Page 21 of Resurfaced Passion
Sleep came fast and he didn’t dream this time.
CHAPTER SIX
“Fuck this, I didn’t swipe right for a threesome with a pissed off Hells Angel wannabe.” – The guy sitting opposite Paige.
Once again Paige tugged at the hem of her skirt, flattening the silvery-white material against her thighs, wondering if she made the right choice to wear a dress tonight and not the skinny jeans she’d laid across the bed.
It was Winter over FaceTime who told her to go with a dress and heels.
She was more comfortable in tennis shoes and sweats and licking the chips dust from her fingers. Not sitting at a middle table surrounded by people in Otis’ bar and grill waiting for her date to show up. All she knew was what was on his bio and the little text conversation they’d shared on the app. This one was called Carson; he was a small animal vet with his own practice a few counties away. 5’8, brown hair and athletic. And he spelled all the words correctly without stupid text talk. That was about the sum total of what she knew about veterinarian Carson.
Feeling a little more nervous than usual because, Brody, her very first date didn’t even show up.
She didn’t want to be here. It hit her all at once, a slap of truth that she was going through the motions of something she didn’t want. Not with vet Carson, even if he turned out to be the nicest guy on earth.
Maybe she wasn’t his type. Maybe he hated pink hair or cardigans. What if she wasn’t attracted to him in person? What if he chewed with his mouth open and told racist jokes?
Stop it, Paige,she chastised. It was just nerves trying to make her run home. She was putting herself officially on the dating scene for a reason, she was sick of being alone, for one. And if she bought any more batteries for her sex toys she was about to go bankrupt.
She needed sex.
God, did she.
She was starting to eat her sexual feelings and there was only so much cheesecake in the world before she had to replace it with a nice hard man between her thighs.
Reaper. Reaper. Reaper.
No! She inhaled and pushed any thought of him from her mind. With no indication he wanted more than a friendship she had to engage self-preservation and move on from hopes and dreams, or she’d still be stuffing cheesecake balls in her mouth at 2 am and mass bulk ordering batteries from Amazon when she was in her sixties.
Maybe she could get a few cats.
Hey, maybe veterinarian Carson would give her free cat check-ups. She’d have to ask him. She giggled to herself and right then a shadow crossed the table and she looked up at a pair of cobalt eyes and a straight white smile.
She was not disappointed in what she saw.
“Hi, Paige?”
Wow, he looked exactly like his profile pic. She wasn’t nervous at all when she smiled and nodded. “Hi, Carson, nice to meet you,” mainly because she was not attracted to the guy taking his seat. Like at all. He was all get out kinds of handsome and big, she just bet he played sports because he had a really nice strong build. But there was not a flicker of wanting to climb on his face. If she found a moment to use her phone she’d have to text and let Winter know she was gonna be sexless forever. Thank god for overnight shipping.
Twenty minutes. Thirty minutes. As the time dripped away and their conversation built, her mind wandered, she felt so bad about it. She should be concentrating on the cute guy telling her a story about trying to catch a darling teacup pig at work the other day. And though she laughed, Paige’s mind was elsewhere.
Drip.
Drip.
The man who she shouldn’t be thinking about went on dripping himself all over her mind, poking his gorgeous face in and letting her see imaginary Reaper was not pleased she was out on a date.
She was an excellent judge of character and this felt all wrong.
Oh, my god, Paige. Get a grip.Now she was fabricating how angry he’d be? Too far. Too far down that crush rabbit hole.
The only thing she could do was push one man out of her mind to make room for another.
* * *
“Hey,Hermano, you awake?”
“No, I’m dead. What is it, Capone?” Flopping over to his back, Reaper threw an arm over his face and tested out his eyes. The brightness in the room didn’t burn and he was left with only a dull, sluggish ache in his left temple now. That kind of pain was manageable.
