THE HATE DATE

Chapter 1

Belle

My mom always told me to tell guys I was five feet twelve and not six feet tall.

“You don’t want to scare them off!” she would remind me. “Men don’t want tall girls.”

But it wasn’t like lying about being six feet tall made me not six feet tall. I wasn’t just taller than most men—I towered over them.

The worst thing about being tall was the comments, and not just from the guys I had dated who would stare at me over drinks, flinching at every motion I made as if they were afraid I was about to sprout up another five inches in front of them.

No, it was also the all-too-common “How’s the weather up there?” (Still raining, just like it is five inches below my head). Or the random “You should be a model!” (No, Karen, I shouldn’t because I like to eat my weight in fettuccine alfredo). Or the always obnoxious “OMG, how did you get so tall?” (Blame my parents; I sure did.)

My five-foot-nine mom would always sigh when she looked up at me and say, “I don’t understand why you’re so tall.”

Really, Dr. Diana Frost? Despite your two PhDs, you have failed to grasp the rudimentary concept that tall person plus tall person makes tall person—tall boys and tall girls. My mom had probably thought that her family was going to be like one of those sibling groups in the romance novels I would sneak at night, in which the whole puppy pound of brothers was big and tall, and the one lone sister was short and petite, and her brothers all looked after her and were protective of her.

Ha! I wish! 

My brothers were the worst. They were more of a feral cat colony than a basket of puppies—stealing my stuff, fighting, and complaining.

It had been a good thing I was tall. Too busy with their careers to raise six children and too concerned about what the neighbors would say to hire a nanny, my parents left yours truly to single-handedly raise their five very tall, very large, sons. And I hadn’t done it because I was sugar and spice and everything nice. I had ruled with an iron fist.

You definitely wanted to be tall and strong when wrestling down a smelly five-foot-eight fourth grader who wouldn’t stop playing video games to come eat dinner, or when shot-putting a six-foot-one high school senior’s hockey skates at him when he left them in the hallway for the twentieth time.

Sigh. Praying hands.  

I had been more of a mother to my five younger brothers than our own mother had been. I didn’t resent them—after all, I was their big sister. I would always rescue my brothers. That was my thing. Because what else was a six-foot woman to be except for the rescuer?

She definitely wasn’t the princess.

I tried to channel that badass rescuer energy as I jogged in the cold along the Hudson River side of Manhattan Island.

I am a warrior. I am a boss.

Except that I hated running. I would much rather be in bed with a book and a bowl of popcorn with Turtle Tracks ice cream at the ready.  

As I huffed down the concrete running path, I watched the water. The city had spent the last few years cleaning it up. Now, in warmer weather, people would be swimming, scuba diving, kayaking, and doing other water sports in the river. Not that the sheltered New York urbanites could handle their newfound water sports access. Just last summer, I saved a kid who had been drowning.

In fact…

I peered at the water. Something human-shaped bobbed up and down about a hundred feet out. His head was back, eyes closed, head and shoulders going under the water for a brief moment then back up.

“Hey!” I yelled, cupping my hands around my mouth, “You okay?”

The man wearing the black diving suit didn’t respond. I looked around. There wasn’t anyone else in the linear park. It was New Year’s Day and freezing cold.

The cold didn’t bother me. Which was great because clearly that diver needed to be rescued.

I shrugged off my thin long-sleeved shirt, capri running pants, and tennis shoes then dove into the water. Shards of ice pricked my skin as I swam toward the drowning man.

There were times—well, most times—when I hated being the tallest girl, especially since my height hadn’t come with model thinness. I was no Princess Diana. I was built like a pioneer woman or a medieval lady knight.

But now I was glad to have my strength. The man was large, and if I were any smaller, I might not be able to drag him to shore.

Once I was a few feet away, I submerged myself in the water to come up under him—the proper technique for rescuing a drowning person—and grabbed him under the armpits.

He started writhing.

