AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 7
He really had no business being this nervous over a first date. Rueben was a grown ass man who had been through this shit too many times to count. So what if this could potentially be the last first date he would ever have?
He and Alisha had agreed to meet at the Ranch, even though he really wanted to pick her up. She didn’t figure it would be fair to Adam if they got there together. Essentially they were going to try out this relationship on even footing. She was convinced the only way it had any chance of working was if they made sure everything stayed even the whole time.
Rueben realized how unrealistic that was. There was very little chance that they would be able to keep that kind of status quo. Either it would get messed up, or they would end up never being able to get together because of scheduling conflicts. They didn’t even know what Adam did for a living yet, so who knew how often he’d be available.
Fuck. They didn’t even know if he lived close by. He might be gone in a few weeks.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
He pulled his car up to the main house and did a quick check in the rearview mirror. There was nothing he could do about the laugh lines radiating from his eyes or the gray hair now liberally scattered in his once dark head of hair. Rueben was definitely moving on in years, and he’d never been so conscious of the age difference between himself and a potential date. Well, dates.
He knew that at forty-three he was fourteen years older than Alisha. And he had no clue what age Adam was, but he couldn’t be any older than his partner. Sucking up his nerves he ran his fingers through his hair one last time, and pushed out of his car.
Alisha was waiting at the door for him, wearing the most amazing long-sleeved dress over a pair of thick black stockings. The well-fitted red dress would almost look like your normal “date” dress but if you looked closer you could see the row of Minnie-Mouse characters running around the hem of the dress.
Her long, straight brown hair came down each shoulder in long braids with delicate red and white ribbons threaded through them.
In simple terms–she was stunning.
“Hi,” she said smiling down at him, her cheeks a delightfully pink blush.
“You look amazing, Alisha.”
Her cheeks reddened even more and Rueben made a note to flood the woman with compliments if they all garnered this reaction from her.
“Let us head inside, shall we?” Rueben said, indicating she went in before him.
He watched her walk in, the red dress swishing around her legs, hypnotizing him. This was a great start to the night, and if the rest of it was anything like this, Rueben was looking forward to a perfect evening.
Adam was waiting for them just inside, the grin on his face huge. He was this amazing mix of handsome, boyish, and charming all rolled up into one. Rueben had never actually dated a man before, but that wasn’t because he wasn’t interested, just that therightopportunity had never really shown itself. And as much as things have progressed in recent years, the department still wasn’t quite as okay with it. Outing himself as bisexual, or he guessed at the very least bicurious, never seemed quite worth it until he knew that it was for something real.
“You guys made it. I’m so excited. Come, come. I have a table for us.” Adam led the way into a large formal dining room where they all took a seat and awkwardly sat there staring at each other. The silence stretched on to an uncomfortable point before Alisha finally started giggling, breaking the tension.
“Sorry! This is so silly. It’s like two first dates built into one, and I don’t know what to say or do.” Alisha paused before looking down at her hands sheepishly and shrugging. “No, that’s a lie. I have a list. Like a bunch of questions carefully planned to get all the information we could need, but I realize now how completely uncool and unromantic it would be for me to pull it out here.”
Her embarrassment was endearing and Rueben only wished he could share with her how beautiful she looked right then, her face flushed and her eyes glittering.
“Oh my gosh! You have to give it here!” Adam exclaimed, holding his hand out to Alisha, his fingers waving in the universal “gimme” way.
She laughed again shaking her head at him, but he seemed to be a stubborn creature, keeping his hand held out in front of him.
Alisha rolled her eyes at him before grabbing her small clutch and digging through it for a stack of carefully written out index cards.
Oh, she was cute. Of course she would approach a date in the same way she did their work life. Alisha was one of the most by-the-book officers Rueben had ever worked with. She had a checklist she worked off of every day to ensure they had done everything in exactly the right order and correct way before they could even leave the department at the beginning of each shift.
Adam eagerly grabbed the cards before sitting back in his chair to slowly cycle through them. His lips moved as he silently read the talking points Alisha had written down and when it became clear he wasn’t going to read it out loud or share the cards with Rueben, the older man held his hands out for the cards.
The other man let out an unimpressed huff before doing as asked, then he turned to Alisha with a soft smile on his face. Good thing too, because their girl looked more than a tad embarrassed.
“Oh honey, I’m not making fun!” Adam said, his tone earnest. “And actually, all those talking points were quite good. Like I would have probably hit them myself at some point because it’s important things we need to know about each other.” He shrugged before continuing. “Plus, I can’t shut up, so I’d have had to ask them just to get more words out.” His self-deprecating humor drew a giggle from Alisha, and also served to cut through her worst humiliation.
Rueben looked down at the cards and quickly flicked through them. They ranged from the basics, like age, occupation, family to a few more in depth ones like ambitions, goals and... Rueben swallowed down a sudden rush of excitement at the question on the bottom of the last card. Preferred kinks.
Alisha had tiny hearts drawn next to that question. Could she get any sweeter?
“He’s not wrong, sweetness. These are good questions. Especially this last one here.”
