I sat heavily and scooted the little couch closer to his desk, unconcerned. “It’s either that or replace that sorry excuse of a chair. Your choice.”
Jackson took a few hearty bites of his glorified egg salad sandwich and a long slurp of the shake, then gestured for me to continue.
“Fine, Gigantor. Just make sure to put it back when you leave. And you have till the end of this sandwich to tell me about your future husband and his canine companion.”
I unwrapped my Capicola sub and dove right in. “I would like to start by saying that this is all your fault, and I think you need to buy the Thundercloud next time.”
“You’re wrong. But noted.”
“So, I got on a dating app like you recommended.”
“Good. How did that go?”
“It was grim. Until I met Alfie.”
“Yesterday, apparently,” Jackson said, already a third of the way through his sandwich.
Honestly, he had appalling lunchtime etiquette.
“Yes. We went to Addiction.”
“Excellent choice. And what makes Alfie not awful?”
I sighed. “Everything.”
Sipping on the thick shake, he gave me the rolling move-it-along gesture.
Fine.
I gave him a super quick rundown of the prompt and the sparkling back and forth and the immediate chemistry.
“I guess my favorite part about him is that he’s funny. He teased me, but like in a really sweet way.”
He set down his sandwich. “You have a hard time getting people to relax around you, but his teasing was confident, no?”
I nodded. “He was never intimidated by me. And he’s a string bean with a little bit of a belly and curly black hair.”
“You do like the belly and the curly hair.”
I moaned through my bite of sandwich. “He’s so fucking adorable. Anyway, I wouldn’t have been able to see him until Saturday, so I asked if he wanted a quick coffee.”
I glanced at Jackson as I said this, expecting judgment, but instead he looked a little proud.
“Nice initiative.” He frowned. “But it didn’t go well?”
I couldn’t help my smile or the flush on my cheeks. “It went even better in person than online…at first. We started off with banter and this epic, life-changing hug, then his dog comes barreling out of nowhere, barking at me like a lunatic.”
Jackson shook his head as he polished off the first half of his sandwich. “Oh no.”
“Exactly. And then Alfie kinda… laughed at me.”
“Wait, what? We don’t let people?—”
I held up my hand, cutting him off. “He didn’t think I was serious, and when he realized I was, he immediately apologized.”
“How did you handle the dog?”
“I tripped trying to get away from the little hellion, knocked over every damn table and chair, then fell and curled up on my side like an idiot.”
