Chapter 4: The Secrets of a Good Man

Katie's POV

“How about you? If you could live anywhere in the world, and be anything, where would it be, and who would you be?” Arrow asked me, recovering from my embarrassing enjoyment of the fish dish.

“I don’t know if I have an easy answer for that,” I replied honestly.

“Afraid of what I’d think?” Arrow said with a wink.

“It’s not that. I sort of haven’t allowed myself to think much beyond what my life is currently,” I said taking a much-needed drink of the very well-deservedly overpriced wine.

“And what is your life like currently?” Arrow asked leaning back in his seat once more.

There was something about him that made you want to stop and take in every single fiber of who he was, and the more I saw, the more I wanted to know. Not just where the tattoo that peeked out of his shirt sleeve started and if there were more hidden under the starched designer shirt, but why it was so easy for him to slip on the mask of intimidation. If I’m honest, it's a little bit unnerving.

“Katie?” Arrow’s voice softened a fraction. His posture remained the same, but his eyes lost some of the darkness that he had held inside of them. “Lost you there for a minute.”

“Sorry. My life currently is working and living. Or trying, that is. I live with a roommate, who happens to just be my best friend. I just started my first year of teaching kindergarten. Apart from this date, you can usually find me cutting out paper stars or gluing cutouts of hands on a Friday night,” I replied with an awkward laugh, completely embarrassed. I faded out again, getting lost in the grit of Arrow’s five o’clock shadow.

“What’s life like with a roommate?” Arrow asked me, relaxing as he was asking me questions.

“Olivia’s insane. But the good kind of insane. The kind that pushes you to try new food or go on adventures. It was actually her idea I join a dating site. I think she was tired of me complaining about the men who were asking me to coffee, about me wanting more for my future. Her life motto is ‘don’t wait, just do.’ Very much a take-the-world-by-the-reins type of woman,” I said I don’t know why speaking about Olivia made me blush.

I don’t know why revealing that it was her that made me join a dating site made me feel insecure. And I don’t know why I told him that I was tired of the men who were asking me out, but I did. I had already put my foot in my mouth, and couldn’t take the words back,.

I was completely confident that this is the reason that I didn’t date. It wasn’t like talking to someone in private messages where you could delete the message before sending it—it was live and in person, and what was said, was said. I was just sincerely hopeful that I hadn’t just screwed up my impression.

“You might be surprised to learn,” Arrow said playing with the stem of his wineglass, rolling it back and forth between his thumb and index finger. It was a slow movement that was entrancing and seductive. “I—too—have an Olivia. Well, actually he’s an Angel. Not an actual Angel. That’s what everyone calls him. It was his idea that I join the site. He was the one who originally set up my profile and didn’t tell me until we matched.”

It was either the wine, the food, the lighting, or the combination of all three, but Arrow was looking more and more like the boy next door as he talked. Something about him speaking about his best friend chipped away at the exterior of who he wanted people to see, giving me a glimpse into the man he was.

“Why online dating?” I asked. My voice came out quieter than I had intended.

“My line of work comes with a specific set of expectations, and those expectations often make dating difficult. I wanted to date without the barriers of those expectations, and the prying eyes of my work,” Arrow said, his voice also lowering.

“What do you do for work?” my voice was practically a whisper.

“I think that’s a better topic for date two,” Arrow said with a coy, boyish smile.

“So, you’re saying there’s going to be a date two?” I said, a flirtatious smile teasing my lips.

“We’ll see,” Arrow said with a heart-stuttering wink.

“What do you do for fun?” I asked him.

I didn’t want this hushed-tone secret-sharing session to end. It felt intimate, and sacred, just the two of us, our heads gravitating closer to one another. Both of us were slightly tipsy on expensive wine, and our bellies full with small portions of fancy food, and from this proximity, the candlelight flickered just the right amount of light for me to see slight hues of amber in Arrow’s eyes.

“Right now. This tops the list,” Arrow said. Pure, authentic honesty lit his eyes.

“This is really fun,” I said with a giggle.

“What’s your biggest fear?” Arrow asked me.

“That I’ll never experience that great big love. That love they write stories about or songs about. The love that warms my belly and makes me bold. The kind of love that changes my DNA and makes me a different person,” I said.

My words poured out of me thanks to the full glass of wine I drank. Normally I could hold my liquor and not completely confess my soul. But there must have been something about the wine, or the man, that made me act as if I had just ingested a truth serum.

“How about you?” I asked him nervously, wanting him so desperately to speak as he was just gazing at me in silence for what felt like an eternity.

“I want to live happily ever after, I want to love and be loved, and know that there’s no danger, no fear, no expectations. I want a family, kids. Lots of kids,” Arrow said with a small laugh.

“Why would you fear there would be danger, Arrow?” I asked him, concerned.

He seemed sad all of sudden, burdened by whatever he was thinking of, whatever looming pressure waited for him outside the safety of this date. Arrow opened his mouth to talk when another man walked through the door at a controlled pace.

“Sir. It’s time to go,” said the new man.

The man who interrupted us looked a lot like Arrow. He was tall, but broader all over instead of Arrow’s broad shoulders and tapered waist. Like Arrow, the new man had dark hair, but unlike Arrow, his hair was long and pulled back. Where Arrow had to try to look at ease and approachable, this man seemed to try to look serious and intimidating.

“I’m so sorry,” Arrow said, his eyes never leaving me. “I’m afraid I’m needed elsewhere.”