The Dating Itinerary Read online

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Find love in unexpected places with these satisfying Lovestruck reads… The Roommate Problem

  Matzah Ball Surprise

  Finding Mr. Right Next Door

  The Wrong Kind of Compatible

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Brooke Williams. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

  Entangled Publishing, LLC

  10940 S Parker Rd

  Suite 327

  Parker, CO 80134

  [email protected]

  Lovestruck is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

  Edited by Stacy Abrams and Judi Lauren

  Cover design by Bree Archer

  Cover photography by Syda_Productions/Deposit Photos

  stockcam/Getty Images

  ISBN 978-1-64063-754-2

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition September 2020

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for supporting a small publisher! Entangled prides itself on bringing you the highest quality romance you’ve come to expect, and we couldn’t do it without your continued support. We love romance, and we hope this book leaves you with a smile on your face and joy in your heart.

  xoxo

  Liz Pelletier, Publisher

  To all those who have attempted to find love in a variety of ways, may this make you laugh and perhaps remind you that love often hits when we least expect it. This book is also for those who need a break from everyday life. Let these words take you away from it all!] And for my two daughters, Kaelyn and Sadie, who put up with my strange ways and my even stranger stories. I appreciate your personalities for what they are—you are amazing little girls turning into wonderful young ladies.

  Chapter One

  Penny Coyne worried she looked like a disco ball. Or perhaps a baked potato. Why had she let her sister talk her into this outfit? She adjusted her silver shirt and surveyed the crowd. She’d never been to a speed dating event before, but it looked like a pretty decent showing to her. The restaurant had their private room closed off in the back, ready for the event. Tables for two sat scattered about the room with candles at the center. Penny’s nerves were at an all-time high. She’d never been good at dating, and now, she had to do it for a living. She hoped the dim lighting would hide the shaking of her hands. The room was made for romance, or at least it looked like the romantic situations she always saw in the movies. It would be nice if real life worked like that—boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, the couple live happily ever after.

  Penny shook her head. What was she expecting? Some kind of miracle? She adjusted her shiny shirt as a stray light caught it and sent a reflection across the room. Here goes nothing.

  She signed in with the attendant at the front table and received a small clipboard of her own.

  “Keep track of the men by their first names and the numbers pinned to their chest.” The small woman pushed glasses up her nose and glanced at Penny.

  Could she look more bored? Penny wondered.

  “No last names allowed,” the woman continued in her monotone voice.

  Penny was doing her best to take in the information. She needed to know. Not only to survive the evening, but also for her ulterior motives.

  “Turn your clipboard in at the end of the night with the names and numbers of the men marked that you want to get to know after the event.”

  Penny shook her head. The woman had still not changed her inflection. She would make a good science teacher.

  “At the end of the night, if the men mark you on their sheets as well, you will get their numbers, and they will get yours.”

  Penny blinked. Her nerves were ramping up, and the sudden stop of the monotonous tone forced her back into the reality of her situation.

  Penny chewed on her bottom lip. Was she supposed to ask a question? She really wanted to know how long the calculations would take. Would she have to mill around with men that she had rejected? Or who had rejected her? Was she even allowed to ask? She wasn’t sure how long she could hide the lump in her throat or the shake in her hands. This wasn’t just another day at the office, after all. She had a job to do, but if she was being completely honest, she’d love to meet someone. Someday. This wasn’t her ideal situation, but it was still an opportunity.

  She jotted a few notes to the side of her clipboard about the setting within the room. She’d have to remember as much as possible. The night would be busy with man after man once things started up. That wasn’t a phrase Penny planned to use in her article. She’d been waiting for a feature in St. Louis Happenings magazine for years, but this wasn’t exactly how she pictured getting it. It would have been nice if she’d been recognized for her investigative reporting piece on the cafeteria food in the local schools or the in-depth interview she’d done with the mayor. But no, when the idea of a dating segment came up at a staff meeting, everyone had turned to her. Sure, she was pushing thirty and still single, but that didn’t make her a spinster—did it?

  The women were on one side of the room and the men on the other. Penny joined the group of women as they inspected the men from afar. Most of the women had too much makeup on, even for the dim lighting. Comparing herself to them, Penny felt under done. She was wearing way more makeup than she did on an average day. She’d taken the time to line her eyes and apply a smoky shadow and some bright lip gloss, but that was as far as she was willing to go, and it was over-the-top for her. Now, it looked like she had the natural look going while the rest of the women, well, they looked anything but natural.

