Like You Read About by Mela Remington Read Free Book Online

always thought she was pretty, but again that was his gentlemanly thing, all women were beautiful in their own way.  Besides, with her red hair, emerald eyes and a smattering of freckles she was the quintessential bonnie Irish lass.  He hadn’t really thought of asking her out because he hadn’t thought of any woman at work that way, for him that made a person automatically off limits, but perhaps he needed to revisit that policy.
    “All I’m sayi ng is that you live like a monk.  You’re a reasonable looking dude, you have a job, health insurance and you own a house, plus you have no felony convictions; so that makes you seriously desirable to the fairer sex. Plus, I read an article somewhere online that said women were more likely to date a man if he had a pet, especially a cat.”  And with that Raj dug back into his lunch.
    Joe started talking about last night’s game and his little redheaded bean counter faded from everyone’s mind as they all boisterously went on about Tom Brady and what an amazing game he had the night before.  Cora may have faded from everyone else’s mind, but not Daniel’s, he needed to decide what to do.  She sent him that email this morning as well, thanking him for the candy, was she trying to feel him out?  Nah, she wasn’t calculating like that, she was just gracious, she probably had a box of thank you notes at home that she hand wrote whenever she received a gift, she just seemed like that kind of woman, a little old-fashioned, just like him.
    Lunchtime ended and then men all went their separate ways to fix what needed fixing or to code what needed coding.  Dan went to his office and closed the door. One of the perks of being head of IT and having sensitive server data in your control was that you weren’t relegated to a cube. He called his sister Maria; she would know what to do.  He wouldn’t normally take care of personal business at work, but he knew he could catch her now while the kids were napping.
    He leaned back in his chair, put his f eet up and opened the email with Cora’s ad response while he waited for Maria to answer.
    “It’s one in the afternoon, is somebody dead, or did you get arrested?” she said in a hushed tone, her kids were light sleepers, a poodle could fart two blocks away and those kids would wake up.
    “Neither, I need some advice from my favorite sister , and since she didn’t answer the phone I called you,” he chuckled.  Maria and Daniel were twins and as such they shared something neither shared with their other siblings, no it wasn’t a birthdate because oddly enough five of the seven Santagata kids had the same birthday, apparently their parents had a set day of the year to have sex, he shuddered at the thought. 
    “It’s about a girl ,” it came out rushed, but he just had to say it, no dragging it out.
    “What is this seventh grade and you want me to ask Lisa Riccio if she likes you?   ‘Cause we tried that Danny and she turned you down for that grunge kid who played in that crappy garage band.” She was trying not to laugh, besides not wanting to wake up the terrible twosome, she knew it wasn’t easy for him to have made this call. “Sorry, tell me about her. What’s the situation?”
    “So six months ago, before I decided to buy the house I was home and lonely, kinda drunk and watching TV and I decided to put a personal ad on an online dating site.  I had quite honestly forgotten all about it, even though I was still apparently paying them fifteen dollars a month, I really need to actually read my Visa bill, anyway, someone answered it last night.  Someone I know.”
    “Was it Lisa Riccio?” She was trying so hard to stifle the laugh, he was really twisted up about this, and he was never twisted up about a girl. Hell, half the aunts in Falmouth thought he was gay, a man his age living alone with a cat.
    “No smartass, besides I think Lisa’s doing time for solicitation, but back to the actual important