Mark
“Wanna come on a double date with me?” my grandfather asked when I walked into my parents’ condo. My father was nursing what was probably not his first drink of the day. It was understandable; my grandfather was a handful.
“I uh—”
“I’m dating this real broad; you ought to see her! She basically threw herself at me,” my grandfather bragged.
Harris Holbrook had notoriously disastrous taste in girlfriends. They were all younger than me, and they were all textbook examples of gold diggers.
“Isn’t Ida swell?” my grandfather said, pulling up a picture on his phone and showing me. The photo showed an older woman with purple lipstick and a shock of short white hair.
“At least it’s a woman his own age,” my uncle Walter said, tossing back his drink.
“Now Mark, I don’t like to hear that you’re not dating,” my grandfather said loudly. “I asked your father, and he said you were moping around.”
“I’m not moping,” I said.
My grandfather steamrolled ahead. “Now sure, that broad you had hanging around tried to kill you, but you have to get back on the horse. Hell, one of my old flames tried to kill your brother, but you don’t see me wallowing in my own pity! I went back out there and grabbed the bull by the horns. That’s how I found Ida. She is incredible in the sack. You know, she has this whole sex toy business.”
“I literally did not want to know that,” I said helplessly.
My grandfather handed me a sack that read Bath and Body Twerk.
“I told her all about your issues. She has several performance-enhancing products in there. She assembled a whole gift set just for you.”
He held it out to me, but I didn’t take it. So my grandfather draped the bag’s handles around my neck then patted my shoulder.
“Ida has a friend she said would be very interested in you.” He swiped to another picture and stuck it in my face.
“This woman looks like she’s eighty, Granddad!”
“You have to take baby steps back into dating,” my grandfather insisted. “Dottie would just be practice. I hear you all are going to Harrogate tomorrow to pick out a plant, right?”
“Flowers for the bouquets and decorations,” I corrected him.
My uncle handed me a glass filled to the brim with scotch. “I don’t know why,” Uncle Walter said dryly, “but for some reason, he inspires me to drink.”
“It’s because I’m a real man, and real men drink!” Harris bragged.
“And philander and have questionable taste in women apparently,” my father, Jack, said dryly.
“So shall I put you down for a date?” my grandfather asked.
“No, thanks.”
“Nonsense!” my grandfather exclaimed. “I’ll have Ida set something up for us.”
My father gave me an apologetic shrug as I set my empty glass on the counter and left to go check on Beowulf.
My family’s obsession with my dating life was aggravating.
Except I am, I thought.Or I guess I am. I was doing whatever that too-short evening with Brea had been. I couldn’t figure her out. Brea had acted strange during the date. I had tried to put my best foot forward, but she had just acted…well, I supposed she acted like herself. She had always dressed eccentrically, and I knew she liked sugar. Maybe she toned down her real personality for work hours and had let her true colors shine with me.
“You’re so used to women trying to be something that they’re not to impress you and get into your bed and wallet that when someone acts authentic, you can’t handle it,” I chastised myself. “You’re just as bad as Granddad.”
What I did know was that, for the first time since Rhonda had blown up my world, literally, I actually wanted to commit to a relationship. I wanted to commit to Brea.
The question was, did Brea want to commit to me? Or had I been too much of a dick at the start for her to forgive me?
