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“I wasn’t startled.” She looks toward the pump and back at me. “I just wasn’t expecting to hear my name.”
She clicks off her phone and sizes me up. She has the most stunning green eyes I’ve ever seen. Cat-like and curious. Trouble for sure. “Mark, right?”
“You remember?”
“How could I forget?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe because I sent three messages and they’ve all gone unread.”
“I’ve been busy.” Ali doesn’t apologize the way most women would. But her eyes dart from side to side in a manner that suggests she’s aware that she’s in a dimly lit place with a man whose advances she has thwarted. Her response to me seems softer than it might be otherwise.
“I’m sure.” My eyes flit toward my car. “Anyway, I didn’t mean to bother you. I saw you standing there and thought I’d say hello.”
“Your bio,” she says, sucking on her bottom lip. “On the app. Did you write that?”
I shake my head. “My assistant did. She’s always saying I need to get back out there. Clearly she’s mistaken, after our disaster of a date.”
“You mean the date where you couldn’t stop talking about your ex-wife?” She waves one hand in the air, brushing me off. “No, it was great.”
“No it wasn’t. But I was hoping for another shot.”
She looks down at her phone. She’s having second thoughts. Later she would tell me that she hadn’t remembered me having a voice this deep or a jawline this cut, but then the bar had been noisy and she was distracted. Ali looked back at me. I notice her features are symmetrical and the youthful glow she has to her cheeks. The dress she’s wearing is yellow, three-quarter sleeved and lacy. I wonder where she’s going or where else she’s been in a dress like that. She smiles. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“You wanna go for a drink?”
I lift my chin. “Now?”
“Well, I have to wait for my gas to finish pumping, but yes, now.”
“I thought you said I wasn’t your type.”
A smile creeps across her face. “What can I say?” She nods toward my vintage Porsche, a gift from Bethany’s dad. A gift I am lucky to get to continue to “borrow” as part of the divorce settlement. “I really like that car.”
Chapter Eighteen
Ali
Austin
Ethan drives her to The Crispy Biscuit where he orders his favorite, green eggs and ham. Ali orders a gimlet. She smiles and fingers the rim of her glass. “Dr. Seuss was cancelled, you know.”
“Cancelled?”
“Yeah, they stopped printing his books. And worse, they announced it on his birthday.”
“That’s terrible.”
She shrugs, sinking deeper into the booth. “It depends on who you ask.”
“A sign of the times, I suppose.” He stuffs a forkful of ham into his mouth. “I wonder how long it will remain on the menu. I hope they don’t ban ham.”
“Yeah.” She leans forward and steals a piece of egg from his plate. “You better live it up. You come here often, Mark? Wait—” she squints. “I’ve forgotten your last name.”
He stops midbite. “You left your car at a gas station and rode to a secondary location with a man whose last name you don’t know. Voluntarily.”
She shrugs and lifts her gimlet, signaling cheers. “Like I said, life is short.”
