Thanks to a decade of job changes, university, networking, and conferences, Evan had met a dozen people in the bank's downtown office before moving to Houston. Even so, his daily interactions were primarily with a whole new group of colleagues. He'd been gradually getting familiar with the interpersonal dynamics of Nineteen South. He decided to implement a tradition from Tampa, figuring if this was in truth a merger and not a take-over, parts of his corporate culture should travel to Houston.
It would be contrary to the point to ask his admins for help. Luke, over on Nineteen West, shrugged then griped about how much trouble Evan was going to make for managers on Eighteen and the rest of Nineteen. Evan let his pirate grin inform Luke exactly how sorry he was.
He needed an expert on the amenities of Houston.
"Natalie East speaking."
"It's Evan. Evan Lee."
Her laugh was crisp and sweet and gave him a flashing image of her cheeks curving under the cat-tilt of her olive green eyes. "Caller ID. Don't start in about my greeting. I've been saying, 'Natalie East speaking,' thirty times a day for years, and I'm not likely to stop anytime soon."
"I see someone hassled you about this before I came along." His jaw shifted a moment, wondering if it was the pilot his mom had overshared about. Made no difference who it was, not to him, but the guy sounded like a jerk. Evan couldn't see why someone as sharp and pretty as Natalie would stick with a jerk.
"Everyone hassles me about it. Or Gillian, Rachel, and Serena, who were my college housemates, and think they make up everyone in my world."
"Sounds like the Alice, Ben, Chloe, and Danny of my world."
"Close enough. So what's going on?"
Right. He'd had a point in calling. "I need a bakery."
Natalie was silent long enough for him to begin explaining. Also long enough for him to curse himself for the fumbling way he was going about conducting a simple business-related call. "In Florida, we brought in brownies or cupcakes for our sections every Wednesday. Fancy ones, not grocery store, you know? I'm trying to do the same here, and...hang on." He glanced at the screen of his cell. It was a text from Natalie with a list of links. He scrolled through. "You just sent me five places."
"Four, really. There are two branches of Crave Cupcakes. I'm not sure which one delivers. You did want delivery, right?"
He laughed. "You're amazing. This city must be full of your happy clients, if you can read their minds as well as you do mine."
"From your lips," she said.
"I'll send a testimonial to the paper. Do you recommend any of these places in particular?" He sent her links to his work machine.
"Crave has amazing cupcakes, the kind as large as your fist, and every flavor is decadent. Red velvet is my go-to. They do gluten free on request. Or try Dacapo if you want cookies or brownies, but check their delivery radius."
"I'm drooling now."
"Houston has no shortage of dining options," Natalie said, and though she must have repeated the sentiment to every new-to-town client, she sounded as upbeat and pleased about it as Evan himself was.
"I've noticed. Luke took me to this place for fish tacos the other day and I decided to stage a sit-in if there's ever talk of another merger."
Mellifluous. Her laugh was mellifluous. Evan blessed his zealous sophomore-year English teacher for cramming the right word for Natalie's laugh into his head.
"It's one of the ways this city gets its hooks into you. Have you had breakfast burritos yet?"
"I moved here from Tampa, you know."
"Nope, not the same. No disrespect. A fried plantain and black bean burrito can bring me to my knees, but there's nothing like a Tex-Mex breakfast burrito."
Any straight man in the world, listening to Natalie's honey-warm voice talk about dropping to her knees, would have dirty thoughts. It didn't mean he was wavering about their relationship moving out of the friend zone.
It also didn't get him closer to done with work for the day. Evan cleared his throat. "Let's meet for breakfast burritos sometime. I'll test your theory. Meanwhile, thanks for the leads on the baked goods. I'm going to be MVP around here."
"It's the perfect bribe if you want your mail delivered before anyone else's."
Eyeing his messy in-box, he said, "I'm aiming for it to also be opened, sorted, and tagged for my signature."
"In that case, you'd better go with the cupcakes. The icing is about an inch thick."
"Thanks, Natalie. I owe you one."
After their goodbyes, Evan clicked though Natalie's contact info until he found her work address. The cupcake place was happy to deliver a mixed three dozen to his floor, and a half-dozen Red Velvet to her office.
He picked up on the third ring. Natalie cleared her throat. "Hey, Evan. Sorry. It's Nat. Hi."