Sometimes during a rescue, drowning people panic and try to climb on top of the rescuer. A good pop on the sternum usually stuns them enough to get them to stop.

“Fuck!” the man roared when I used my knuckles to dig into the bone of his breastplate. It was also through a good bit of solid muscle, which I couldn’t fixate on because the diver turned on me in the water, furious.

“Are you fucking out of your mind? Where did you come from?” Gray eyes the color of the winter sky glared at me. “Why are you attacking me?”

“I’m rescuing you!” I sputtered, treading water. “You were drowning!”

“No, I’m not!” he declared.

“Your face was half submerged in the water,” I argued.

He held up a breathing regulator.

“Ah. That explains the wet suit. And,” I peered at him, “the oxygen tanks. You know those are really supposed to be yellow, but I guess that doesn’t match the whole dark, mysterious merman prince aesthetic you have going on here.”

“Did you call me a mermaid?” my not-rescue growled.

“Merman,” I corrected. “But a prince. Like in a fantasy novel? You know, king of the watery shadow realm, the dashing man from the deep. But not any tentacles or anything like that.” Shit. Stop talking! “Er…well, all that to say, I thought you needed saving. However, I was sorely misinformed.”

I blew out a breath and ended up spraying the merman in the face with the water that was dripping from the wet hair plastered to my head. 

The merman grimaced and wiped at his face.

“Sorry about that!” I reached out to brush off his face. Though mostly hidden by the black diving caul, his brow and nose were strong under my palm. I jerked my hand back.

It’s sad because this is the most action you’ve had in the last eighteen months.

“Have a great day and enjoy this beautiful weather!” I croaked at him.

As I pivoted in the water, a man cleared his throat to my right. So as not to completely embarrass myself, I turned my yelp of surprise into a curse.

The new diver from the deep laughed, then several more men wearing black diving suits surfaced around me, all gray-eyed and strong jawed, though they seemed infinitely more amused than my non-drowning rescue.

“Did you make a friend?” one of the divers joked to the merman.

“Did you find my watch?” the mysterious merman shot back.

“I feel like since we’re all brothers, you should forgive and forget.”

The merman lunged at his brother in the water so quickly it was almost preternatural.

Dayum, he really is a prince of the shadow realm.

“I don’t ever forgive and forget,” the merman warned. “I will hold a grudge until the entire planet is a wasteland.”  

Then the merman let out a long, suffering sigh. “I will escort you to shore, ma’am.”

“Bro, this will be the first date you’ve been on in years!” one of his brothers said with a laugh.

Merman turned on him, giving a slight flash of teeth. “And this is going to be your last day on Earth if you don’t find my watch, Liam.”

His brothers sighed and sank back down into the cold depths.

“I don’t need an escort,” I told the merman, feeling foolish.

“The water is freezing,” he said, deep voice bouncing over the choppy waves. “You could pass out and drown, and then I will be blamed, and it will be a horrible inconvenience.”

“It’s cool and refreshing,” I retorted.

“You aren’t even shivering,” he protested, following me as I did the breaststroke back to shore. “That means you’re probably in the early stages of hypothermia.”

“It takes a lot to make me cold,” I said stubbornly. “This is nothing. I went swimming in Antarctica once. I petted a penguin. It was really cute.”

Not as cute as you, Merman!

Shut up, brain!

But the prince of the shadow realm persisted in swimming silently next to me. Which was a problem because I was wearing… not much. Not to mention that I hadn’t put on my nice underwear when I had left for my run—not that I owned any. The underwear I had on, I’d owned since high school. It had bunnies on it and holes in some inopportune places. And just because I didn’t mind the cold didn’t mean that my nipples didn’t show it.

I paused at the metal pipes drilled into the side of the concrete embankment that served as a rudimentary ladder.

“Okay, so you showed me back,” I said, starting to panic. I did not need him to see my terrible taste in undergarments.

“Do you need help?” Merman asked. Water droplets clung to his eyelashes.

