Page 8 of From Fling to Ring

We look up to see Petal’s handsome red-headed husband, Rake, and his buddies.

Rake gives Gilly and me kisses on the cheek, and lands one on his wife’s lips.

“Look at the happy newlyweds,” his friend says.

“Hey, you ladies remember Tyler and Jonas, right?” Rake says, gesturing at his friends.

Just as we start nodding and saying our hellos, someone’s phone alarm goes off.

“Oh, shit,” Jonas says, grabbing it out of his back pocket. “Gotta run. See you all later.”

He hands his beer to Tyler and we watch him disappear through the crowd, heading in the direction of the restaurant’s front door.

Rake turns back to us. “He’s got kid duty.”

That’s right. He’s the single dad with two little kids.

I’m dying to get out of here too. The party has just dialed up a notch by getting much more crowded and considerably louder. Not a good place to be when you have the urge to really hurt someone.

But before I shove off, I have an idea. Lemons out of lemonade, and all that.

“Tyler,” I say, turning to Rake’s mop-haired buddy, “do you think I could interview you sometime? For the SF Freekly?”

He turns his attention in my direction like he’s seeing me for the first time. “Sorry? What’s the paper?”

I know I’ve told him before what paper I work for, during some interminable small talk, which I am terrible at. I don’t blame him for not remembering, though. He’s not exactly our target market. I’m not exactly his target market either, from the women I’ve seen him checking out this evening.

But I’m not letting him go yet.

“I work for the San Francisco Freekly, Tyler. It’s the city’s ‘free weekly,’ also known as ‘Freekly.’ Get it?”

He nods with pretend interest, and if he doesn’t stop looking over my shoulder at the hot girl with the fake tits behind me, I just might have to spill my beer on him. Or accidentally stomp on his foot with my high-heeled bootie.

“Freekly, yeah, I get it,” he says, pretty much as uninterested as a person could be.

That’s when Petal steps in. “Ty, Lucy’s a really good journalist and it could be good for her career to do a story on someone from a local sports team.” She looks over at me, smiling, and I remember why she’s my ride-or-die.

“Yeah, Tyler, Lucy gets all kinds of interesting assignments, like her latest one covering dirty bathrooms?—”

This time, I do step on someone’s foot, and that someone is Gilly. Oops.

She squeals and hops up and down for a moment on her good foot.

“Jesus, Gills, I’m so sorry,” I lie.

She throws me a well-deserved stink eye.

“So what do you say, Tyler? Are you open to a quick and easy interview? To be carried out at your convenience, of course,” I promise.

Rake slaps him on the back, hard, so hard some of his beer slops out of its cup, but hell, he’s paying attention now.

“Oh, sure, I’m sure that will be fine. I gotta clear it with our PR guy, but I’m sure it will be fine.”

“Great,” I say. Maybe this day isn’t a total wash.

Rake pats him on the back like a good dog, and I remember why I can’t stand this pro-athlete-playboy-big-swinging-dick archetype, and it’s not just because I, and women like me, are invisible to them.

“Oh say, Lucy,” Tyler starts to say.

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