FOUR

After giving one final check of his appearance in the hall mirror, Patrick walked into the mud room, grabbed his keys off their hook, and stepped out into the garage to leave on his date with Shelagh. Er, his non-date date. The practice date he'd set up, but he didn't like to think of it that way because it sounded so juvenile—and he was thirty-three!

He sat down in his SUV and groaned at how hot it still felt from sitting in the sun on that one-hundred-degree day. His back began to sweat even with the air conditioning on full blast. He'd even changed into a polo shirt because it was simply too hot to wear his standard dinner date attire of a long-sleeved button down.

As he made his way to the restaurant in the slow Friday evening traffic, Patrick found himself thinking about his dating history. Specifically, he remembered his very first date, nearly twenty years earlier. That pimple-faced and slightly chubby version of himself had mustered the courage to ask out a girl called Jemma, who had curly hair that she typically tamed back into a long plait down the center of her back. She had agreed and they'd gone to a local shop for chips. He'd been so nervous he could hardly even chew, but she hadn't noticed or was kind enough not to point it out. When it was over, she skipped off without touching or hugging him in any way. At the time, he'd been a bit heartbroken, but in hindsight he wondered how she'd even lasted the forty-minute duration of the date.

He supposed in the grand scheme of things that was standard fare for a first date around the age of fourteen. It wasn't awful, but it was nothing memorable either, which seemed rather a best-case-scenario for him. Since then, he'd gone on what probably amounted to hundreds of dates, and honestly never gave them much of a second thought unless the date involved something he'd never done before, like the prior summer when a date had convinced him to play something called disc golf. He'd looked it up on the internet ahead of time and had a sinking feeling he would not be any good at it. His instinct had been correct; he was utter rubbish at throwing the palm-sized discs, but that was the last time in recent memory he had ever felt uncertain about a date.

He could not begin to fathom the emotions Shelagh might be feeling as she readied herself for what was supposed to be her very first date, but he hoped she wasn't too nervous. He saw no reason for uncertainty, but he had every intention to keep the evening conversation as light as possible in hopes of making her feel more at-ease.

Pulling into the restaurant parking lot, he circled once, and spotted her silver Camery with the rust spots on the trunk. He parked in the closest space to it, not sure if she was waiting in the car or in the restaurant. One look inside the vehicle told him she was likely in the restaurant, which was a wise choice given the continued heat of the day.

He found her waiting on a bench by the front door wearing a black skirt and a shirt that accentuated the color of her eyes. She stood as he approached and gave him an awkward little wave. He smiled and greeted her with a cheerful, "Hello. You look nice."

"Thank you," she mumbled, dipping her eyes towards the ground.

Gesturing towards the restaurant he said, "Shall we?" She nodded and followed as he opened the door for her. She stepped inside and then pulled open the second door before he could get to it. Then she waited so they could walk up to the hostess together. He requested a table for two and, thankfully, there was no wait, so she led them back to a table just in front of a row of booths against the wall. After putting a menu in front of each place setting, she informed them a waitress would be with them shortly and then walked away.

Noticing that Shelagh looked a bit uncertain, Patrick decided to start off the conversation with something informational. "If this was a real first date, you might discuss how you intend on splitting the bill. Some people like to save that conversation until the check arrives, but I like to have it up front. So, I would say, are you comfortable with me paying for dinner or would you like to get separate checks?"

She nodded slowly, as though taking a mental note. "I see. And do you get frustrated if a woman asks for separate checks?"

"No, I don't care—especially not on a first date. Some women feel very strongly about paying separately, but it really is not that important to me."

Again, she nodded. Then after a moment said, "Since this is just a practice date, I think it would be best if we paid separately."

He nodded. "Fine by me." With that, he picked up his menu to peruse the options.

Five minutes later, their waitress arrived and asked for their drink orders. After requesting separate checks for their meals, Patrick ordered a beer for himself while Shelagh requested water. Once she stepped away, he nodded towards the menu she held and asked, "So what looks good to you?"

