Getting to Third Date by Kelly McClymer Page A

attention. The way he turned “on” to me was an amazing sight—focusing on me, smiling, sending energy waves of interest. Which reminded me why I’d been worried about this date in the first place. I hadn’t called him Hands-On Guy for nothing. He liked to touch.
    On technical merit Third Date #2 actually started well. We met for coffee before heading for the game. We were both on time (well, Blaine was ten minutes late, but I already knew that could be considered on time for him). I had a double tall. It tasted good. But that was the last thing on the date that worked entirely as planned.
    He didn’t hold doors—yes, before anyone asks, I can open my own doors. But, I mean, he walked through every door in front of me and let it close behind him. I really hate swinging open a door that’s already in the process of closing. Some of those pneumatic hinges really don’t want to stop in the middle of a good close. I suppose the plus was that at least my arms got a good workout.
    It turned out I was glad after all that Tyler had scored the football tickets. A football stadium was a very public place. With security. Because despite the lack of door holding, Blaine was definitely finding ways to make me feel like he was interested in me. I was a little uncomfortable at how easily I was sucked back in by his attention. Especially since I had already seen how quickly he could turn it on and off. But I liked the way he couldn’t take his eyes off me. And I enjoyed feeling like a sexy date instead of a best-friend date.
    He held my arm and touched my back and shoulder frequently, and at first it was great. If you had to go to a football game in the first place. The weather was sunny, not too cool. The guy was hot and definitely interested. The buzz factor was high. What could go wrong?
    Where do I start? The nice thing about being in a box in the stadium is that you’re covered. The bad thing is—you’re covered. People can’t really see in the boxes all that well (and why would they bother to crane around and look behind them when they came to watch the game?)
    Fortunately, we weren’t alone. Tyler had warned me that the president’s box held a dozen people and was likely to be at least half full. At the homecoming game there were usually some bigwig alumni there that the president wanted to impress out of their money.
    Besides the president, there were four men. In suits, so you knew they weren’t there just to enjoy the game. Although, they stood up and shouted every time our team had the ball.
    Blaine—after waiting a beat, which I later realized meant that he’d expected me to introduce him to the president and his guests—stuck out his hand and said, “Pleasure to meet you, sir, you run a tight campus.”
    The president seemed a bit surprised, but I had the tickets out, just in case anyone challenged us, so he shook Blaine’s hand, introduced him to the alumni—all about eighty and ready to croak, as far as I could tell. For a second I had an unpleasant flash of Blaine sixty years from now, standing in line as one of the guys being primed for a mention of the university in the will.
    We split up into age groups, the over fifty crowd on the left and the under twenty-one (Blaine and me), on the right. Near the food. Another good thing I should mention about being in the president’s box is food. Real food. A couple of big round platters of cheese and crackers. Another one of fruit. And a cooler of drinks nestled in ice.
    Blaine was very impressed. “This is great. How’d you score these tickets?”
    I was feeling the moment—me hot in his eyes, the gorgeous day, the exclusive president’s box, so I said without thinking, “The paper gets some perks.”
    He seemed a little shocked. “The paper? You work for the paper?” He said it loud enough that the president looked over for a