Page 37 of Eight Steps to Alpha

She laughed. “There are at least thirty items here, we couldn’t possibly.”

“Top five?”

She bit her inner cheek, hesitant to order that much food, but reluctantly agreed. “What the heck. Why not?”

After a short disagreement about chicken wings, they finally settled on an order: Bacon wrapped shrimp, avocado crostini, wontons stuffed with jalapeño poppers, fried chicken and waffle-bun sliders, buffalo wings, and last but not least, a build your own S’mores kit that came with its own fire.

“That was actually six,” Fe stated, when the server walked away. “And did you see the way she was looking at you? Priceless.”

Elliot leaned back in his seat and studied her. “Looking at me? How?”

“Are you kidding? She was totally checking you out.”

Elliot pushed at the bridge of his nose, forgetting he wasn’t wearing his glasses. “Are you shitting me?” He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the server.

Fe giggled. “Yes.”

He rubbed over his five o’clock shadow, and flexed his chest a little. “I guess your hard work is paying off.”

She took a sip of soda and shook her head. “Our hard work.” She corrected.

“Fine.” He grinned a little. “Our hard work.”

Her chest inflated a little, and she let it out a sigh as she played with her napkin. It was hard to believe this man was the same person, that it had almost been two weeks, that soon he’d have a girlfriend. She glanced up at him, to his new-found confidence and shook her head. He wasn’t hiding his face any longer, or his body for that matter. “You look good, Elli.”

He squinted a little, embarrassed by her compliment. “I guess you were right about my wranglers.”

She sat up straighter. “What makes you say that?”

“I’ve had about four different woman compliment my ass in the last week.”

She almost spit out her drink. “Really?”

“Yep.” His cheeks grew crimson, but he sat forward in his seat like he wasn’t the least embarrassed. “What’s next on the list, Fe, what you got in that your big bag of tricks?”

Her throat tightened, and she shook her head. A few nights ago he was rolling around on the floor with his brother, and now he was asking about the next step? “About that. We don’t have—”

But Elliot braced his arms on the table and leaned forward. “Are you bailing on me, Porto?”

In spite of herself, she laughed. “I don’t even remember where we’re at.” She exhaled. “I don’t even know what’s next.”

He held up a finger, then dug his cellphone from his pocket. “Hang on.” He flicked through his device and pulled up his album. “I took a picture.”

“Of course, you did,” she whispered to herself.

He scanned over the list with his finger, making a few faces as he went. “Drink. That’s the next one. Whisky or beer. No pussy drinks. That’s what you wrote.”

She cringed, because she was pretty sure it was the first time she’d heard him say the p word. “Well, I guess we’ll have to plan something. Maybe we can Uber after?”

“Uber? Why do you want to Uber?

Fe shook her head. “Because if you’re going to drink, we can’t very well drive, now can we?”

“Let’s do it at home. I get shit-faced, make a fool of myself privately, and you can put me to bed.”

She frowned, because that sounded like the worst possible idea ever. “I don’t think so.”

“Why?”

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