"There's a lot to choose from, but I think the mushroom risotto sounds good. What about you?"

"I'm thinking…the short ribs? Well…no. I think I'll get the salmon. I haven't had any fish this summer because Tim can't stand the smell of it."

Shelagh let out a breathy laugh. "He is quite vocal about his food opinions."

Patrick groaned. "Incredibly."

After the waitress brought their drinks and they ordered their entrées, Patrick continued with, "You know, now that we have a moment alone, I really must thank you for all you've done for Timothy. This transition has not been easy for him, but you have helped immensely."

"He told me that his mother died. I assume it was sudden?"

Feeling the heaviness of grief pass briefly through his chest, Patrick reached for his beer and took a sip. "Yes, a car accident at the beginning of April."

"Oh, how awful."

"Yes. We'd been divorced for several years and weren't really part of each other's lives other than what was required for our custody agreement, but I had no ill will towards her and certainly would never have wanted this. Especially not—" He cut himself off before revealing too much of his personal experience to someone he didn't know that well—and who was in a technical sense, an employee. "Well, point being: I am very grateful to you. He's really taken to you, and you are quite good with him."

As up until his ex-wife died Patrick had only cared for his son a few weekends a month, he had never needed to hire a babysitter before. Before Shelagh began working for him, his experiences had been frustrating at best, with sitters canceling on him or wanting to spend the entire time on their phone instead of paying any attention to his son. In that respect, Shelagh was a godsend, but more so, Timothy seemed to genuinely like her and often talked about her even when she wasn't with them. For that alone he would never be able to express enough gratitude.

"Oh. Thank you," she said demurely.

"Do you do a lot of babysitting?"

"Not anymore, but I did it frequently when I was in school; it was an easy way to make money on Friday and Saturday nights."

"Ah, yes, lots of opportunities then, I imagine. Did you grow up watching your younger siblings, or how did you get started?"

She nodded and said, "Yes, my siblings; I'm the oldest of seven," before picking up her water glass and taking a sip."

Patrick nearly choked on his beer. Seven! He'd never known anyone who had more than two or three siblings before. "Wow! As an only child I must confess that a family that size is quite unfathomable to me. I suppose you can't all be too close in age with there being seven of you."

"I am eleven years older than the youngest and we're pretty evenly spread out. Actually, helping my mother give birth to my youngest brother was when I decided I wanted to go into nursing."

Once again, Patrick found himself stunned. "You helped? Was it a home birth?" When she nodded in confirmation, he commented, "How unusual. Did you grow up in a rural area?"

"Uh huh," she said a bit evasively. Just then, their meals were delivered, and their conversation took a small break while they settled into their meals. After taking a few bites, Shelagh asked him, "Did you, um, always know you wanted to be a doctor?

He bit back a laugh at the rather loaded question. His career was never really a "want" so much as an "expectation." "Well. Sort of. It's…the family business, so to speak."

"Your father's a doctor?"

He bobbed his head. "An anesthesiologist. His brother was a surgeon, but he was killed in a helicopter accident overseas before I was born. And his sister is an oncologist…so I was rather destined for the role."

"Oh wow, so many doctors in one family! You must have interesting dinner conversations."

Seeing as he did not want to get into the complexities of his family dynamics, he instead gave her a polite nod and took a few more bites of his delicious salmon. When he reached for his beer to finish it off, he asked her, "So how are you feeling about the date so far?"

"Oh." She set down her fork against her plate and appeared serious for a moment before answering, "Good, I suppose? I was worried I wouldn't know what to talk about, but I guess it's not that hard when you have things in common with someone."

Seeing another opportunity for a teaching moment, he put down his fork and knife as well so he could focus on her. "True it is easier when you know someone or you have an obvious commonality like work, but you can still have a conversation with someone you don't know. Begin with the time of year. For instance, we're nearing the end of summer now, so you could ask if they've gone on vacation or are planning to. And then even if they haven't you can ask them about their favorite vacation and then tell them about yours."

"Oh, I've never been on vacation."

He arched a brow in her direction. "Never? Not to the beach or to a lake?"