"Hi, yourself. What's up?" He sounded cheerful. She regretted bursting his bubble. He'd been so sweet and generous, sending her those cupcakes. He'd brushed off her thanks, and those of her friends, who'd met for an impromptu happy hour to share her bounty. He joked off everything, but even someone as upbeat as Evan would have to work to maintain his composure in Houston traffic.
"Have you headed home yet?" she asked.
"About to get on the elevator."
Natalie hit 'refresh' on her browser, tapping a manicured nail on her trackpad until the images loaded. "Okay, good. Listen, I've been mapping out a plan for tomorrow's clients, and I saw they started the Allen Parkway upgrades. Only five months behind schedule, not bad for them. It means you've got several blocks shut down or one-way between the bank and your house. I hoped to catch you before you got stuck in that mess. Warn you."
She paused her ridiculous rambling and waited for him to respond.
"Oh. Right. Thanks."
Nat blushed. She could feel it all up her neck, a pink fire that would clash with the abstract blue and yellow pattern of her cap-sleeve wrap dress.
"Sure. It's no problem. I'm sure you'd have figured it out on your own. But you're new to town, and you might not have alternate routes sorted out yet. It's always a good idea, in Houston, to have alternate routes. There's a lot of traffic. And construction." She took a breath she hoped wasn't audible. "And you lived in Atlanta and Tampa and probably other large cities and you have maps on your phone and you are, what, thirty-something years old? So I'll let you go catch your elevator."
Natalie would have hung up, except first she needed to unsqueeze her eyes to find the disconnect button. She felt her cheeks and nose and chin tighten, too, in a full-face effacement.
His voice cut through her cringe. "Thirty-one. As of April."
She opened her eyes, one at a time, letting the red and orange lines of slow traffic blur on the screen in front of her. "Me too. April, I mean. I was thirty on the nineteenth."
He laughed. "We have the same birthday."
"We do?"
"Uh-huh. We're separated by a mere three hundred and sixty-five days."
Nat smiled, smoothing her collar. "Well, what do you know?"
"Think we can keep the parents from realizing it?"
“Crap, I hope so. Can you imagine?" She leaned back in her desk chair, swiveling gently back and forth.
"More talk of destiny."
She laughed. "Karma."
"Fairy dust sprinkled on our star charts."
"They would consult astrologists from six belief systems until they found the one decreeing any two people born on April nineteenth are handfast by the gods."
"Hang on," Evan said. "Are there six different astrological belief systems?"
"Western zodiac, Chinese, Incan, Mayan, Druidic, and Native American."
He whistled. "You had all those on the tip of your tongue?"
"To be honest, I'm not aware of any Native American astrology, at least not in the whole Scorpio and Capricorn way. But there are plenty of tribes with stories about the gods and the stars. And the ancient Mayans and Incans were astronomers, not astrologists."
"Here I was ready to be impressed."
Natalie closed down her computer and slid a sheaf of printouts into her orange waxed cotton satchel. "Never fear. When it comes to looking for astrological proof of our predetermined happily-ever-after, my mom will locate a Mayan star sign reader."
"Not if mine finds one first."
She liked the teasing tone in his voice. It was sweet how much he adored his mom, even when she, like Elaine, was pressuring him to form an unwanted attachment. "Well, I think we're safe. My mom definitely told Marisa and Koray we were taking the Turkey trip to celebrate our recent thirtieth and sixtieth birthdays. If my actual birthdate didn't come up in that conversation, it's not likely to until April rolls around again."
"So we have ten months to get this notion out of their heads."
She flipped off the office lights and let the door swing closed behind her. "It'll be an effort, but I'm stubborn. I'll make sure it works."
"Natalie East speaking."
"I was wondering if you could recommend a dentist?" Evan asked. One of the admins was passing his office and pointed to his chest to ask if he should respond, so Evan waggled his phone in negation.
"Well, hi to you, too."
"Hello, Natalie. My crown's loose. Do you have a good dentist?"
"I do, but she's near my house. There's no point you getting set up with someone out of the way of your home and office both, when I know there are plenty of options closer to you."
"You live that far from me?" He didn't need to know where she lived. He was merely employing the kind of polite chit-chat he'd been conditioned to make after years of working with clients.
"Not exactly, but my place is between yours and my dentist's practice."
"So if I go see her, and she hurts my poor sore tooth, I can knock on your door on the way home to complain."
