AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I hope you don’t mind this location. I know the view is better near the windows, but I like to have a good view of the raw bar,” he says.
“I thought you were a steak man. The best cowboy rib eye in the Smoky Mountains, remember?” I say.
“Oh, I’m having the steak, but I’m also having the shrimp cocktail and a lobster tail,” he assures me.
“Sounds great. I’ll have the same.”
He raises an eyebrow. “A woman with a big appetite. I like it.”
“Let me guess. Your ex would come to this place and order a salad and lemon water.”
He shakes his head. “No, she’d order the lobster and a salad and the most expensive bottle of wine on the menu.”
“Well, I hate wine, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
“A woman after my own heart,” he says as he passes me the beer and whiskey lists.
We place our drink and food orders at the same time, and the server promptly brings the shrimp cocktail appetizer and our craft beers.
“So, Maxi, tell me about yourself,” he says as he offers me a shrimp.
I take the chilled crustacean and dip it into the sauce, which is heavy with the horseradish.
So good.
“What do you wanna know?” I ask.
He shrugs. “The basics.”
“Okay. I’m twenty-nine years old, but I’ll turn thirty in November, which makes me a Scorpio, and that’s a pretty accurate description of my personality. I’m single, and I’ve never been married. I don’t have any kids. I do have a younger sister, and she is married and has two little ones—a boy and a girl. I was born and raised in Baltimore. My mother passed away earlier this year. She left my sister her small house and left me a plot of land here in Tennessee, which my grandfather had left her, so I brought her ashes here to spread in the place she loved the most. That’s about it.”
“And your dad?” he asks.
“He died several years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“Don’t be. I’m not.”
His eyes fill with a softness that irritates me.
“Look, my father was a drug addict my entire life. He was abusive to us, especially my mother. The best thing that ever happened to her was finding him dead from an overdose. It freed her. It freed us all. So, stop with the sympathy. I don’t need or want it.”
He’s silent as he watches me, like he doesn’t believe me. It makes me uncomfortable.
“Now, tell me about you,” I demand.
“You probably know most of it,” he says.
“Tell me anyway.”
“I’m thirty-seven. A Taurus. I have five brothers. Three older than me and two younger, so I’m a momma’s boy who suffers from middle child syndrome. I have worked for the Valley Fire and Rescue since graduating from college, and I made chief last year. I was married once, but I have no children. Though I hope to one day. And you know my parents.”
“Wait a minute, I thought you and Susanna were high school sweethearts?”
“We were, but when I left for school, we decided to date other people. Well, she decided. She didn’t like being the only girl without a boyfriend to cart her books around and escort her to pep rallies,” he says.
“You’re joking.”