I wished I could see his whole face.

I wish I could see the rest of him.

That thought did not help the nipple situation.

I blinked at him.

“Getting out?” He motioned.

“Nope,” I said, continuing to tread water. I was annoyed to see he did it a lot easier than me. “Seriously, frog prince, you can leave.”

“Ma’am, I think the cold has affected you more than you think,” he said, jaw tense. “Let me take off my flippers and—”

“Cheater,” I muttered.

“Excuse me?”

“You have flippers. That’s cheating!” I said loudly.

His mouth fell open. “Cheating at what?”

“Swimming. Treading water.”

“Are you going to get out, or am I going to have to drag you out?” he demanded.

“Don’t touch me!” I shrieked.

“Then get out of the river on your own accord.”

I continued to tread water. “Maybe I want to stay in a little longer.”

The merman moved, the flippers giving him an unfair advantage, and grabbed me around the waist, his strong arms half hauling me out of the water.

I grabbed for a rung of the pipe ladder.

“Where are your clothes?” he said in horror.

“I was performing a rescue!” I yelled as I inelegantly hauled myself the few feet out of the water to land on the concrete walkway like a beached whale. “Time was of the essence.”

“I fucking hate New York City,” the diver said, shaking his head. “It’s full of lunatics.”

“Right back atcha, bud,” I said as the river water dripped down my face.

Chapter 2

Greg

I hated most things. I hated networking mixers, price stickers on books that leave a residue when you remove them, and all the stupid names for the coffees at Starbucks. I also hated most people. If I didn’t actively remind myself that I loved my brothers, I’d probably hate them, too, especially when they chewed noisily.

“It is not lunchtime,” I snapped at Liam when I walked into my office to find my five brothers. “And people who lost my two-million-dollar, one-of-a-kind Patek Phillipe watch in the Hudson River then failed to find it should especially not be eating in my conference room in my tower at a time that is not a designated mealtime.”

Liam stuffed the remaining quarter of his bagel sandwich in his mouth, jaw working furiously.

“I’m not eating,” he said, bits of lettuce flying out of his mouth.

I’m going to have an aneurysm. Or a stroke. Or kill my brother.

“You should have taken that hot blonde girl on a date,” Walker said.

“Did you get her number?” Carl drawled as I set my bag down.

I gave him my best glare. He gulped and sat up straighter.

“Care to try that again?” I asked.

“I have your coffee, boss,” Carl mumbled.

“Why do we have to have a meeting on New Year’s Day?” Beck complained.

“You could have stayed home in Harrogate,” I reminded him, taking my seat at the head of the conference table. “In fact, you can go back there right now. Archer bought all our younger brothers ten thousand dollars’ worth of fireworks for Christmas, and I’m sure you could be of use supervising the ensuing shit show.”

“Hard pass! I don’t really want to babysit,” Liam said, leaning back in his chair and wiping the back of his mouth with his hand.

I loved my brothers. I really did. But, my god, they drove me crazy. It wasn’t just their bad attitudes, lack of attention to things I considered important, or their terrible ideas, but also the fact that there were so goddamn many of them.

A by-product of a polygamist cult-leader father and his many wives, I had numerous half brothers, most of whom ran feral in the quaint small town of Harrogate a few hours away. My half brother Hunter did absolutely nothing to corral them, forcing me to trek out there on a biweekly basis just to keep some semblance of order.

The adults currently sitting around the table were my full brothers. Beck, the second oldest after me, was emotionally on a hair trigger and had inherited our father’s explosive temper. Mike, the third oldest, would lie to my face that he was going to do something then turn around and just not do it. Walker, next in line, was capable of following directions when he felt like it, which was not often. Then came Liam, who back talked and considered himself creative. Sitting next to me was the youngest, Carl, who had no goddamn sense, and it was a miracle he could make it through the day.

“I would have thought you were on a date with the half-naked girl you pulled out of the water instead of sitting in this boring meeting,” Liam said.

