Page 69 of Sweet Thing

Not a great way to start a date.

“Have a good night,” I murmured as I walked past Lars.

“Adeline.” I turned back to face him. “Call me if you need anything. And I meananything.”

“I won’t.” I said it with as much cheer as possible. The last thing I needed was Lars Nyquist’s ghost on my date.

I looked around,a little surprised that Rowan had taken me to Viper, a famous nightclub in downtown Chicago. It was barely eight in the evening.

“They do really good sliders,” he said.

Heading to a club for its cuisine was unexpected, but then so far it had been one awkward moment after another.

Once in Rowan’s car, he took a selfie, or an “ussie” as Rosie called it, a term I despised because it was so stupid. He hadn’t liked the first shot nor the second, but the third time was the charm.(“You don’t look like you’ve been taken hostage in that one.”)

“You’re not going to post that, are you?” Asked because he then spent a few moments fixing the contrast and adding a filter. We hadn’t even left Lars’s driveway.

“You ashamed to be hanging with me?”

“No, not at all. But we’ve only just met.” My social interactions with dates tended toward the old-fashioned. Didn’t anyone want to start slow?

He smiled. “Sure, we can hold off on the PDA.”

Not sure an ussie qualified as PDA, but I let it pass. As we headed to downtown Chicago, Rowan had plenty of questions about the setup with Lars.

“You live there?”

“It makes the most sense to keep things consistent for Mabel.”

“The old man can’t be dealing with this baby shit all that well.”

My hackles spiked.Old man?He’s only thirteen years older than me.Through gritted teeth, I said, “He’s doing great. An absolute natural.”

“The guy looked terrified when that chick dropped the kid in his lap. Wrap it before you tap it, that’s what I say.”

“Well, condoms have an 11 to 16% failure rate, so sometimes it can’t be helped.”

Rowan scoffed. “Yeah, but there are always ways to handle that after the fact. And this chick didn’t even want the baby if she’s dumping it on Nyquist.”

It’s really none of your business.I was about to open my mouth to say so, but we’d arrived at the club and Rowan was already handing his keys to the valet.

Once seated, a very attractive brunette wearing a backless halter top and a skirt that stopped just short of her vagina stopped by.

“Hi, I’m Candi. Want to hear about our slider de jour?” The smirk said double entendre, the arched eyebrow said there’s more where that came from.

Rowan grinned while giving her the thrice over. It was as if he’d forgotten he was on a date. “Sure, tell me all about it.”

She launched into a recitation of the slider de jour—lamb merguez with a slice of brie. It sounded pretty good, actually, but I was too nervous to eat.

“You want something, babe?” Rowan asked.

Babe. Shudder.“I’ll just have a glass of Prosecco please.”

Rowan put in four orders of sliders (they’re so small!) and an Ardbeg single malt. Guess I was taking a taxi home.

“Your family must be thrilled to have you back.”

“I think so. They’re a busy lot so I haven’t seen as much of them as I’d like.”

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