  The men, from what she could tell, were thin and gangly. All elbows and knees, as her aunt used to say. They certainly weren’t trying as hard as the women, if the makeup jobs and tight clothing she saw around her were any indication.

  Penny took her time surveying the men. With one inspection, she wasn’t sure there was much potential for her. She had preferences, and she didn’t see them manifesting before her. In the center of the group of men, a man she hadn’t noticed before stepped out from behind two other men. Penny drew in a breath. He wasn’t facing the women, but his shoulders were broad and his waist narrow. Even without seeing his face, she knew there would be an attraction…at least on her end. She’d always been drawn to the athletic type who spent way too much time in the gym. The problem was their personalities didn’t usually measure up and Penny got hurt. It had been the story of her life in the dating world.
r />   The first heart stomping happened early in high school when she dated the star of the track team for nearly a year, only to have him run off—quite literally—with the captain of the girl’s track team. Her heart was torn in two, but she wasn’t completely broken. At that point, she was willing to keep trying. Then there was a football player who went off to Ivy League schools, leaving her behind. She really thought he’d write and call, but he just dropped her like a bad habit. It was crushing to feel she meant so little.

  Once she got to college, Penny let herself fall again, this time for the pitcher on the college baseball team. But their relationship hadn’t meant as much to him as it did to her, because when he got a call from a minor league team, he was gone faster than his pitches. All he left behind was a brief good-bye note. And then the man who really did her in, the local gymnastics coach who almost went to the Olympics himself but got injured and ended up coaching. Penny shook her head as his tapered waist floated through her mind. He had left her when one of his gymnasts had gotten the opportunity to train at a state-of-the-art facility in Houston. Penny still wondered if it was the gymnast and the opportunity or more the gymnast’s gorgeous, divorced mom that was behind his disappearance.

  Her past experiences were part of the reason she didn’t want to bother trying anymore. The right-looking men were never right for her in the end. They left her behind without a second thought, or so it seemed to her. Time and time again, her heart was trampled, and she wasn’t sure it could handle another breaking experience. Maybe it was time for her to change her tastes and throw her type out the window. She did want to meet someone and find a partner to spend her life with. She just had to guard her heart and be careful about it this time. Perhaps she had been looking in the wrong places or at least at the wrong men.

  She giggled nervously as the women around her prattled on about the adventure the night before them was sure to bring. Their fast speech and waving gestures were enough to tell Penny that many of them were high on nerves as well. She didn’t have much to add because she had no idea what to expect, but she needed to fit in, and her laughter was helping her forget her nerves. Several of the women spoke as if they were regulars, but she could tell there were other first timers there as well. Penny was likely the only one trying to collect details for an article—and for a local TV morning news appearance to go along with it. If she met someone, great. But she was determined not to leave empty-handed either way.

  “Ladies and gentlemen.” A small older woman clapped her hands in the center of the room. “Welcome to tonight’s speed dating event. For those of you who are new, I’ll go over the rules.”

  Penny drew in a breath and brushed her short copper hair away from her eyes as the man with the broad shoulders turned toward the voice of the little woman. She couldn’t see his face well, but his hair flopped down over his forehead, a bit too long for its own good. Check, Penny thought. Another feature she found attractive. He was sure to have a dud of a personality. He probably lived with his mom or had another red flag of some sort.

  “Ladies, in a few moments, I’ll ask you to take a seat at a table. Once you’re settled, the men will be placed in random order. You’ll hear a bell ring every two minutes, with a thirty-second interval between. When the bell rings, men, you’ll rotate clockwise to a new table. Ladies, you stay put. Be sure to mark your charts as you go so there aren’t any mistakes or missed connections later. Keep in mind that if there are any matches tonight, and we know there will be, the lucky couples get a voucher for a free meal here sometime in the next month. We want to foster the love we start, right?” The woman nudged her elbow into the nonexistent person beside her.

  “On that note, let’s get started. I’ll be working my way around the room all evening long, so if you have any questions, feel free to shout out. Ladies, grab a table. Let the love begin!” She threw her arms in the air and snapped her fingers.

  Penny watched as the women around her scurried to their places. They were probably the regulars and had favorite tables they felt were the best for romance. Penny followed the group and sat at a table near the wall. It didn’t really matter, did it? All of the men would work their way around to every table. She kept the corner of her eye glued to the man with the shoulders. If he sat at her table first, she’d probably leave with him and skip the rest of the night. If only she could guarantee he liked pixie haircuts and baked-potato-like shirts.

