“That’s that. Let’s go.” I stand and grab the blazer off my chair, and Leo and I head out.
“You okay, man?”Leo stops inhaling his lunch to inquire about my less-than-chatty demeanor.
“Yeah, why? Is there something on my face?” I grab my napkin, wiping around my mouth to find the rogue sauce. He shakes his head.
“No, but you look confused. Or maybe, constipated?”
“Shut up, idiot. I’m fine. I’m just thinking.” I dip a fry in barbecue sauce and take a bite.
It’s an unspoken rule among men that we don’t pry, but Leo has never been able to read a room so, of course, he pushes.
“About?” he waves the back of his hand in my general direction, signaling me to go on.
If I say “it’s nothing” he will continue to pry, and I’m a shit liar. So, I decide to let Leo help me sort through my attraction to my grader. “Remember last weekend when you and John dragged me to that club so you could meet up with those Tinder chicks you wanted to hook up with?”
Leo looks at the ceiling. “Fuck, Shelly… Sherry? Shelly. Yeah. She was so fucking hot. Didn’t you bow out early that night?”
“Yeah, that was the plan.” I start to rub my forehead. “But as I was heading out I met someone.”
“Yeah?” A grin takes over his face. “About damn time, man.”
I shake my head, laughing. “She gave me her number and then gave me the brush off when I sent her a text a few days later.”
Leo’s lifting a fry to his mouth as I tell him about Alis’s brushoff, and he freezes, fry in hand, dumbstruck by this revelation. He shoves his fry into his mouth, cocks his head to the side, and scrunches his eyebrows together in confusion. After swallowing his fry Leo asks, “Aren’t women usually waiting by their phones for the dude to text them for another date?”
“I guess. But not this one. She wasted no time responding and shutting things down before I could really entertain seeing her again.”
“That’s just brutal,” Leo snorts. “Looks like your man bun lost its luster. Needs more fairy dust or whatever magic it gives off to make women drop their panties for you.”
“Seriously, man. You’re a child, I swear.”
He laughs. “You know it’s true, though! Every time we go out half the women in the bar spend the night eye fucking you from their stools. They dig your lumbersexual look.”
“Lumbersexual? What the hell is that?”
“You know, like a sexy lumberjack. But you’re too pretty to be a lumberjack so nevermind.”
“Too pretty? Are you high? What is wrong with you? I’m Canadian! I’m rugged!” I’m not even convincing myself at this point.
Leo’s cackling is getting louder, drawing attention from the people around us. “No, bro. I just meant that you don’t have that rugged, outdoorsy look going for you. But still, women are always coming onto you and petting your hair, rubbing their tits all over your arm trying to get your attention.”
He’s right. Women do tend to flock toward me at bars and most of them try to touch my hair. It’s kinda weird. Do they think it’s hot to pet a man in public? I’m not a dog.
I brush off his words. “Whatever. She was different. We talked.” Ikeep eating, thinking back to the smile etched on her face as we talked at the bar.
“Please, hold back,” Leo goads. “Your overflowing details are too much.”
I roll my eyes. “We talked. She’s witty, and gorgeous. She knows Tolstoy and Dumas.”
“Whoa now. Slow down.” Leo holds up his hands in mock surprise. “She’s read classic authors? How rare!”
“Shut up, dumbass. I mean she KNOWS them, knows them. She can quote their works. It was hot as hell.”
“Damn. No wonder you actually contacted this one. She’s into your nerdy literature shit.”
“Don’t be daft; you have a doctorate. You may act like an unintelligent manchild, but you know if some gorgeous woman at a bar started talking your ear off about tangents and cotangents you’d drool all over yourself.”
He considers this for a moment. “Yeah. That’d be fucking hot. I bet that chick would actually understand my pickup lines.”
