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“You got something better to do?”
I thought about that for a second. “Other than my like, five jobs, no.”
“Great! Let’s go.”
I sputtered for a second before getting in my car and following Emerald out of the parking lot and toward the Pine State Bar and Grill.
* * *
“She really is something,”Em said, as we lurked in a booth on the restaurant side. One of the waitresses went to high school with me, and we still hung out sometimes, so I’d asked her for a table with a good view of the bar. It was late afternoon, so the place was quiet for now, everyone prepping for the dinner rush. Em and I had just eaten, but both of us would have felt like jerks if we took up a table and didn’t order anything, so we both got drinks and a plate of potato skins to share.
Em and I sat on the same side of the booth, as if we were a couple. She was a lesbian and I was pansexual, so us being together wouldn’t be out of the question, but we were friends. Friends plotting to take down a man.
“I’m trying to remember seeing her with anyone, and I can’t. Can you?” Em asked as I shoved potato skins in my mouth out of anxiety, sour cream and cheese dripping down my chin. I was completely on board with this seduction plan, but I needed some more time to really figure it out. Plus, I didn’t want Esme to see me just, like, staring at her like a creep. Like Wyatt did.
“I feel like she doesn’t date a lot? But I know I’ve seen her with people before in a date-like context. And I went to a party once where she was with, who was that?” I had to dig back in my brain and then I snapped my greasy fingers. “Sean Corey. That’s who it was. Ugh.” I shuddered.
“What’s wrong with Sean?”
Outwardly, nothing. Sean was a nice guy. Graduated high school and immediately went to work for his dad’s landscaping business and had added caretaking to the company as well for people who only came to Maine in the summers. Sean would take care of their cottages and homes, making sure the pipes didn’t freeze, the lawns got mowed, and they didn’t get broken into by bored teenagers looking for something to vandalize or a place to hook up.
“Do you remember me telling you about the kid I saw eat a bunch of gum off the bottom of a bench at the planetarium?” I shuddered at the memory. I think I’d been the only one to see it, but that moment burned itself into my memory.
“Didn’t that happen when you were in first grade? I’m sure he doesn’t do that now,” Em said, wiping her hands on a napkin. We’d demolished the potato skins, and now I was sad they were gone.
“You never know,” I said in an ominous tone. A laugh snapped my attention back toward the bar. Esme popped the top of a beer and handed it to a grizzled fisherman sitting on one of the stools as if he lived there. Knowing him, he probably did. The guy was a regular.
She flipped her long dark hair over her shoulder. As long as I’d known her, Esme had always had dark hair all the way down her back that was so smooth and shiny, I’d never seen anything like it. I didn’t know if I’d ever seen her with her hair completely up before.
The fisherman made another joke and she leaned her head back in laughter. Her dark eyes sparkled as she moved to the other end to tend to another customer. I couldn’t stop watching the way she moved, the way she listened intently, the way she smiled.
“She really is beautiful,” I said with a sigh.
“She is. So, what is the plan?” I tore my eyes away from Esme to look at Em.
“I mean, I don’t know? Ordering a drink and talking to her and then asking her out seems like the way to go?” I wasn’t used to being the aggressor when it came to dating. Most of the time I’d either wait to be approached, or just carry on a long-term crush without actually doing anything. It was shocking that I managed to have multiple relationships at all.
“No,” Em said, waving her hand as if to erase what I’d just said. “That’s no good.”
I sat up, offended. “What’s wrong with that plan?”
“You’re not going to seduce Esme Bell by being like every other person who wants to bang her. You have to be different. You have to capture her attention. You have to be better than Wyatt. Be better than Wyatt.”
Right. Wyatt. He’d asked me out in this very restaurant. I’d been on a work deadline, and it was one of the only places I would work with free internet and unlimited coffee, so I’d parked myself at the very end of the bar, and put my headphones in. Somehow, he’d charmed me with his smile and a bad joke, and I’d shut my computer and gone to his place with him. I’d had to ask for a work extension, but the sex had been worth it. I’d expected it just to be a hookup, but then he wanted to see me again, and that was it.
In hindsight, he hadn’t even had to try very hard. I wasn’t sure what that said about me.
“Okay, how do I be better than Wyatt? And who made you the dating Yoda?”
Em leaned back in the booth. “I’m not saying I’m the dating Yoda. What I am saying is that I can offer you advice because I know you, I definitely know Wyatt, and I know enough about her to know what’s going to work and what doesn’t.”
Plus, she’d gotten back at an ex before.
“Lay it on me,” I said.
“First off, you’ve got to play it cool. Make her come to you. Be mysterious. Leave her wanting more.” Those all sounded like tips she’d gotten from one of the terrible articles I’d had to write for a copywriting client.
“Why does this sound familiar?” I asked, and Em smirked as she showed me her phone.