  But this wasn’t about attraction alone; it was also about research. This wasn’t the only dating avenue she had to take. The staff at St. Louis Happenings had a whole list of things for her to try. They were calling it “The Dating Itinerary,” and it was going to keep her busy for weeks. In some ways, it was good. A weekly feature column and an appearance on the local morning news about her experiences was going to be the highlight of her career. But Penny was in for the long haul tonight, and she knew it. The magazine told her she could end up with a front cover story…but only if there was a success in her love life at the end of the featured columns.

  But first, speed dating. There was no way for her to find out how the entire process worked unless she sat the night out.

  “Gentlemen, if I could have you get in a line, please.”

  The host pointed men to a table, one after another, as they began to filter through the restaurant to their assigned places. Penny watched a guy approach her table. He gave a slight bow and pulled out his chair.

  “Hi,” Penny began, extending her hand across the table.

  “Shh.” He placed a finger to his lips. “We’re not supposed to talk until the bell rings.”

  Penny frowned. From the mumble in the room, she could tell others had started talking, but whatever. This must be one of the regulars since he seemed to know the “rules” so well. She took the minute before the bell rang to survey his appearance. His polo shirt was wrinkled and buttoned all the way to his neck. He looked young, maybe early twenties, and Penny wondered what his dating background was. She would have asked, but she was afraid of getting shushed again. His dirty blond hair was spiked way too high, as if he had spent an hour combing and spraying.

  As the bell rang, she smiled. Here goes nothing. Every man in the room deserved a chance.

  “Okay, so my name is Norman, and I live with my mom,” he began.

  That’s quite an opening line, Penny thought. “I’m Penny…and I don’t.” She wasn’t sure what else to say.

  “I just start things off that way, so women know what they’re getting into. If it comes up later, they feel like I hid it from them, and I didn’t want you think I was hiding anything.”

  “Okay.” Penny glanced at the next table where the red-haired man sat. Perhaps things would start off better with him. “How old are you, Norman?”

  “Twenty-three. Just last week.”

  “Do you do this often?” Penny couldn’t help her curiosity. There were less than no sparks between the two of them. She couldn’t see herself considering a man who shushed her right out of the gate. But if he was a regular, he was a good research subject.

  “Every week,” Norman replied. “My mom says if I don’t put myself out there, I’ll never find anyone.”

  “Well, she’s a smart lady.”

  “That’s what I’m always telling everyone!” Norman leaned over the table, extending his hands toward Penny.

  Does he want to hold my hands? She removed her hands from the table and placed them in her lap.

  “What do you do?” she asked, trying to move the subject away from his mom.

  “Well, I used to run the dry cleaner’s down the street, but they shut down, so I’m between jobs right now.”

  Strike three. This fast date was going nowhere even faster. Norman was probably a genuinely nice guy, but there were a lot of nice guys out there that weren’t right for her. She tapped her toe, anxious for the bell to ring. Norman wasn’t asking her anything about herself,
and she wasn’t sure what else to ask him. He wasn’t a good sample interview even of the speed dating process since he’d likely seen little success.

  Ding.

  “Nice to meet you, Norman.” Penny nodded at the man as he stood and rushed to the next table. With any luck, he felt the lack of sparks as well. Penny shook her head and turned to the next man that sat across from her.

  “Hey, the name’s Pete,” he said, extending his hand to shake hers.

  “Penny.”

  “I should have guessed. When I was over there,” he glanced at his former table, “I was thinking you were as pretty as a Penny.”

  Penny smiled. It was cheesy, but at least it was a compliment. Plus, she liked his red hair and freckles. They made him look friendly and kind.

  “What do you do, Pete?”

  “I’m a restaurant manager. You?”

  “A writer.”

  “Ah, beautiful and creative, I like it. Don’t you think we’d have the loveliest children?”

  “Excuse me?” Penny’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Children. You know…you have red hair. I have red hair. The kids wouldn’t stand a chance. I don’t know about you, but I think redheads are special. There’s something unique about us.”

  “Well, that’s true.” Penny wasn’t sure about discussing kids within the first two minutes of their “relationship,” but she did like his take on red hair. It wasn’t something she’d always liked about herself, but it definitely made her stand out.

  Pete asked about her family, and she told him about her sisters. He spoke about his older brother and how they were still best friends, even as adults. When he stood after the bell rang, he gave Penny a brief hug in her seated position and moved to the next table. She watched him go. Perhaps the night wouldn’t be a total waste.

  She turned to greet the next man and caught a glimpse of the one sitting at the table just before hers. His broad shoulders came into view, and Penny flushed with anger. “Monais,” she muttered under her breath, her eyes narrowing.