Page 11 of The Wrong Date Deal

Piper grinned. “Piper Sutton.”

“August Carmichael. Nice to meet you.”

“August is a cool name,” Piper said, watching as the person in front of August placed their order. She didn’t have time to ask a lot of questions before ordering was going to interrupt the flow of their conversation.

August laughed. “Thanks. My name’s actually Augusta, after my grandmother, but that just didn’t feel very… me. August, however, I could get on board with.”

Piper frowned. “Your parents introduced you as a baby as Augusta?”

“Yes.”

“Wow. Augusta Carmichael. Grand name for a toddler.”

“Hey,” August said, shuffling to the counter, “I got off lightly compared to my brother.”

Piper bit back the question—the demand, almost—to know what August’s brother was called. The barista had turned and was asking August what she wanted. Piper absolutely couldn’t keep the whole place waiting just because she wanted to know what the rest of that sibling set was.

August ordered a cappuccino and Piper smiled. She was entitled to get whatever she wanted, but Piper knew that if she wasn’t feeling a date, she’d get a smaller drink. It was a good sign.

In truth, it wasn’t just August’s name that was cool. She was the coolest person Piper had ever met through online dating. And she was definitely an August, not an Augusta—Piper could already tell. She’d never given much thought to either name before, but, as she watched August paying, it was suddenly very clear to her that those were two completely different people.

“Cinnamon latte, please,” Piper said as she took her turn stepping up to the counter. And, as soon as the barista didn’t have any other questions for her, she turned to look at August. “What’s his name?”

August grinned. “Buford. After our great-grandfather.”

Piper grimaced. “Yeah, okay. That is an old name. Don’t meet a lot of Bufords these days.”

“Or a lot of Augustas.”

“Yeah… Your family is all about those honor names, huh?”

“Just a little,” she said, leaning against the pickup counter with one hand. She might just have been the coolest person Piper hadevermet.

“August and Ford rather than Augusta and Buford. Yeah, you sound a lot younger in the former.”

August laughed. “Thank god for that, hey? You’d never have agreed to this date if you knew my name was Augusta.”

“What?” Piper looked at her with wide eyes. “Yes, I would.”

“Oh, you’re into GILFs, are you?”

“Oh, my god. No. I am not. But I still would have agreed to this date.”

“You would not,” she insisted with a laugh. “Ford got dumped once when someone found out his actual name. Believe me, I know how these things go.”

“Hey, your name could be the rarest, most unusual, most Victorian name in existence, and I’d still be here.”

“That’s a pretty big claim, Ms. Sutton.”

Piper stepped a little closer, her coat almost like a barrier between the two of them and the world. This was the best date opener she’d had in some time and she wasn’t letting it go to waste. “I know your name now, and I’m still here.”

August narrowed her eyes slightly, but straightened up, acquiescing. “Yeah, okay, I’ll give you that. Ford will be so proud.”

Piper laughed. “Hey, the jury’s still out on him.”

“I think you’d like him. Or, I guess, I think he’d like you. I don’t know you well enough to say what you’d like, but, honestly, I think you’d enjoy him.”

Piper smiled. It was clear August loved her brother and the two of them were close. It was sweet. “You two have a good relationship,” she observed, more a prompt than a question.

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