Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 81208 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81208 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
“The view here sure has improved since the last time we had dinner.”
I grimace, remembering the previous server whose trousers always hung too low beneath his big belly, revealing a stretch of back skin and his butt crack. “It sure has,” I agree.
“So, who’s the guy—sorry, the customer—and what’s gotten you radiating?”
“I told you, he’s just a customer, but he was cute. He had the whole stoic, silent, brooding thing going on. You know how much I like reserved men.”
“Yeah, because you like to imagine they’re cool on the outside and boiling beneath the surface.”
“He is boiling beneath the surface,” I admit.
“How do you know?”
“I can’t tell you. Client confidentiality. Let’s just say I discovered some personal stuff about him while I was on the job.”
Rosie leans forward. “Come on, Goldie. You have to tell me. You know I’ll keep it to myself.”
I know no such thing. Rosie’s a good friend, but discretion isn’t her middle name. I draw my fingers across my lips to signal I’m zipping them tightly closed.
“Fun sponge!”
The server returns with our milkshakes, and Rosie beams at him, touching her hair seductively. “Thank you sooooo much.”
“You’re welcome, ma’am.”
She practically melts all over the floor. When he’s clearing the next table, Rosie fans herself with her hand. “Don’t you just love it when a good-looking man has manners?”
“He knows his customer service.”
“He can call me ma’am in bed anytime.”
We both snort with laughter, but she watches him like an eagle circling over a rabbit.
“Can you at least give me a name and a description?”
“Robert,” I say. “And he’s tall, dark, and handsome in a rugged, mountain-man kind of way… lumbersexual, if you know what I mean?”
“Spirit animal?” Rosie has a thing about spirit animals. Apparently, all humans have an animal we most closely resemble, either in character or appearance, or both. Rosie’s convinced my spirit animal is a yellow butterfly. Yellow for my golden hair, and a butterfly because she feels like I’m unsettled.
“Bear,” I blurt. “He’s got a big build and dark hair and beard.”
“Chest hair?”
I snort mid-sip of my milkshake. “What do you think I do when I go to people’s houses to change their locks?”
“You can tell,” she says.
“He was wearing a sweater. It wasn’t bulging through, thank goodness.”
“Nothing like a warm rug to snuggle into.”
I wrinkle my nose. I like a little chest hair but calling it a rug isn’t appealing.
“Eye color?”
“Brown,” I say. And gold. Weird, sparkly, glowy, radiating gold. I don’t tell Rosie that part. She’ll accuse me of reading too many Twilight novels or something.
“Good. Big hands?”
“Definitely.”
“Nice house?”
“Like something from a fairytale,” I admit.
“Rich then?”
“Who knows? People can have huge houses and no liquid assets.”
“Yes.” Rosie rubs her chin and studies me. “I have a good feeling about this one.”
Besides the weird obsession with spirit animals, Rosie also believes she has a sixth sense.
“What gives you a good feeling?”
She wiggles her fingers, staring up and to the left. “I’m not sure. He feels just right.”
I snort and flop back against the chair. “You thought that about Devon.” Rosie loved my ex until he dumped me for a redhead.
“Yeah, well, Devon went against his destiny.”
“Straight into someone else’s vagina.”
“Exactly. The mystical power of the vagina cannot be underestimated.”
Our server chooses exactly that moment to reappear with our food and fumbles with the plates a little before he sets them down. Rosie struggles to contain her laughter, and his cheeks flame as red as the pleather we’re sitting on.
When he shuffles away, forgetting to tell us to enjoy our meal, we both burst into fits of laughter.
By eight p.m., we’re in The Blue Lounge, sipping their signature Blue Diamond cocktail. I have no idea what’s in it, but my head is spinning after half a glass. The music is loud enough to vibrate the floor, and lights flash white, turquoise, dark blue, and purple, giving the space the liquid feeling of being underwater. The crowd is an interesting mix, from early twenties college types to mid-forties professionals. Rosie and I perch on stools at the bar, close to the prospect of more drinks and the barman who looks like a young Marlon Brando, just Rosie’s type.
I scan the crowd, fascinated to watch the girls dancing and the men watching. Humans like to imagine we’ve left the animal part of us behind, but what’s going on here is a blatant mating ritual. I’m just about to turn back to Rosie when a movement by the door catches my eye. I watch a man edging around the bar. All I can see is his shoulder and the back of his head, but my heart does a weird skip at the familiarity. Is it Robert?
That would be one hell of a coincidence. In the six months I’ve lived around here, I’ve never noticed him before. Now he’s in an adjacent town at the same bar as me. I strain to keep my eyes on the man, but he disappears into the crowd. He didn’t seem like the type for a bar like this. He’d fit better into a gentleman’s club with a cigar and a glass of single malt.