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“I’m meeting someone.”
“Is Gunnar coming out tonight? Where is he?”
“He’s not here.”
“Why didn’t you two just drive out together?”
“I’m not meeting Gunnar. I have a date. Not that it’s any of your business.”
Jameson stands up from where he was leaning against the bar and looks around us. “Who is he?”
“Oh, please. I’m not interested in Jacks or Gunnar acting like protective papa bears and interrogating me about my dates. So, I’m definitely not interested in you doing it. I have a date. You don’t know him. End of story.”
“How do you know I don’t know him? It’s a small fucking town, Lemon.”
“He’s not from Western Springs or Western Ridge. He’s from Western Mountain.”
“Well, I’ll be keeping an eye on him. And you.”
“You don’t have to. As in, please don’t. Mind your own business and enjoy giving of yourself to the poor lonely girls of Western Ridge.”
“I’m always going to take care of you, Lemon.”
The bartender puts my glass of white wine on the bar in front of me and turns to help someone else at the other end of the bar.
“I don’t need a kid taking care of me. And I’ll kill you if you bug me, got it? Now go enjoy yourself far, far away from me. And remember to pretend you don’t know me tonight. Bye!”
Not looking back at Jameson, I head down the stairs to the sitting area on the other side of the bar with my wine. I told TumbleWed Mike that I’d meet him down there on a sofa, which is the best location to actually talk in this place. My nerves tell me I did the right thing getting a drink on the way in and not waiting until my date gets here. Hopefully, the wine will take the edge off of some of this nervous energy.
When I scan past the bar, Jameson is still leaning against it, staring at me. Why the hell did he have to be here tonight? The last thing I need is to see him lounging there against the bar like he owns the place, spying on me, and reporting back to his brothers about what I’m up to.
As much as I love living in Western Springs, sometimes a little privacy would be nice. Everyone knows everything about everyone in this town. Dating is hard enough these days. Dating in a small town is torture. And dating in a small town when you’re a thirty-two-year-old woman is a fate worse than death.
When I figured the odds of running into anyone I knew at the Goldrush on a Tuesday night were low, I didn’t figure on age being a factor. Of course, a big Tuesday night at the bar sounds great when you’re twenty-six. Not so much when you’re thirty-two, single, and feeling like your life hasn’t even started yet.
After fifteen minutes of slowly sipping my wine while my nerves eat me up, TumbleWed Mike finally shows up. And it’s awkward from the get-go. He looks like his profile picture, but with a little less hair and a couple less inches of height. That’s fine, I don’t care about that.
When he tells me I look nice tonight, his eyes don’t reach mine. They actually don’t seem capable of going north of my chest. Fan-fucking-tastic. I have big boobs to go along with the rest of me. I’m curvy. Plus-sized. The dress is only showing an inch or two of cleavage, but the fabric clings to my breasts, not hiding how much of them there is underneath it.
When Mike goes to the bar to get himself a drink and get me another glass of wine, I glance over at Jameson. I hate myself for it, but I want to see what he thinks.
He’s staring right back at me and grinning.
Asshole.
He holds his beer up to me in a mocking toast and then takes a big drink.
Maybe this date didn’t start off great, but I’m not ready to write TumbleWed Mike off yet. First impressions are hard. I spent so much time on TumbleWed swiping right and then messaging guys to end up with this one pathetic date that I can’t let it all be for nothing.
When Mike gets back with our drinks, I thank him. Then I do my best to have a real conversation with him. He works as an accountant. He sportfishes. He doesn’t like flowers because he’s allergic. Same for pets. He’s also allergic to grass and hay. How the hell does he live anywhere near here? The entire area is nothing but fields full of hay or vegetables. I guess he sticks to the fields full of vegetables, then. He’s probably allergic to most of them, too.
After an hour of forced conversation and TumbleWed Mike downing four drinks in the time it takes me to have two, I’m pretty sure that I’m not going to be able to force this to work. All it cost me was this black dress, a forty-dollar taxi ride, a glass of white wine, and every last shred of my dignity.
But I’m equally sure that TumbleWed Mike likes me. Or at least he likes my boobs. I’m not sure he could answer a single trivia question about any of the things I’ve told him tonight correctly.
When he presses his hand down on my thigh, he leans in close. “Do you want to get out of here?”
“No?” It’s not a question. But I’m trying to be polite. Classy. Standing up and shouting, there’s no fucking way I’m going home with you at him wouldn’t be classy.
