Page 97 of Things We Left Behind
“Then I guess I’ll just have to keep shopping for a husband.”
“I’m fucking serious, Sloane. What precautions are you taking? Where is this date? Who knows you’ll be there?”
She gripped my coat by the lapels. “Calm the fuck down, Lucifer. It’s in Lawlerville. Lina and Naomi are tracking my phone with a locater app. I sent them screenshots of his profile and our chat. I’m texting them a picture of him when I get there and proof-of-life messages every thirty minutes. If things go downhill, Stef is on deck to call me with a fake emergency forty-five minutes into the date, because I can handle pretty much anything for forty-five minutes, right? If things goreallybadly, I have pepper spray and a big, fat hardback in my bag. Is that good enough, Suit Daddy?”
“That’s…reasonably thorough,” I admitted when she released me.
“Good. Now, how do I look?” She spread her arms out wide.
She looked beautiful. Fun, spunky, smart, sweet, funny. Fucking breathtaking. I hated Massimo’s fucking guts.
She rolled her eyes. “Never mind. I forgot who I was asking.”
“Suit Daddy?” Her words had finally sunk into my reeling brain.
16
Crunchy Soup and Bad First Dates
Sloane
Massimo was a fraud. Instead of the six-foot-tall, glasses-wearing, gourmet cook hobbyist with a love of popular thriller authors, I was seated across the table from a five-foot-four man-child who had just ordered buttered noodles because marinara was “yucky.”
“My mom makes the best buttered noodles. So if you wanna get with this,” he said, gesturing at his sweater that looked as if it had been intimate with a Weedwacker, “you better learn how to melt that butter just right.”
My God. What had I done to deserve this karma? All I wanted to do was meet a nice, hot guy, have kids, and get a woman out of prison. Was that too much to ask? At least the restaurant was nice. It was part café, part Italian restaurant, part wine bar with checkered tablecloths and the comforting smells of garlic and espresso. If I didn’t have to drive all the way back to Knockemout, I would have been ordering the largest glass of pinot grigio they had.
“Uh, yeah,” I said. “So you said you’re a Grisham fan. Did you read his latest?”
“Who?”
“Grisham. John Grisham,” I prompted.
He was squinting at me through bloodshot eyes.
“The famous legal thriller writer. You saidA Time to Killwas one of your favorites.”
“Ohhh!” he said a little too loudly. “That was actually my mom. I don’t like to like…you know. Communicate? So she writes all my texts and emails for me. Sometimes she even impersonates me on the phone.”
“I don’t know you well enough to know if you’re joking,” I said.
He flailed his arms at the server. “Hey, man! I know we, like, just ordered some food, but I’m starving. Is there any way I could get, like, two baskets of bread? Oh, and some fried mushrooms. And you know what? Throw in a bowl of soup. But not, like, something mushy. I like crunchy soup.”
The server’s gaze slid to me.
“We met online,” I explained.
“Got it,” he said to me, then turned back to Massimo. “I’ll be back with your bread, mushrooms, and crunchy soup.”
“Cool, man. Thanks.”
The server disappeared, and I was left alone with the very hungry, red-eyed mama’s boy.
“Are you high?” I asked.
“You know it. Twenty-four seven, baby. Livin’ the blaze life. Relaxin’ with the reefer. Sparkin’ up Saturday.”
“It’s Wednesday.” I wanted to stand up and walk out, but I had actual concerns about what damage he would inflict on himself and others without any adult supervision.