"No, I've never really gone anywhere. I've never left Pennsylvania."

"Oh," he hesitated a moment, finding the confession slightly odd, though not unheard of. "Well, ah, that's fine. You could talk about hobbies, right? What do you do after work?"

"I like to crochet."

"And what do you crochet?"

"Um, clothing items mostly. Hats. Sweaters. I'm rather good at making cardigans."

He grinned at her. "That's brilliant. Do you just have a closet full of them?"

"No, um, last year I started selling them on Etsy."

"Well, there you go!" he said excitedly. "That's fascinating!"

"Really?" she asked in a tone indicating disbelief.

"Of course! I've never met anyone who sells handmade things on Etsy before. Please—tell me all about how you started doing that."

For the rest of their meal they chatted mostly about Shelagh's Etsy selling adventures and he threw in an anecdote of his own when he tried to order a custom Easter egg for Timothy the year prior and it had arrived looking hideous and nothing like the image promised. After finishing their meals, they both declined dessert, so the waitress brought their checks, which he paid with his credit card while she used cash.

When they walked out into the still-steamy evening air, he followed her as she walked to her car. He noticed that she was strangling the strap of her purse with both hands and wondered if she was nervous about the end of their date or what he liked to think of as his last opportunity to impart some wisdom. Once they crossed through the last section of the parking area before getting to her car, he asked softly, "What are your thoughts on saying goodnight?"

"Well." She hesitated, glancing up and looking as nervous as he'd ever seen her. "A handshake seems wrong."

He laughed. "Wrong indeed. Normally, if I've had a nice date with a woman, I'd kiss her."

Patrick noticed her cheeks blushing even with the dim light of dusk surrounding them. "Oh, I…I've never kissed anyone," she confessed. Then, half a second later, twisted her body away from him as she groaned. "Why do I say these things to you; you must think I'm awful!"

"Of course not," he responded reflexively. Admittedly, he did find it a little strange for her to have made it into her mid-twenties without so much as a kiss. Had a twenty-six-year-old woman come up to him at a bar and told him she'd never kissed before (admittedly, an event that would very likely never happen, but if it did…) he probably would have been a bit off-put by it and wondered why that was the case. With Shelagh, however, he found himself feeling a certain fondness towards her—because of how good she was with his son, of course! She was shy and innocent and there was certainly nothing awful about that; she only lacked opportunities, which hopefully she would soon have if he was able to help boost her confidence when it came to dating.

Keeping that in mind, he offered, "Would you like me to kiss you?"

The blush in her cheeks deepened. "Um, no—no I think I'm too nervous now."

"How about a hug instead?" he offered. She nodded and they shared a brief one-armed embrace near the back of her car. When he stepped back, he told her, "I had a good time tonight, Shelagh; I hope you have a good rest of your evening."

"Thanks. You too, Dr. Turner."

He hesitated. "Pretend date or not, I think this means you can call me Patrick now."

She nodded, but said nothing else, just hurried into her car. He walked more casually to his and climbed inside, thinking that, really, she had nothing to worry about. Their date was perfectly pleasant and, had he not known it was her first, he would never have guessed. Her only issue was lack of confidence. He wondered if since he inadvertently embarrassed her by offering to be her first kiss, the issue had been quelled enough or if she needed another date or two to boost her confidence. He wasn't sure; perhaps his next interaction with her would provide some clarity.

During her lunchbreak on Thursday, Shelagh sat munching on her sandwich with one hand while scrolling through her phone with the other. Unlike her coworkers she didn't have the luxury of wasting time on Instagram, Facebook, or whatever other apps they were using; she was researching opportunities for herself, and since her ancient laptop had recently gasped out a death rattle, her phone was all she had for the moment. She would have to buy another laptop—hopefully secondhand—if she was able to get her finances stable enough to go back to school, but that was an unfortunate expense for another time.

"Ohh, Shelagh, I'm so glad I caught you."

She glanced up to see the dynamic duo of Trixie and Jenny entering the breakroom and greeted them pleasantly.

