Page 4 of Flirting with 40

“I did, didn’t I? I’m a city girl, so unless being in the mountains involves sitting on a porch swing sipping wine, then it holds no appeal to me.”

“You’re missing out big time.” He gives a subtle shake of his head as the bartender slides fresh drinks in front of us. “But what does not liking the mountains have to do with hating your boss? Is it simply because she’s making you go on the group bonding session?”

“I can stomach the team bonding because it’s my job, and I think it’s best I form closer connections with my coworkers. It’s more that I think she’d love nothing more than if I didn’t show up. She’d have a perfectly good reason to say I’m not a team player and make sure the world knows so it would be a ding against my possible promotion evaluation.”

“So, you’re going then, right?”

What does he care?

It doesn’t matter because it feels good to talk to someone who actually listens.

“It’s a catch-22. I miss the event and validate what they think of me—that I’m the matron of the group who’s no fun—or I actually go and look like the matron of the group who doesn’t have a significant other so I’m singled out without a partner in all the activities. I don’t know, I get the feeling that my being over the cute late-twenties, let’s-go-and-get-wasted vibe is a detriment in her eyes.”

“And that’s why you don’t like her? Because she’s younger?” He angles his head to the side and doesn’t back down on his stare.

Of course, I just probably described him.

And then offended him.

That hole I’m digging keeps getting deeper and deeper.

“No. Yes. I mean . . . no.”

“That’s more than clear.” He laughs and holds out a hand to me. “Slade Henderson. Younger than you. Has an affinity for the mountains, the outdoors, and can tolerate team bonding even if I don’t always play by the rules. I’m also amused by long diatribes that I have to decipher from the random, beautiful woman sitting beside me in the bar.”

Slade.

His name is Slade.

Isn’t that so damn typical of a twenty-something-year-old? To have a name that proves his mom tried too hard to make him unique in that cute, I’m-an-awesome-mom kind of way?

She is probably a Pinterest perfectionist who always brings the right dessert to a party, makes crafty homemade gifts that everyone coos over, and who never loses her temper at her kids.

And then there’s me. Not a mom because I was too focused on work and then, once I was ready to have kids, Paul told me it would cramp the lifestyle we had built. And Pinterest? Let’s just say I’m the queen of failing anything I’ve attempted. So much so that I’ve given up even trying.

My inadequacies in the stereotypical female department are shining bright.

Only in my own head of course.

Wait? Did he just call me beautiful?

“And you are?” Slade asks.

“Blakely.” I roll my eyes playfully but reach my hand out to shake his. “I’m Blakely Foxx. Older than you, thankful you are being nice to me instead of asking for me to be removed from the premises—”

“You say that like a woman who’s been removed before.”

“—and obviously having a shitty day.”

“You forgot the part about having an absolute dick of an ex-husband.”

I just look at him and shake my head as I chuckle. “Sorry. TMI.”

“No, really,” he says, “it’ll make you feel better to say it and get it out in the open.”

I eye him and wonder what the catch is. Is this some television show with a hidden camera and I’m the unsuspecting person being pranked?

When he nods in encouragement, I chuckle and look at my glass as if I can’t believe I’m really going to. “Fine. He’s an absolute dick of an ex-husband.”