“Where are we?” Tyler asked, looking warily out the window as Jordan parked the car. “You’ve taken us to Mugger Central.”
She rolled her eyes and opened her door. “C’mon, Tyler. It’s not that bad. I’ve been coming here for years.”
He got out of the car and assessed his surrounding as fear escalated inside him. The buildings around them were dilapidated with graffiti sprayed all over the walls. The whole block looked neglected, abandoned almost. One in every six street lamps actually worked and the dim light only made everything look more eerie and…dangerous. The only real light seem to come from the fluorescent red and yellow sign, flashingQ’sabove them.
“Let’s get it to go,” he suggested, but she simply shook her head. “Jordan, I’d like to point out that I’m more of a flight than a fight guy, so if shit goes down, it’s every man for himself.”
She laughed. “Thanks for letting me know.” He held the door open for her and she walked in. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you use a brown word before. Did you just say if shit goes down?”
“Well, when in Rome,” Tyler said with half a smile, “speak as the Romans do.”
She giggled again and greeted the man behind the bar. “Hey, Freddy.”
Once inside, he felt a bit more relaxed. There were no other customers so that ruled out the possibility of a bar-fight. It wasn’t really a restaurant. It was a pool hall that just so happened to serve food as well. Now the simple nameQ’sseemed to make sense. Pool tables were lined up at the back. The bar was in front, near the entrance, with a flat screen T.Vmounted on the right corner. Tyler wasn’t really one for sports, but he assumed that this place would be packed when a big game was on. There were red vinyl seating booths along one wall and Jordan pulled off her suit jacket and slid into one of them.
“So what shall we get?” she asked.
“Maybe some line fish or grilled calamari.”
She smiled. “Tyler, look around. This is not a place that serves calamari. You get steak or you get a burger. Both come with fries and onion rings so take your pick.”
“There are only two things on the menu?” he asked in shock.
“Yep.”
“Okay…steak.”
“Hey, Freddy,” Jordan shouted. “Two steaks.”
“Beer?” Freddy shouted back.
“Sure.”
Their food was served hot in less than twenty minutes and Tyler had to admit that it was the best food he’d eaten in a long time. The meat was tender and juicy and to wash it down with an ice-cold beer was a treat. The cheap beer, however, was quite addictive and the more they drank, the more the conversation regressed. They had started off talking about fancy cars, then moved on to reality TV shows. After that was a particularly mind-numbing chat about chicken farming, but when she looked up at him with mischief in her blue-gray eyes, he knew her next question was going to be trouble.
“Have you ever laughed so hard you farted?”
Tyler’s mouth dropped open and he stared at her with a gob smacked expression. “What?”
“Have you ever…laughed so hard…you farted?”
“Jordan, I don’t feel comfortable—”
“Answer the question,” she said, pointing her knife at him like she was going to use it as a weapon.
“Yeah,” he admitted, although he was not happy to admit such a thing. “Matt and I were still in high school and he played this silly prank on our chemistry teacher. I didn’t know what he was up to, but the next thing I see is this woman running out of the chem lab and her face is…blue and…yeah…”
“Yeah, what?”
“Yeah, I laughed so hard…” He let out a heavy breath of annoyance and rolled his eyes. “…I farted.”
She erupted with laughter, captivating and uninhibited and that brought an instant grin to his face. He liked watching her laugh. Her smile was radiant. The beer reddened her cheeks and as she pushed her glasses up onto her head to wipe her eyes, he noticed that she was dangerously on the verge of not looking like Jordan anymore. Her sleeves were rolled up and the top two buttons of her light blue blouse were unfastened. She looked relaxed, not at all like the deadline-driven maniac he was used to.
So he was kind of on a third not-a-date with Jordan and two things stood out. It was much less painful when she asked and he was a lot less edgy when he wasn’t constantly looking around for Trisha. He’d been noticing little things about her, but being with her now without any pretense and the heavy weight of a lie was just…nice. They had nothing in common, yet there had not been one stilted moment in the conversation.
Tyler cleared his throat as her laughter died down. “Have you ever?”
“I have,” she said, taking another sip of her beer, though she was not ashamed of admitting it. “My brother, Kevin, and I are the youngest in the family and we always got the dumb chores. Every Saturday we had to go into town and buy groceries for my mom. So one fateful morning, we walk down the street, we get Perry—”