Even when she was probably rolling her eyes on her end of the phone, Natalie's light laugh had the bite of caramelized sugar.
"What's between my place and yours?" he asked.
"No dentists I can think of. I'll check my resource list and send you a few names."
"Thanks, Natalie." He was out of things to talk to her about, so he returned to analyzing the prospectus of a South American oil company.
A few minutes later he got an email from the admin with a list of dentists on his plan within a five mile radius, the ones accepting new patients asterisked, and a note that a least a few people in the building went to a practice a couple of blocks over.
"I hope I didn't catch you at a bad time?" Natalie asked when Evan picked up.
"Nope, I'm just leaving a lunch."
She nodded, as if he could see. "Well, this is convoluted, unless of course you know my mom, in which case it makes sense."
"Tell me everything."
"Ha. You asked for it. So, your father's birthday is coming up." Nat drummed her fingers on her desk, glad no one was in her part of the office to overhear her inanities.
"Two weeks. I thought you were telling me things I didn't know."
"No, I am. The point is, my mom, Elaine, has some photo of your parents in Turkey she framed, and wants to send it in time for Koray's birthday."
"Sweet. Tell her he'll love that."
She rolled her eyes. "That's not the convoluted part. She wants it to be a surprise, for both of them. Since she doesn't have their address, she was hoping I could get it from you."
He laughed his bell-tolling laugh. "Still sweet, and not all that convoluted."
"And," she paused, "she wants me to bring you by her house to see the picture before she ships it off. She thinks if she can see your face when you get a look at it, she can tell if it's a good enough present for Koray, and she'll know if he'll like it. Marisa, too. You're proxy for them both."
He didn't say anything for a moment.
"Evan? I know it's bonkers, and unnecessary. I'm more than prepared to get the address and cut off her notions before she has a chance to think up even crazier schemes."
She hoped it wasn't with a hint of a sigh that he replied, "No, let's do it. I've never met you mom; it's about time I thanked her for being such a friend to my parents on the trip."
"I feel like I should apologize about seven times in advance for this." And seven or eight times afterwards, if she was predicting her mom correctly.
"Why, is she a gorgon?"
"Ha. Again. No, and I think you know perfectly well this is another attempt to manipulate us."
"The return of the Facebook photos."
"The night of the living dead Facebook photos."
"Facebook photos from the black lagoon."
"Giant mutant Facebook photos...of doom."
Damn but she liked the ring of Evan's voice when he was amused. "Should I bring a camera crew along? We could make a mint selling shaky handheld footage of your mom chasing us through the woods. Does she have a coil of rope she could carry?"
"We might have to provide our own rope."
"Can she at least laugh maniacally?"
Natalie glanced at the photo of her sedate, elegant mother sitting on the credenza behind her desk. "Hmm. Doubtful. Also, she'll be wearing heels, so she won't be chasing very fast."
"Right. You'll have to screech and grab at me, tripping us both up, so she can catch us."
"Hang on. Why do I have to be the screechy one?"
"You're the girl. Everyone knows the girl is the screechy one."
"Oh they do, do they? Well, I’ve got news for you, pal. When I rescue myself--after you're clumsy enough to get us caught--I'm leaving you behind."
"You can't abandon me. It's the cardinal rule of the buddy system. Leave no man behind."
"For that, I might even use the remnants of my rope to reinforce your binds."
"This is never going to play on the B movie circuit."
"I think there's an audience out there for it. Get with the times."
He must have gotten into his car--the background noise faded so all she heard was his words. "If I cry 'uncle' are you going to call me sexist again? I promise, I'll be the one to trip in the woods, even though it does bruise my dignity."
"Deal. So are you sufficiently prepared to walk the gauntlet and meet my mother?" Oh, damn. They kept blurring the line between wordplay and flirting. She cleared her throat. "I could bring her, and the photo, by your place sometime this weekend. I don't want to put you out. Too much."
They arranged a time. Natalie knew Elaine would make it work, because, joking aside, she very much wanted to examine the air between her daughter and Evan to see if it sparked as she hoped.
She would be disappointed, which would give Natalie a chance to remind Elaine, again, that she was happy being single, and did not need romance in her life.
"Do me a favor," Evan said before hanging up. "Wear sensible shoes when you come over. In case we have to make a break for it."