We’d be good for each other,” he said.
“You’ve dated more than me and are a dude, so I can see why your perspective might help me. But I’m not qualified to tell you what women think, unless you want a researcher’s answer.”
“I want a researcher’s answer. That math reasoning made me think. Made me question myself. I…” He paused, then nodded as he rethought about what she’d said, but still came to the same conclusion. “I still think I’m right, but it’s not good to get too cozy in your own assumptions. You challenge mine and I’ll challenge yours.”
They got in line behind a group of guys, and he tapped her with his elbow. “I’ll help you pick out an outfit from that selection of date clothes you’ve got in your office.”
To his surprise, her blush was deeper at the mention of those clothes than it had been about her smarts. “Are they not good?”
