“Don’t stand there gawking, Tina. Go get dressed. A black dress, I think. Something that will cover your arms and legs.” He looks me up and down, evaluating, judging. He heaves a sigh. “At least your body fat is distributed in a way that your waist looks small enough, but the rest of you leaves a lot to be desired. If I decide to continue seeing you, which I most likely won’t, you would need to put in alotmore time at the gym before I would take you somewhere as public as Forked again. You’re lucky I’m a man of high value, otherwise your appearance could reflect badly on me. Thankfully, I’m far too wealthy and respected for one woman’s appearance to cause much harm. If I didn’t need to show up with someone to teach my bitch of an ex a lesson, I would leave you here. Still, try to make yourself look pretty. And for the love of god, get rid ofthose terrible glasses. They make you look like a librarian, and not the sexy kind.”
With each word of his little speech, the rage bubbles up inside me until I can hold it in no longer. “Now you listen here, you self-absorbed little twat.” I take step after slow step toward him until I’m standing mere inches away. “The only thing ‘high’ around here is your blood alcohol level, because you have to be drunk if you think I would ever date you. I don’t understand howanyonewould ever date you. In fact, I’d like to meet this ex of yours, maybe shake her hand. Sounds like she really dodged a bullet.” His face reddens, gradually turning the same angry purple as the last man who thought he had a date with me, ramping up the intense giddiness I feel in my belly.Interesting. I wonder if turning purple is a common trait among these so-called “high value men”?“And another thing, if you’d gotten your head out of your ass long enough to listen when I was talking, you would have known that we don’t have a date. I’m not on any dating sites. Someone catfished you.”
He splutters, his face nearing the color of a nice, ripe eggplant.I wonder if Nick likes eggplant parmigiana?I think to myself as the guy in front of me rages on.Maybe he’d like that for tomorrow’s dinner.
“No one catfishes Milton Maguire. I’m too smart for that. No, I know what’s happening here. Who are you to think you can fuck me around like this? No one treats Milton Maguire this way.” He takes a step closer, pressing his chest to mine, trying to crowd me, attempting to intimidate me with the few inches of height he has on me. “You need to learn not to fuck with your betters.”
“I think that’s enough.” Wade’s voice comes from behind Milton before he jerks him away from me, leaving a space where an angry eggplant previously stood. Wade is holding Milton’s arm twisted up high behind his back, and he’s using his leverageto move him to the exit. “It’s time you left, Milton.” He tips his chin toward the door. “Carson, my boy. Can you get that for me? It appears Milton here needs some help finding the door.”
“You got it, Mr. Biddescombe.” Carson wipes his hands on his apron as he rushes out from behind the counter. He slides to a stop by the door before pulling it open, the chime sounding as cheerful as ever. “There you go, guy. The door’s right here. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
I watch in amazement as my middle-aged landlord and my teen-aged sous-chef frog march my would-be date out of the restaurant and force him into the driver’s seat of what must be his car, then stand there and watch as he drives away. It’s a good thing they took care of it, too, because I was a breath away from ripping that asshole’s arms off. Who does he think he is, coming to my restaurant and talking to me that way?
Chloe is right. I really need to find out where all these guys are coming from, because this shit’s getting ridiculous.
I Wear The Required Uniform
Nick
“Ahhhhhhh!”
Tina’s scream echoes down the street, and I instantly break into a sprint.Why didn’t I come sooner?I knew that light needed changing, and I did nothing about it.How could you be so stupid, Nick? You did this. She’s getting hurt because of you.
I’d started walking to the restaurant tonight, hoping to see Tina before she closed, but I got lost in my thoughts and wound up wandering a little. I’m at the end of the block on the other side of the square when I hear the first scream, and it takes a minute before I reach her building, where I’m met byanother, even louder scream. Yet another scream echoes down the darkened stairs to her apartment and I launch myself up them two at a time, not stopping until I’m in her bedroom.
“Tina! What’s wrong, baby? What happened?” She’s standing at the foot of her bed facing away, screaming gibberish, fists on her luscious hips as she vibrates with fury. If my heart weren’t beating hard enough to jump out of my chest, this would be incredibly sexy.
“That.. sonofa... Gah! Not again. God damn it, Winston. I’ll turn you into a lampshade. I don’t give a shit what your hot daddy has to say about it, either.”
