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“Yeah?” he says, sounding a little hopeful.
“Yeah.”
“Great. I’ll come back and pick you up about seven thirty.”
“Sounds perfect.”
I’m so excited to see what Tyler has in store for a real date, and I know it’s going to be hard to control myself around him tonight. I find him ridiculously attractive, and that could be a very dangerous thing because I’m not quite ready to go through heartbreak again so soon. If it turns out Tyler is only interested in me for sex, I might just give up on the entire male species.
AVERY
The sun is still perched in the sky when Tyler comes to pick me up. I glance down at the clock on my cell phone. It’s seven thirty on the dot. The guy is punctual, I’ll give him that.
“So where are we off too?” I ask, while sliding on my trademark D&G shades as he fires up the truck.
“Well, I figure since it’s date number four, I’d take you to get something to eat over at the local burger place, and then we could just hang out at a local spot I know,” Tyler answers.
“I haven’t been out to eat in a while and I’ve been dying for a good salad.” God knows I need to start eating them again. I know I’ve only been at Granny’s a few days, but I can already feel the fat stockpiling in my body. Man, where’s Lars when you need him? He would die if he knew I’ve been stuffing my face with fried food and skipping my run every day. I keep telling myself I’ll run some extra miles to work off all the greasy deliciousness, but I never have. I’m not lazy, exactly, I just don’t want to run down some back country road all by myself. I’ve seen all the movies. I know what happens when girls go off by themselves in small wooded towns like this.
“You know, you look great, Avery. You don’t need to eat just a salad for me. I like a girl with a little meat on her bones,” Tyler says.
Obviously, he’s never met fat Avery. Guys don’t really mean it when they say those kinds of things. Guys will make comments like that to me now that I’m pretty and thin, but when I was a little chunky, they wouldn’t have given me the time of day. Hypocrites, that’s what all guys are. They have no idea how hard women have to work to look good.
“Right,” I say. “I suppose you would’ve asked me out if I weighed about fifty pounds more.”
“Of course I would’ve,” he replies like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
That’s a little hard for me to believe, seeing as how I wasn’t asked out one time while I was in high school. He’ll say anything to get in my pants, just like all the guys back home. Guys from my high school would try to feed me lines when they saw me after graduation like how they always noticed me, and how they wanted to talk to me, but they were just too shy. Give me a break. They weren’t too shy to ask me out after I started wearing skirts and showing off a little more skin. Guys must think we’re total idiots.
We ride in silence the rest of the way to the burger joint as I silently wish that I’m wrong about Tyler. That he’s not superficial and is really the nice guy that he portrays himself to be.
On the other side of town, Tyler turns into the parking lot of the drive-in restaurant. It reminds me of those places in the old fifties movies where the teenagers would hang out on the weekends. It’s like Sonic, but only it’s old school. The sign even says EST. 1952, so clearly this place has withstood the test of time.
We park under the car canopy and Tyler rolls his window down, since the menu is on his side. Tyler presses a red button that alerts the restaurant staff that we’re here. Tyler rattles a few items off the menu to me while we wait for someone to serve us.
It’s hard to picture Mom and Dad at a place like this. I wonder if my dad ever brought Mom here when they were dating in college. As long as I can remember, they’ve never really gotten along. They fought constantly, and Mom just never seemed happy.
Granny said she never cared for Mom. She once told me on the phone about the day Dad brought Mom home to meet her for the very first time. Granny said she knew right then and there that Mom would break Dad’s heart.
Granny must be psychic, because that’s exactly what happened.
“So, what do you want?” Tyler questions as he looks over the menu through his open window.
“A house salad, with fat-free Italian, please,” I say.
Tyler turns and points his gaze directly at me. “I thought we already went over this. You don’t have—”
I hold up my hand to cut him off. “It’s for me, okay? I like to keep track of what I eat, is all.”
“Avery,” he says my name so softly that it makes my stomach flip. “This is a burger place . . . get a burger, please,” he pleads. “Besides, I don’t think this is exactly the best place to get a salad. No one comes here for those, so the stuff would probably be all rotten.”
Eww. Gross. That thought never crossed my mind before, but now that he’s brought it up, my stomach churns.
“Okay, fine. But I expect to see you bright and early to help me run a couple extra miles to work it off,” I say in a teasing tone.
He looks at me and smiles. “Deal.”
The waitress finally comes out wearing a pin-striped apron over her white oxford and takes our order. When she’s gone, Tyler and I make small talk about the city of Wellston and what a typical Friday night is like around here for single people like us. From what I gather from Tyler, there’s nothing to do, which is why he spends most of his weekends in Columbus.
