Page 95 of The Autumn We Fell in Love

Which might be the reason it’s so hard to get a date that doesn’t feel like a waste of an evening. I’d rather hang with the dead than indulge in a one night stand.

The Bison is extra loud this evening, and even the regulars are more raucous than usual. I glance around at the pumpkin garlands and strings of tiny orange lights draped from anything that will hold them and wonder if the closeness of Halloween has anything to do with it.

I incline my chin at one of the bartenders and she hustles over, wiping her hands on a rag.

“Another round,” I say, nodding at Andrew, who’s talking to an old-timer in a cowboy hat on his other side. The middle-aged bartender starts filling two fresh pint glasses with amber liquid.

I lean in. “It seems like quite the party here tonight.”

She chuckles. “That’s the Halloween season for ya. Although this doesn’t help.” She slides a pamphlet across the bartop to me.

Find Your Boo, I read in bold purple letters across the top, the words dripping illustrated green slime.

“What’s this?” I frown.

The bartender snorts. “Can’t you read? It’s a speed dating event, and it’s happening tonight.” She points. “Right over there.”

I follow her finger to the far end of the bar where the log plank walls open up into a side room. Pairs of chairs are set up in a ring, each chair facing its partner.

“Speed dating?” I say, feeling as dumb as I sound as I turn back to the bartender. My movement attracts Andrew’s attention and he swivels around on his stool too.

“Yeah,” the woman says, tapping the pamphlet with a long, black-painted fingernail. “You know, to find your true love and whatnot.”

Andrew whistles, scanning the paper. “You should do it,” he says, grinning up at me.

I scowl. “Why?”

“Because,” he drops his voice so only I can hear him over the din of the bar, “you’re lonely.”

My chin practically hits the floor. “I am—“

“It’s plain as day, man,” he says, tone gentler than ever. Then he grins. “And hey, what harm could it do? Might even be fun.”

The bartender nods. “I can’t say that you’ll meet your one and only,” she says with a shrug, “but I’ve done more than a few of these sorts of thing, and they’re never boring.”

Never boring.

I think of leaving, of telling Andrew he can grab a cab later, of driving my pickup the hell out of here.

Then I think of what’s waiting for me at home — the silent dead, all my memories of Dad, and that sense of suffocation that I just can’t seem to shake, no matter how much I enjoy the caretaking business.

I stand. “Okay,” I say. “Sign me up.” The flabbergasted expression that storms across Andrew’s face almost makes my decision worth it all on its own.

“‘Atta boy,” the bartender says, sliding our beers across the bar toward us, leaving a trail of condensation behind. “Go have yourself a good time.”

I grab my beer and take a big gulp. “I’ll do my best.”

And I mean it. Because why the hell not? And maybe, just maybe, I really will meet a woman worth giving my heart to.

I shove the thought from my head.Fun, I tell myself. This is all for fun and nothing more. No sense in getting my hopes up for nothing.

Autumn

My taxi never shows. Of course it doesn’t. That would be too easy.

No, instead I have to stand there outside the locked-down airport — it only has two gates, after all, so it closes at six o’clock every evening — and try to get a signal on my phone.

When I finally do, hands numb with cold, I pull up the ride-sharing app on my phone — only to discover that there is no ride-sharing in Deadwood.

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