AllFreeNovel
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“Any cute guys here tonight?” she asks, a twinkle in her eye. Oh, so someone’s on the prowl.
“Why?” I ask and grin at her. “Are you looking to take someone home tonight?”
She laughs. “Maybe. Would that be so bad?”
I shake my head. “Not at all. Go for it! I can be your wingman.”
“I don’t know,” she then whispers. “Not a lot of promising subjects so far.”
I know what she means. Most of the guys in here are at least twenty years older than us, and not in a sexy silver fox kind of way. After a while, however, Allie locks eyes with a guy across the bar.
“What do you think about him?” she asks me, and I look over. It’s a guy in his early thirties, and he’s making eyes at her in an extremely obvious way. He’s wearing a flannel shirt and has abaseball cap on backwards. Not exactly my type, but I guess he’s kind of cute.
“Sure, go for it.”
Allie knocks back her drink. “I feel like I’m abandoning you,” she says, and I scoff at her.
“Please, go get laid. You worked hard this week; you deserve some stress relief.”
She grins at me, and then she gets up from her chair. “How do I look?”
“You look hot. Go get him.”
I watch as she goes up to the guy, shaking his hand. He looks at her as if she’s the prettiest thing he has ever seen, laughing at something she said. They walk to the bar together, and he buys her a drink. I sip my own cocktail, smiling wide as her eyes find mine, and she gives me a big thumbs up. I take it that things are going well.
I look around the bar at the people there and realize that I only recognize about half the faces. Probably a lot of tourists here tonight. But there are some familiar faces, too, even some people I went to high school with. Oh, the joys of living in a small town.
“Hi, there.” A man in his forties suddenly comes up to me, standing behind Allie’s empty chair. I look at him with a smile.
“Hi.”
“Look, would you mind taking a picture?”
I’m stunned. Has this guy recognized me from my profile online? I know I decided not to keep up with all that, but a small part of me still gets excited at the prospect of getting recognized.
“Sure,” I say, smiling sweetly at him. “No problem. Happy to.”
This is unreal, having someone who wants to take a picture with me. He hands me his phone and waves his friend over.
“We want to get a picture with the big buck head in the background,” he says and points to the stuffed buck that’s mounted on the wall behind him. “Is that okay?”
I nod. “Okay, sure. Let’s do it.”
The man throws an arm around his friend’s shoulders, and they smile wide for the camera. I slide up beside them and angle the camera so that I get us all in the frame. The guy chuckles.
“Wait, what are you doing?” he asks.
“Taking the picture,” I tell him.Is he being serious?
“Yeah, but just with my friend and me. No offense, but I don’t know you. I don’t want you in the picture. Sorry.”
I feel my cheeks burning. He doesn’t want a picture of me; he just wants me to take one of him and his friend. He hasn’t recognized me after all. I’m just the first loser he saw who looked like she didn’t have a life. Just another sign that I need to stop with this whole charade. I can’t believe I’m stupid enough to think he wanted to take a picture with me!
“Of course,” I say quickly. “Sorry, I just thought…”
I see him and his friend exchange a look. I must seem so weird. I snap the picture of them and hand the man his phone back. He thanks me, his eyes lingering on my chest.
“Thanks,” he says. “Listen, maybe my friend and I here can buy you a drink. As a thank you for your photography services.”
