Page 88 of How To Tackle A Crush
She ignores that.
“So I kept that one thing. Being clever. Being observant. I wasn’t willing to give that up just to be easier to date.”
That lands somewhere deep in my chest.
“Good,” I say quietly.
She shrugs again, but there’s vulnerability under it.
“I’ve dated. I’ve even had a short relationship in my twenties. But in your twenties especially… most of the men I met wanted to go out, get drunk, be loud. That was never really my world.”
“No?”
“I like quiet. Conversations. Knowing how people think. I was never going to meet my great love doing tequila shots.”
“That does reduce the candidate pool.”
“Significantly.”
“And later?”
She exhales slowly.
“Later you get comfortable,” she says. “You build your routines. Work. Home. Friends. Books. And suddenly you realise you only ever go to three places.”
“Work, supermarket, home?”
She points at me. “Exactly.”
“Not exactly a rich dating environment.”
“No. And I wasn’t miserable. That’s the thing.” She glances at me. “I wasn’t sitting at home pining. I just… didn’t meet anyone who made me want to rearrange my life.”
There’s a small pause.
“Until now?” I ask carefully.
She studies me for a long second.
“I didn’t expect you,” she says honestly. “You weren’t even remotely on my list of possible life complications.”
I smile faintly. “Professional hazard.”
“I mean it,” she says. “You’re so out of my league.”
“Ava—"
“You’re confident. You talk to strangers. You run a room without trying.” She studies me. “And yet somehow, you’re also… calm. And kind. And you listen.”
I don’t say anything.
“And then there’s the single dad thing,” she adds quietly. “That’s not exactly a casual variable.”
“No,” I admit.
She hesitates slightly.
“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” she says softly. “But for the first time it doesn’t feel like I have to pretend to be someone else to be interesting enough.”