“Walker can track her down,” Mike said with a snicker.

“No,” I said. “Walker is supposed to be working on the collaboration with Svensson PharmaTech, not playing internet stalker matchmaker.”

“Funny you should mention matchmaking,” Liam said, sitting up. “I have your speed-date ticket here.”

“You must have lost your mind if you think I am going on a speed date,” I said flatly.

“But you have to.” Beck gave me a slight smirk. “That’s the only way to run into Martin Shaw.”

“I’ve been monitoring his social media,” Walker added, “just like you ordered. He’s big into dating right now.”

“No.”

“But we haven’t been able to score a meeting with him,” Mike reminded me. “I have several new hotels for Greyson Hotel Group to build. I need him to invest his fund in the building costs. We can’t just sit around waiting for him to finally decide to stop yacht shopping and to schedule a meeting with us. Everyone in Manhattan is going after his account. We need an in.”

“If you don’t, some other firm is going to swoop in and nab his investment,” Beck said.

“I’ll do it if you don’t want to,” Carl offered.

“Absolutely not,” I barked. “Liam, send me those tickets. I’ll have that contract signed this time next week.”

Chapter 3

Belle

“What are your New Year’s resolutions?” Emma prodded thirty seconds after I walked into her teeny, tiny, micro, studio apartment.

“Make money,” I said emphatically.

“I know, right?” Emma said breathlessly as she raced in a circle around the tiny apartment, picking up clothes off the bed then running to the oven, where she had a macaroni and cheese heating up, then to the freezer to chill the bottle of champagne I had brought.

“I got it on sale this morning,” I said.

“You know I love anything on sale!” she said happily. “Oh shoot, can you grab the champagne flutes?”

She pointed. Her micro apartment was literally taller than it was wide. The ceilings were fifteen feet high, a vestige of the building’s former use as a warehouse.

“A tall friend is super practical,” Emma said with a giggle as I climbed on her step stool then easily reached up to grab the shoebox she directed me to.

“Why do you still keep these?” I asked her, handing her the box.

She petted it. “If I could afford a therapist, they would probably tell me that it’s mentally unhealthy to keep the wedding goblets you stole from your lying, cheating ex’s wedding to his lying, cheating co-cheater.”

She handed me the goblet that read groom.

I looked at it and sighed. “It’s ironic, you know. The guy at the wine store called me sir earlier.”

“Oh!” Emma squeaked. “I’m sorry! You can have the bride glass.”

“It’s fine.”

“He probably wasn’t looking closely,” she assured me, taking out the champagne bottle and pouring me a generous helping.

“You’re a great catch,” she told me earnestly as I drained the glass. “Guys like girls who can keep up with them drink wise.”

“No, they don’t,” I replied. “They like delicate, petite princesses who eat half a hot dog and claim they’re so full.”

“Only if they have a spinning fetish,” Emma replied with a snort into her champagne flute. “You know, they want to put her on their lap and spin her around!”

I rolled my eyes. “They certainly don’t want you to jump in the freezing-cold water and rescue them in front of their friends and relatives.”

“You have to tell me more about your watery prince of the deep!”

“Merman? Hopefully he’ll drown the next time he’s out there.”

“It was a big moment,” Emma said, digging into the cardboard box that she used as a coffee table. “He could be your prince come to rescue you.”

“Doubtful.”

“Was it big?” she asked, eyes wide.

I gave her a questioning look.

She pulled an entire chocolate cake out of her makeshift coffee table.

“You know, his shark fin.” She pointed down to her crotch area.

“I didn’t cop a feel! Besides, it was freezing cold.”

“That’s how you know if he’s really packing or not. You should stalk him and then just randomly fling yourself in his path. Maybe he’s rich!” she said in excitement.

I stood up to take the pasta out of the oven. “I don’t think wealthy men go scuba diving early in the morning.”

