He pulls the shirt down again and licks his lips. “Good job. You got most of the wine rinsed off.”
“I didn’t do it.” I clutch my hands tightly together on my lap. “My hand did that, not me. I think my hand might have Tourette’s.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“Are you a doctor?”
“Yes.”
“Shut up. You are not. You’re just being contrary.”
“I have a certificate.”
“Where?”
“At my dental practice.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re a dentist, not a doctor.”
“Yes, I am. I’m Dr. Morgan.”
I shake my head. “No way. That can’t be your last name. If I married you, I’d be Megan Morgan.”
He gives me a funny look. “Tonight is certainly a fascinating journey into how your brain works. Is that your real name? Megan? Why does everyone call you Meenie?” He shakes his head. “Never mind. I shouldn’t ask. That’s something people who are dating would do, and you and I are just friends. Feather’s orders.”
“Tonight doesn’t count, because we’re both drunk.”
“Do you want to come back to my place?”
“No. I’m not interested in one night of mediocre sex.”
He smiles, which is not the reaction I expected. “Who says it’ll be mediocre? I predict it will be terrible. I am terrible in bed. Plus I’ve had a few beers, and up until recently, my balls have been in someone else’s purse.” He keeps grinning, really working the whole self-deprecating thing in a way that makes me want to cradle him in my arms and tell him everything’s going to be magical.
He continues, “In case you’re not reading between the lines, what I’m saying is that I haven’t been with anyone since my breakup, two years ago.”
“Do you mean you haven’t been with the same hookup twice in a row since then?”
His dark brown eyes lock on mine. “I’m being honest with you. I don’t know what came over me the first night I met you. That’s not what I’m like, but you painted me as this wild player character, and I liked how that felt. Right up until you saw the truth, the real me. I ran out of there like the coward I am.”
“You’re not a coward.”
He leans in toward me, until our foreheads are touching. I’m aware of the noise around us in the pub, but none of it matters. We’re in our own private bubble.
“Of course I’m a coward,” he says. “But you’ve already seen that in me, so I’ve got nowhere to go but up. You think I’m terrible in bed. Your opinion of me can’t get any worse, so what have I got to lose?”
His words sink in, and a darkness rises within me. “You want to sleep with me because you’ve got nothing to lose? Because it can’t get any worse?” My voice is cold, like a parking meter in the dead of winter. “Thanks a lot.”
Our foreheads are still touching, and he looks down at my lips like he’s thinking about kissing me again.
I put my hands on his shoulders and push him away. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m going to take Feather’s advice and stay away from your bed.”
“Are you saying that if it wasn’t for her, you’d be in my bed tonight?”
“That’s a paradox, because if it wasn’t for her, we wouldn’t have met.”
He settles back on his chair, stretching his broad shoulders out just enough to make his shirt taut and give me a little nipple visibility. That tease.
“I beg to differ,” he says confidently. “We’re meeting right now. A week ago, our regular pool hall closed down, so this is our first night here. How often are you here on a Friday?”
“Even if I am here on Fridays, you wouldn’t have come over to talk to a girl who looks like me. Not unless you needed directions to the men’s room.”
“Wrong again. You’re beautiful, Meenie, and you’re just my type.”
“Your type?”
“Complicated.”
His words settle on me like a heavy-carb-pasta inertia. I’m finding it hard to breathe. He called me beautiful. He’s drunk, but still. Beautiful.
“Let’s get a cab somewhere,” he says, his voice low and seductive. “We’ll go dancing, or get coffee, or find a bowling alley. Let’s do something.”
My mouth starts to move, to say sure, I’d like to get coffee, but then he says, “We won’t tell Feather.”
His final words crush me. I push my chair back and get to my feet. The room swirls, but my recent tumble and this conversation have sobered me up.
“Forget it,” I spit at him. “I’m not your dirty little hookup secret.”
I turn on my heel and march away from the table.
He doesn’t run after me, which confirms I’m making the right decision.
I stop off at the bar and settle the bill, paying for everything that went to our table. This takes a few minutes, and still Drew doesn’t try to stop me.
With my head held high, I push the big wooden door open and step outside. The air is crisp and colder than expected.
It’s September now, and even though we’re only a few days in, August feels like a pale shadow, like a photo of yourself from yesterday, before you endured today’s humiliations.
Chapter 13
I’m still feeling blue when I open Gardenia Flowers on Saturday morning. The bluest blue. I’ve got the blues, and like the song says, these blues cut me to the bone.
I put an all-blues playlist on the stereo and stand inside the walk-in flower cooler to clear my thoughts.
Last night’s debacle with Drew keeps playing on repeat in my head. I really wanted to go home with him, and have some of that mediocre-to-terrible sex he was offering. It would have been better than the zero sex I’ve been getting.
What I did do, after I left the pub, was stop by the grocery store and buy half a roasted chicken and three kinds of chips, plus dip. My sister has a sweet tooth and goes on candy binges when she needs a mood boost. Me, I hit the savory aisle.
Even though I’d eaten dinner at the pub, the walk back home burned off enough calories to justify a second dinner at home. I sat on the floor in the kitchen and shared the chicken with Muffin. I got the plain kind, with no seasonings, on account of him.
This doesn’t paint me in the most flattering light, but I’ll be honest. I did sob and blubber to Muffin about him being “the only man who loves me, and that’s only because I have free range chicken.” Then I used his soft, orange fur to soak up my tears.