"I can't believe I forgot to ask you how your date with Dr. Turner went."

"It was a practice date," she corrected, before continuing with, "But I…well, I suppose it went fine. He—actually, I'm seeing a movie with him tonight."

"Oooh!" Trixie cooed. "So he asked you out on a real date then?"

"Er, no; he said it's another practice date," she explained. Specifically, he'd used the phrase "practice makes perfect" while explaining that perhaps she would feel more comfortable if she experienced a variety of dates, not just ones involving meals. While this had not sounded entirely unreasonable, the suspicious look exchanged between Jenny and Trixie at this revelation had Shelagh feeling deflated. "You…you don't think he's doing all this to make fun of me, do you?"

"No!" the women said in unison. Then, Jenny continued with, "Maybe if we were still in college, or something, but I don't think a man in his thirties would do that; that doesn't make sense."

"None of this makes sense," Shelagh sighed, mostly to herself.

When she had stupidly confessed to Patrick that she had never kissed anyone before, she was certain he would laugh at her and promptly end their date. When he instead offered to kiss her, she'd been positively flummoxed. She could only assume he was doing so out of pity and though she was sure he meant it as a kindness, it made her feel awful. As much as she wanted to know what it was like to be kissed, a pity kiss would make her feel worse than no kiss at all.

As she drove home that evening, she felt no small amount of despair, wondering if she would ever receive a kiss from someone who wanted to do so genuinely, or if every confession of having never been kissed would result in a laugh and varying degrees of pity. There was, of course, the option to keep that little fact to herself, but then what if the kiss was horrible as a result?

As far as her interactions with Patrick went, she half expected him to treat her differently the next time they saw one another, but he didn't at all. If anything, he was even kinder to her, but not in a patronizing way. Almost as though they were becoming more like friends than colleagues. In fact, after some general pleasantries, he'd been the one to bring up the idea of another practice date, seemingly completely out of the blue. She'd been so stunned she'd stammered her way through acceptance, not even sure if she wanted to go and risk embarrassing herself even further. More than anything, she wanted to know why he was offering to take her out on practice dates. Surely, he had better things to do with his busy life.

"Maybe he has a kink for innocent girls," Jenny suggested.

Shelagh's brow wrinkled. "What does that mean?"

"That he prefers dating much younger women so he can, like, groom them."

"Yeah, but if he wanted to do that, wouldn't he go after college girls?" Trixie rationalized.

"We don't know he doesn't," Jenny countered. "I've never seen him with a girlfriend. Have you?"

"I've seen a picture of his ex-wife," Shelagh offered, thinking of the photo of Timothy and his mother that was hung in his room. The photo was definitely taken within the last year based on how the boy looked in it. "She appeared to be about the same age as him."

"Maybe the divorce made him want to be more like Leo DiCaprio," Jenny said, then both she and Trixie laughed. As Shelagh had no idea what that statement could have meant, she continued to stare at them.

"Maybe," Trixie continued, "you can find out. If your dates were real, it would be totally acceptable to ask if he was seeing other women at the same time he was seeing you. You can ask if he's dating anyone right now and then see what he says. If he says anything to indicate he's only interested in young girls, never see him again—not even to babysit."

As Trixie and Jenny drifted to the other end of the break room to get their lunches out of the refrigerator, Shelagh frowned at the remains of her own lunch, her appetite suddenly evaporating. They had made Patrick sound like a man doing horribly inappropriate things, but she truly did not think that was the case. She'd had the misfortune of being around some not-so-nice men in her life, which she liked to think gave her the ability to quickly assess whether a man was a good one or a bad one. She did not get any bad vibes from Patrick and could not imagine him trolling college campuses for twenty-year-old girls to groom as Jenny suggested. That being the case, she still did not understand why Patrick was bothering to take her on pretend dates. She thought perhaps it was time to take him at his word: that he was grateful to her for helping his son. Surely after their second date he would feel as though the debt was repaid and he would not ask her to go with him again. Surely…the problem was: she wasn't sure at all.