“Sorry for the wait,” he says, as he presents my cocktail. “Bartenders made me dig the grapefruits outta the walk-in for your twist.”
I raise my poetically timed drink delivery toward my date. “It seems, I, too, was raised by wolves.” And I turn back toward Peeping Tom, who’s suddenly become the lesser of two evils, to say, “Cheers, Tom.”
His eyes dart nervously across the table and back again. “Uh. My name is Jared.”
I drain the glass as Ryan and Jared (apparently) look on in disgust and awe, respectively. In my best mock-Stepford, I dab the corners of my mouth with my cloth napkin.
“My mistake,” I say, before tapping the rim. “Jared, I’m gonna do one more of these.”
And then, because how much or little I enjoy my evening will correlate directly with how miserable I can make Ryan, I turn to him in invitation. “And for tonight’s sponsor? Anything you like.”
I expect his cool blue eyes to blaze, but Ryan’s face flashes from shock to intrigue.
He nods toward the glass I’m currently rubbing sweat from. “Bourbon?”
“Mezcal,” I correct.
His eyebrow quirks like he’s impressed, and I cannot express how little I care to impress this man.
With renewed intensity to his eye contact, Ryan speaks again, but this time he’s finally addressing our waiter when he says, “Make it two.”
—
The rest of the evening follows the same tiresome cycle—trading insults masquerading as flirty first date banter. Me, trying likehell to bury this fucking guy beneath the spike of my stiletto, and him, in return, laughing his grating old boys’ club chortle like we’re in on the joke together.
By the time the dessert cart rolls around, I’m:
fairly certain Zola has no future in matchmaking,
ready to light this guy up in tomorrow’s postmortem, and
shmammered.
“So, Zola—my sister—set this up.”
It’s a clarification that would’ve made more sense earlier in the night, but I thought I’d have figured it out by now. After two hours, I still don’t get it.
“You’re paying her for this service. And this,” I say, gesturing between us, “is the match she chose.”
Ryan’s nod is coupled with a sigh as he leans into the table, his angular chin propped up on steepled fingertips. “Look, I’m an old-school guy—”
“Ya don’t say.”
“I was on the apps for a while after Eliza declined my last contract renewal.”
There it is. One matchmaker’s trash, I guess.
