Chapter 6

Mac saw him standing in front of the restaurant waiting for her. She'd planned on finding a parking space far away and spending a few minutes checking out her appearance before she would be brave enough to enter the restaurant. Shit, what time was it? She'd left her condo fairly early for her meeting with Cassidy. She'd hoped to have the upper hand by waiting for him. Now here he was waiting for her and he'd seen her drive by in the sporty little car she'd treated herself to when she got the job at Kane Software. Mac gave up on having a few precious moments to summon her courage and drove the car over to the valet station. She got out, handed the keys to the valet, waited for the ticket, and walked to where Cassidy was waiting.

Cassidy smiled at her. "Wow, you look great."

On instinct, Mac tried to run her hands through her short hair (sometimes she forgot that her hair wasn't long) and held back the smile that was pulled at the corner of her mouth. "Thanks."

Cassidy pulled on the door to the restaurant and held it open for her. "I really like your hair. Dick told me you cut it, but he wasn't able to give me a good description. He just kept saying that it was short." Cassidy rubbed at the back of his neck and looked sideways at her. "I thought he was an idiot, unable to use his words, you know? But now I see that he might have been right. It's hard to describe how beautiful you are."

Whoa, he was pulling out all the stops in trying to be charming tonight. He was doing the rubbing the back of his neck while looking at her with those big eyes of his. There was a time before they broke up for the second time that she'd told him that she'd do anything for those sad eyes. Apparently, he still remembered. Mac smiled briefly at him. "Thanks." She was going to keep this conversation limited to his apology and what work he needed her to do to the website.

Cassidy approached the host stand. "Uh, I have reservations for eight. The name is Casablancas."

Mac was shocked to see Cassidy so sure of himself. There were times in high school that he had barely been able to make an order at the local coffee house. Now here he was looking strangers in the eye and speaking confidently. Being honest with herself, Mac had to admit it was a powerful aphrodisiac. The host led them to a table where they were left alone to consider the menu. Cassidy looked up at her. "Hey, I made sure this place had vegan food. I remember how rough it was to find you something to eat whenever we went on those 'Pizza Quests'. I was such an asshole back then. We should have been on a quest to find something we could both eat."

Mac was taken aback by the apology. "Yeah, you kind of were." She gave him a small smile and decided on a quinoa salad. "So I was thinking that you could tell me what you wanted changed on the old website."

Cassidy look at her for a long moment. "Do you want to talk about this right now? I know there are some things I need to say to you."

Mac considered what he said. "I don't want to do this."

"What?" Cassidy's heart started to pound.

"Let's play a game."

"What kind of game?" Cassidy asked suspiciously. His heartbeat was slowing down, but he was afraid of the kind of game Mac would ask him to play.

"Let's pretend that I don't know you and you don't know me and that Logan and Veronica set us up on a blind date." Mac looked into Cassidy's eyes, hoping he'd understand her.

"I don't understand. Don't you want me to apologize? Why do you want skip all of that?" The terrorized boy Mac had started dating in high school was starting to surface.

"I want just one night of something wonderful before we deal with everything that's happened between us," Mac said as she gave Cassidy a pleading look. "One night to figure out if this relationship that we've both been wondering about for ten years ever had a chance."

Cassidy understood what Mac was saying. "Alright, I'll play along. So we don't mention anything that happened in the past?"

"Well, obviously we can talk about the past, but nothing that happened between us. Total blank slate," Mac said.

"So we'll skip idle chit chat about Logan and Veronica and people we both might have known in high school. I hate doing that stupid chit chat thing on first dates," Cassidy admitted to Mac.

Mac giggled and nodded. "Me too. It's the worst. I had a date that spent the entire dinner telling me how much he hated grocery shopping. Turn out he did all his shopping at a nearby convenience store. Can you imagine what he was eating?"

"Hey, don't knock it. When I was in San Diego, I lived in this building downtown that was above a 7-11. There are a lot of things you can get there," Cassidy said and quirked an eyebrow at Mac.

Mac wrinkled her nose and laughed. "Ugh, gross. Don't you care about what you put in your body at all?"

"Okay, so maybe there were one or two visits to the doctor where he might have mentioned scurvy." Cassidy ducked his head and Mac couldn't tell if he was being honest or not.

"Really?"

"No, not really. C'mon, Mac. You know me better than that." Cassidy smiled at her. "Do you know what you want?"

Mac nodded and Cassidy signaled the waiter to come over. Mac decided that this game of pretend was one of her better ideas. She hoped that Cassidy would feel the same way by the end of the night.