Page 3 of Unlikely Match

I'm barely able to stifle my groan. "I hate having photos of myself online."

Jewel looks at me carefully. "Really? I would have thought a guy like you would be fine with that."

Is she saying she thinks I'm confident, or that she finds me attractive? Either way, it's intriguing.

"Wait!" She snaps her fingers, bouncing up and down with excitement. It takes incredible focus to lock eyes with her, instead of gazing at her full breasts as they sway in her cute blue dress. "That can be our gimmick! We'll take photos of the two of us all night, but neverquiteshow your face. You'll be a mystery man!"

"I like it. Excellent idea." I step closer, wanting to slide my hand around the curve of her hip to pull us closer together. Instead, I open the envelope. "Okay… Let's see where we're going tonight."

She stands close beside me to read along, the breeze sending a fresh gust of spiced vanilla fragrance from her hair to my nose.Down, boy.

"Love at First Night?" My eyes quickly skim the page. "What is this, some sort of arts event?"

Jewel squeals with excitement. "Perfect! I was so scared we'd end up at some snotty French restaurant where I didn't know which fork to use."

"So you've heard of this?"

"Sure! It's an all night art crawl through the downtown core. The Kingsville Tourism Association runs it on various holidays, and this year it's Valentine-themed. Bands, art installations, galleries. All kinds of stuff. It's pretty big, I bet more than one couple will be sent there." Her green-tipped nail skims down the page eagerly. "Sweet! They've given us some pretty good places to go."

"Excellent. Are there any hard and fast rules? Dora said something about her team being stricter this year."

She pulls out her phone, calls up a website, and hands it to me. Reading quickly, I see that either partner is permitted to leave immediately if they feel uncomfortable. We are also onthe honor system to not do anything outright dangerous, or that might reflect badly upon LoveDates.

"Seems fairly straightforward. We go to some of these events, take tons of photos of us having a blast, and they analyze our date. Is that really it?"

There's a twinkle in her eye that is extremely endearing. "Yes. Oh, except I noticed that the people who won over the past few years always created a storyline that people could follow along with online, showing them as a couple who are bonding together more and more as the date progresses. It increases engagement with the contest. So we should do that." Her lips are hauntingly beautiful when she smiles. "Everyone loves a love story, even if it's just a story, right?"

"I propose that you be in charge of the photos and captions, since you've done the research."

"Sure."

"Then let's take a photo of the very start of our adventure."

Jewel grins, showing off almost perfectly white teeth, with the tiniest tilt to her front left tooth that I find unbelievably charming for some inexplicable reason.

She aims her phone at our feet, moving over so that we're standing together side by side. "Point with me." Looking over, I watch as she frames our pointed index fingers and feet perfectly in the shot. She reads aloud as she types, "Starting off our first date adventure in the LoveDates contest!" Then she adds the hashtag: #MatchmakersBlindDateContest.

"Great. Let's roll. My car is right here."

As I open the door for her, Jewel frowns. "Seriously?"

"Would you rather we walk?"

Her head shakes, sending waves of blonde and blue hair flowing around her high cheekbones. "Ahh, no, it's just that I've never been in a Rolls-Royce."

I get in, noticing that she's examining every inch of the interior. "This is my first one, actually. My previous car was a Mercedes, but this one has better legroom, and it's a slightly smoother ride, I think."

"Hmm." Jewel studies our assignment sheet. "There's a list of places for the art crawl here, and I'm guessing we're supposed to hit as many as we reasonably can. There is a band I'd like to catch at The Dripping Bucket, but they don't start until nine, so let's hit up a couple of the galleries first."

"If this is about the amount and variety of photos we take, let's hit as many galleries as we can before nine," I suggest. "What's the first one on the list? I probably know this city as well as a cabbie."

"Oh, we can skip that one." She shakes her head, giving me a funny sideways glance.

"Let me see." I take the sheet and skim the addresses. "No, no — we can totally drop by this first one, then the rest of the galleries are in a cluster. Then that band, then maybe the sculpture competition if we have the energy. Less driving will allow us to hit more locations, don't you think?"

"The man with a plan. Okay. Sure."

By the time we park a half block from the Gilmour Gallery, Jewel is having a blast flipping through all the satellite radio stations. I feel a burst of pride when she nods along to my favorites.

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