“Yeah, they do. That’s eccentric rich.” She cut a slice of cake for her and then one for me. “If he is, then you have to pretend to get hit by his limo, and then he’ll take you back to his penthouse, and you’ll live happily ever after. Even if he doesn’t like you, at the very least you could still get a payout.”

“Fairy-tale endings do not happen for large and tall girls,” I said matter-of-factly. “We do our own rescuing.”

Emma made an exaggerated pout. “That’s not a good attitude to have at the speed-dating event.”

“No, Emma.”

“You have to!” she cried “It’s a new year! Your resolution can be dating and getting back out there! You never had fun in high school—your parents never allowed you to do any extracurriculars, let alone date, because you had to take care of your brothers. This is your time to shine!”

“I’m fifteen years behind everyone else.”

“So now we’re playing catch-up!” Emma insisted.

“No one is going to want to date me. I’m too tall.”

“Except…” Emma was gleeful as she pulled out a flyer. “I found you a dating event for tall people! You’ll fit right in!”

I took the flyer from her. In spite of myself, I was intrigued. During high school and community college, I had always been jealous of the girls who always had a steady stream of boyfriends to choose from. They did fun things like go to the mall and hang out with friends, while I had to go straight home after class to take care of my brothers.

“Maybe I could actually find a boyfriend there,” I said begrudgingly.

“Yesssss,” Emma said, bumping my fist. “Now eat your mac ‘n’ cheese, then we’re going to find something for you to wear.”

***

“Am I at the right event?” I asked the woman at the table at the entrance to the hipster bar in Manhattan.

“You here for the tall-dating event?” she chirped then looked up at me, craning her neck. “Wow! You are really tall!”

“I thought that was the point.” I tried not to sound annoyed as I looked around. I was the tallest girl there by quite a lot.

The hostess giggled. “This is actually an event meant for tall men,” she clarified. “Not women.”

“Oh.” Feeling embarrassed, I fidgeted with my purse strap.

“But you can totally stay!” she said cheerfully, handing me my name tag. “Usually, all our tall girls are models and are obviously not going to come to a silly, little dating event!” The hostess handed me two drink tickets. “Have fun, and good luck!”

I almost wish she had told me to leave, I decided as I headed over to the bar to order a drink. Then I went to awkwardly wait for my drink near a petite girl flanked by two investment-banker types.

“Wow, you can really drink for someone your size,” one guy said, obviously flirting with the girl. She let out a braying laugh, eating it up.

“I’m small, but I can drink like a fish and eat like a horse! Hahaha!”

Ahahahaha!!! Barf.

I know, I know. I sounded like a bitch, but honestly you could always tell when a short girl was in the room because she would always, always, without fail, make guys spend ten minutes guessing her height, then insist that the one-half inch mattered.

“Oh, let’s play a game,” Short Girl said, clapping her hands. “You guess my height, and then I’ll guess yours!”

Here we go.

“Five even?” the investment bro with the red tie asked.

“Cloooseee!” Short Girl said, taking another sip of her drink.

I desperately wanted mine.

“Five one?” the blue-tied investment bro asked.

“Nope! Too high!” she said and gave a snorting laugh.

I shifted my weight.

The bartender set my drink on the counter. He gave me a frightened look when I went to pick it up.

“Thanks,” I told him and handed him a dollar bill for a tip.

He gingerly took it from me.

“Then I guess six one!” Short Girl said to one of the investment bros as I walked past.

“You got it, girl!” he said happily.

I paused.

Just let it go.

But I was annoyed. I was annoyed at the merman. I was annoyed at the speed date. I was annoyed that the bartender had not put enough alcohol in my drink.

“He’s not six one,” I said, interrupting their little height jerk-off session.

“The hell?” Investment Bro yelled.

I turned. “You’re not six one. I’m six feet tall, and you’re shorter than me.”

“You’re wearing heels,” he blustered.

“I assure you, I am not. I never wear heels.” I gave him a toothy smile. “Men find it intimidating.”