Lark (First & Forever 5)

1

Dylan

Malone was definitely up to something.

The tip-off was that my friend waited until the end of our shift to ask, “Would you like to come over and help us celebrate New Year’s Eve tomorrow night, Dylan?”

We’d just spent the last twenty-four hours together at the fire station, and if he was innocently inviting me to spend time with him and his family, he’d have done it a lot sooner. The only reason he’d wait until we were walking out the door was so I wouldn’t have time to think about it or ask a lot of questions.

I was on to him though, so I paused in the middle of the parking lot and asked, “Who’s your wife trying to set me up with this time?”

“You’re jumping to conclusions. All I did was invite you over.” I stared him down, and after a long moment he sighed and admitted, “It’s some guy who recently transferred to Linda’s office.”

“Please tell your wife thanks but no thanks.”

“She says you have a ton in common, though.”

“Let me translate that for you. Whenever she says I and her latest fix-up have a lot in common, she means we’re both gay. If she says a ton, she means we’re both gay and Black.”

Malone swept his light brown hair off his forehead before running a hand over his short beard. I knew those gestures well. It meant he was stalling for time while trying to think of a rebuttal. It failed him this time, because all he could come up with was, “Please? It would mean a lot to Linda, and to me, too. We hate the idea of you sitting home alone on New Year’s.”

“Who says I’m sitting home alone?”

His expression turned skeptical. “Are you trying to tell me the biggest homebody I know actually has plans?”

“As a matter of fact, my friends River and Cole invited me to a party.”

His green eyes narrowed. We’d been friends and had worked together for more than a decade, so he knew to ask, “They might have invited you, but did you actually say yes?”

“I told them I’d think about it. Now I’ve made up my mind.”

I pulled my phone from the pocket of my dark blue hoodie and sent my friends a quick text, accepting their invitation. Not that I really wanted to go out and party on New Year’s Eve, but it was currently the lesser of two evils, and nothing short of this would convince Malone to give up. When I showed him the message on my screen, he grumbled, “The only reason you did that is so you’d have an excuse to turn down my invitation.”

“Yes! Absolutely. Dude, the last guy your wife tried to set me up with carried baggies of meat in his pockets and wore nothing but muscle T-shirts with the sides slit open.”

“He was an aspiring body builder.”

“Who never actually worked out.”

“Hence the ‘aspiring’ part,” Malone said. When I shot him a look, he conceded, “Okay, yes, that guy was odd. But Linda means well.”

“I know she does. Your wife is an angel, and I get that she’s just trying to help. But please, I’m begging you, make her stop. This is the eighth blind date she’s tried to set me up on this year, and each and every one of those guys was a train wreck.”

“You only met three of them, so you don’t really know that.”

“I didn’t need to meet the rest. Their descriptions were more than enough.”

“But this guy could be different.”

I held his gaze and said, “Tell me something about Mr. New Year’s Eve to convince me he’s not as disastrous as the rest of them.”

“He, um…has a job?”

“In other words, you don’t know the first thing about him, other than the fact that he’s gay and works with your wife.”

“No, I don’t. But—”

I started walking again and called, “Happy New Year, Malone. I’ll see you when we’re back here in two days.”