Five Years Later
Mia took a modest sip of her red wine, her eyes peeping over the glass at the ideal specimen of a man across from her. It was now her tenth date with the divorcee, Holden Mitchel, and she could swear he was getting more good looking and appealing with every date.
She'd been on a number of dates over the last year after her favorite co-worker and friend, Lila, signed her up for a dating app. 'You work too damn hard,' she said, then demanded she allows some fun into her life. Most were just first dates, with a few seconds sprinkled in and one substandard hookup. Holden, however, was only the second man ever to make it to this many dates, and Mia was already looking forward to the next.
What she admired the most was that it was his niece who resided with him every summer who'd signed him up for the same app she was on, thinking his life was too solitary for a man of only thirty-eight. She recalled seeing his profile for the first time with the assurance from his niece he was a great catch and would never treat a woman as anything short of a princess. It was the first and only date she initiated on the app, and Mia didn't feel an ounce of regret.
She'd chalked it up to destiny when Holden hired the company she worked for to help his small publishing house gain better traction on social media and they met the morning of their first date.
"I was thinking," he began, spinning the stem of the wineglass between two fingers. "Maybe you'd like to be my date for my sister's wedding coming up in a couple of months."
"A couple of months?" Mia asked aloud. "Are we at that stage where we're planning that far ahead and meeting the family?"
Their dates were stretched out over two months, so Mia shouldn't have been too surprised that they were at the stage of becoming more serious. Still, she should have been better prepared than she was and there was a pang in her chest knowing that the man sitting across from her was ready for it all.
Her mind knew it was time. She'd pined over Adam the last fifteen years and had her heart crushed five years ago when he sealed the door on their relationship, directly and figuratively. This was why she moved here. It was a fresh start to her life, yet her old one was never distant from her mind, nor was the man who'd been such a notable part of it.
It was simpler to move on physically than it was emotionally in her case, but maybe this was a sign that loving another was an opportunity for her. More than that, being embraced in return.
"Just hoping we are," Holden responded with a modest smile, his full lips and pearly white teeth looking as if they resided on the cover of a magazine or, at the very least, somewhere in a catalog. But that photo worthy smile withered and his pale blue eyes, one with a speckle of brown, dropped to the wine glass in front of him before coming back up to meet hers. "If you aren't ready, don't sweat it. I know it's a big step, and I told you I'm okay with taking this as slow as you want and I meant that."
It was true. Holden hadn't yet asked her to be exclusive and hadn't tried to seduce her after any of their dates. She'd been open with him on the second date, telling him she was still getting over a heartbreak, though hadn't gone into details about it, and he declared to the same concerning his divorce two years prior.
While they'd both been on plenty of dates since getting their hearts broken, this was the first time either of them were letting their defenses down and letting another in and both were a little leery of that. At least, Mia thought so. It appeared he was adapting well; better than she was.
Mia wanted to love him in the way a guy like Holden deserved love, because his niece wasn't lying. The man was a great catch, and he treated her like royalty. He was a patient man with her so far, but it was a scary thing giving her heart to one man when another man had hers for most of, if not all, her life. She only hoped Holden was willing to give her the time he suggested.
"I would love to meet your family, Holden..."
The tone of her voice told him everything he needed to know. "But you aren't ready yet."
Mia shook her head. "Going to a wedding is a bigger step than I'm ready to take," Mia agreed. "But I'd love to meet your sister and see your niece again if you wanted to take a weekend trip there."
She wanted to try. She wanted to open her heart to him little by little and have confidence that he would collect the pieces and make it whole again. But a wedding was too much pressure and to her meant something more serious than what they were at that moment.
Holden gave her a sideways nod, and his magnificent smile returned. "We'd have to do that soon. Her life will only get crazier the closer the wedding gets. How about next weekend?"
"Next weekend," Mia agreed as she raised her glass and waited for him to meet it above the middle of the table. He clinked it and she flashed him the bravest smile she could before draining the remaining liquid from the glass.
After five years of being away from the only man she'd ever loved, it was time to open herself up to a second chance at happiness with another.