Page 77 of Descent

Meet me instead.

Chef Ryan is preparing dinner for us. Get in the car, and Hollis will bring you to me.

I promise you’ll have a better time.

-Calvin

I guffaw, shaking my head with a faint smile at his gall. Whatever he lacks, the man certainly has audacity.

I bring my gaze back to Hollis, still shaking my head. “I’m not getting in that car.”

“I would strongly urge you to reconsider.”

I hold the letter back out to him. “I would strongly urgeyouto remind Calvin that I fulfilled my end of the bargain. I gave him the only date I promised him, and now we’re finished. I’m never having dinner with him ever again. I’m never doinganythingwith him ever again. He can forget me like I hope to forget him. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I don’t want to be late to meet my date.”

Hollis sighs.

I turn away and start putting distance between us on the sidewalk so he doesn’t grab me and force me into the vehicle.

Once I’m a few yards away, I feel safer, but Hollis calls after me, “Do this the easy way, Hallie.”

I turn just enough to toss back over my shoulder, “Tell Calvin I said sometimes you can’t get what you want.”

Hollis hangs his head and mutters something I can’t hear from this far away.

I wasn’t excited for the date before, and I’m still not reallyexcited, but I do feel strangely energized after slipping through Calvin’s fingers.

Maybe this date will be just what I needed, after all.

___

When I first encounter Lance Matthews, I can see immediately why Charity set me up with him. He smells like trust fund and smiles as he gives me the same generic onceover he’s undoubtedly given hundreds of women before me.

“Charity didn’t tell me you were such a knockout,” he jokes with a smile I can’t help but find a little smarmy.

We both know that’s not true. Charity undoubtedly talked me up and made me sound better than I am to sell him on the idea of spending his Friday night with me when he almost certainly would have been spending it picking up girls at a club instead.

It’s just a sense, but I have a strong feeling if this date doesn’t go a certain way, he’ll still end up there.

His hand moves toward me and I want to move away, but he touches my waist before I can think of a polite way to dodge him and pulls me in for an immediate hug.

He smells like too much cologne. Probably not cheap cologne, but too much all the same.

I tell myself to relax, that I’m being too critical, but I knew I would be. This is why I didn’t want to come out in the first place. I’m notready, but Charity doesn’t have the patience to wait for me to be.

Smiling a bit sheepishly, I tell him, “I apologize in advance if it turns out Charity wasted both our time.”

“Nah, are you kidding me?” he says as he drops my hand and walks next to me without touching me. “We’ll have a great time tonight.”

Although his hands don’t touch me, his eyes do. I feel uncomfortable as his gaze rakes over me again, and not uncomfortable in the way Calvin made me feel sometimes. Somehow worse than that.

Stop.

I shake my head to clear Calvin out of it and follow Lance inside the restaurant.

He has a reservation, so we don’t have to wait too long for a table. He still insists we have a drink at the bar while we wait to loosen up. I sip my cocktail and try to remember how a first date is supposed to work. It has been a while since I’ve been on one, and apparently it is not like riding a bike.

He asks me what I do for fun before he asks what I do for work, but maybe Charity has already told him. He tells me he’s a finance guy and I nod because I already knew that. Then he starts telling me about this trip to Thailand he took with his college buddies earlier this summer and what an incredible experience it was. That does sound cool, I’ve always wanted to travel, but he doesn’t really give me a chance to say that. He drones on and on about himself and his friends that I don’t know. It seems like he thinks he’s impressing me as he goes on to tell me about this girlfriend he had at the time, a reality TV star he won’t name because surely I’d recognize her.

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