“So, seriously, how was the date?” Jules rose to refresh their drinks.
“Oh, it was interesting.”
“Interesting good, or interesting bad?”
“Both.” Elissa took a large bite of her grinder to give herself a moment to think.
“Don’t think I didn’t see what you did there.” Jules returned with two more pina coladas. “I can wait, you know. I’m amazeballs at waiting.”
“No you’re not,” she said around a mouthful of sandwich.
“No, I’m not, so you better spill before I force it out of you. It couldn’t have been that bad.”
Elissa held up a finger as she swallowed the food and washed it down with pina colada.
“Worse.”
“What? Was he some sort of perv?”
“No, but the guy from the other night worked there.”
Jules’s mouth dropped open. Elissa put her finger under her jaw and pushed it closed.
“You’re shittin’ me!”
“Nope. He’s a bartender.” Elissa pulled the blanket from the back of the couch over her lap. The cold drink was giving her the shivers. Or maybe it was her brush with the handsome man from her dreams last night.
“Fuck. What happened?”
“Nothing. He was perfectly polite, pretended he didn’t know me.”
“Bastard.”
“What else was he supposed to do? Explain to my new date that he impersonated him and made an indecent proposal?”
“Fine, he gets a pass. That would be beyond awkward.” Jules sipped her drink. “But I gotta know, is his name actually Ryan?”
“Yep.”
“What are the fucking odds?”
“We must’ve known at least five Ryans at school, Jules. It’s not an uncommon name.”
She waved away Elissa’s rational explanation. “What about Nice-Ryan? How was he?”
Elissa didn’t know how to answer. She’d been so distracted by the other Ryan, she hadn’t paid much attention to the Ryan she was supposed to be on a date with. Guilt ate her up inside.
“He was nice, I guess. I don’t know. I didn’t expect to go on a date and run into someone else I’d dated.”
Her friend cracked a smile. “Well, now you can join the club. What did you tell him at the end?”
“I told him thanks for a lovely evening and left it at that. Decided in the car Mr. Beige Flag would be a better name for him. You have to help me come up with something to tell him so he knows I’m not interested. In fact, if I have to have another conversation with him, I might pull out my hair. The dude went on for fifteen minutes about his gym.”
“So no sparks?”
“Not with Beige-Flag-Ryan.” Elissa grinned wickedly—she’d never had two men interested in her at once. She kinda liked it.
“No, don’t tell me?—”
