AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You picked me up at the library. Where I work, remember?”
“Fascinating. Tell me more,” he says distractedly, still typing away on his phone.
“Did you know nomophobia is the fear of being without a smartphone and fifty-eight percent of men in this country suffer from it?” I ask.
He hums in response without looking up from his phone, clearly not hearing a word I said. With a sigh, I take the first opportunity since I met this man to actually talk about myself.
“I . . . um, I’ve always loved books. I started working there in high school and—”
“Uh-huh, sounds amazing,” he mumbles distractedly, cutting me off, the clicking sounds his phone makes as he types grating on my nerves.
“So, what was the last book you read?” I ask, hoping to God I can find something to talk about with this man that will hold his interest.
“Books?” he snorts. “I don’t read books. Movies are so much better. I don’t understand people who can just sit there and do nothing but look at words. That’s so boring and such a waste of time.”
The words are like a knife to my heart. What kind of an animal is this man?
“But, your profile on the dating site said you loved to read.”
Gus finally sets his phone down, glancing towards the darkened window next to us to check out his reflection.
“Sure, interesting things like Men’s Health, GQ, the New York Times. Books was the only option in that stupid drop-down menu. It’s the same thing anyway.” He shrugs as the waitress finally comes back and sets the leather check holder down next to his plate.
It takes everything in me not to flip the table and scream at him as he opens the check holder, leaning to the side and pulling his wallet out of his back pocket.
“So, it looks like with the tip, your half is $27.32.”
I stare at him blankly when he puts a few bills into the holder and then slides it across the table to me.
Now, I’m all for women’s liberation and all that, but for the love of God, this is a date! Is this really how people do this? Isn’t this something that should be discussed prior to said date? Where’s the chivalry? I’ve read all about this in countless romance novels and never once did the hero make the heroine pay for her own meal. In the books I read, those men would lose their mind if the woman even thought about paying.
Not wanting to make a scene by calling him an inconsiderate pig, I grab my purse from the back of my chair, my face heating in embarrassment as I dig through it, hoping to God that I have enough money. After ten minutes of scrounging around and having to count out five dollars in quarters and dimes that had fallen down to the bottom of the bag amid hundreds of receipts, crumbs and other odds and ends, I shove everything into the holder and smack it closed.
I quickly get up from the table, wanting to get out of here as fast as possible, pulling my cell phone out of my purse to call Ariel for a ride as I move through the restaurant, not even caring that I’m being rude by not saying good-bye to that idiot.
“Izzy, wait up!” Gus shouts just as I make it outside and take a deep breath of fresh air.
Good lord, who does he think he is, using a nickname for me?!
Turning around, I stare at him blankly, wondering what in the hell he could possibly want to say to me at this point. I think we’re both in agreement that this was the worst date in the history of dates, and that’s not saying much, since I don’t have anything to compare it to.
“Did you know the number one conversation killer on a first date is doing nothing but talking about yourself? And, in the Middle Ages, chivalry was a means to salvation for a man. Specifically, any man who took up arms for a just purpose would save his soul,” I inform him, hoping maybe a lightbulb will go off in his pea-sized brain.
“You’re weird.”
I immediately bristle and, if possible, become more offended than I’ve ever been in my entire life, let alone this evening. The way he says those words, with a sneer in his voice and curl of his upper lip, makes me want to punch him right in the mouth. Which is strange, considering Vincent said those exact words to me the other night and it didn’t bother me one bit. He wasn’t saying it to be mean, and it didn’t come out of his mouth like an accusation. He was just stating a fact, not saying it like it’s something I should be ashamed of or apologize for.