I finally take my eyes off of her and look past her to see what she’s screaming at.
There, in all his mayoral glory, is Winston, the town goat.
He looks almost regal with a sash that reads “Mayor Winston” draped around his neck, even while grinding something that looks a lot like the pair of panties Tina was wearing the other night between his teeth. The sight of him chewing away on her panties as she screams about turning him into progressively more ridiculous pieces of furniture, including couch cushions, a coat rack, a hatbox, a journal, and the Necronomicon ex-mortis book of the dead, is too much to handle. I erupt into laughter, huge braying guffaws bursting out of me without a pause for a breath. “I can’t—hatbox... book of the dead...”
Tina spins, her glare doing nothing to quell the hysteria, especially when I look at Winston again, and he’s chewing away like we’re not even here, his rectangular slitted pupils taking in nothing and everything all at once. He could not care less about my laughing or her screaming, which is what makes this situation so much funnier.
“Laugh it up, Chuckles.Hilarious.” She leans back and wiggles her fingers in the air, jazz-hands style. “I hope you’re enjoying the show.”
I snort another laugh and bend to clutch my stomach.Jazz hands. She jazz hands-ed me.“Oh, God. I can’t breathe.” I suck in a deep shuddering a breath and squeeze my eyes shut against the sight of Winston’s lazy chewing and Tina’s frenzied anger, attempting to block out the hilarity and get myself under control.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Tina huffs and takes a few stomping steps. “You need to leave.Hmmph.” Her grunt is followed by some shuffling and bumping sounds. I should probably open my eyes to see what she’s up to now, but I’m not sure I can hold back my laughter if I do. The situation is beyond ridiculous. “You stupid goat. If you don’t get out of here right now, I’ll turn you into a ragu then use your skin to make menu covers for the restaurant.” Some more shuffling and grunting noises follow, and I can’t take the suspense any longer. I open my eyes.
Tina has Winston’s sash wrapped around her hands, and she’s pulling it like a leash, squatting down to get more leverage as she tries to get Winston to budge. For his part, Winston has sucked more of the pair of panties into his mouth, with only the smallest scrap hanging out now, and he’s giving the impression that he’s looking around for more to snack on without moving his head.Goat eyes are so weird.
“Move, you useless lump of flesh. I don’t care if you are the mayor. I’m about to call animal control. Get”—she leans farther back, putting all of her weight behind pulling the sash—“out!” Winston doesn’t budge when Tina gives one last heave backward, snapping the sash, and stumbling to the floor with a thud, her gorgeous ass taking the brunt of the impact. “Ouch. Shit,” she whispers, getting to her feet as she rubs her butt. “That hurt.”
Winston takes her distraction as an opportunity to dip his head into a dresser drawer, from which he emerges with another pair of panties between his teeth, and a bra snagged on one of his curling horns. He must decide he’s had enough of this apartment because before Tina notices the contraband he’s carrying, he clomps out of the room and out the door.
Tina rouses from her stupor and bolts from the room. I spin and follow as she flies down the steps to the street, making it to the sidewalk in time to see Winston trotting toward Impeckable Auto, his stolen undergarments waving in the wind.
“Yeah, you better run,” Tina yells, shaking her fist in the air on the empty sidewalk. “And don’t expect me to vote for you in the next election after this stunt, either. You’re dead to me, Winston. Do you hear me? Dead to me.”
By some miracle, I force down my laughter, so when Tina turns to face me, I’m as straight-faced as someone who’d spent the last several minutes laughing his ass off could be. So hardly straight-faced at all. It doesn’t surprise me at all that Tina does not appear to be a fan of my face at the moment.
“Thanks for the help,” she says, sarcasm dripping from each word. “It would be a shame if a giant man who heard me screaming for help ran to my apartment, then did nothing but cackle like a hyena and roll around the floor.”
Her face is flushed, and her breaths come in great heaves, reminding me of our night together when she was breathless on top of me. I wish I could forget it for one minute, but the truth is, I’ve thought of little else since I left her apartment that morning. It felt like something real to me. Something permanent. Peter was right. I don’t just want to date Tina. I want so much more than that. So I guess now all that’s left is to convince her to take a chance on me.
