can’t fail. I refuse to.
“You know,” I say, sounding a thousand times more confident than I feel, “I still feel really bad about the ambush yesterday.” I tilt my head back toward the kitchen of chicken entendre and rubber penises. “I was wondering if I could take you out for a drink to make it up to you?”
The words are out of my mouth before I’ve had time to properly consider them, and I have to pinch my wrist underneath the counter to keep from exploding with hysterical, nervous laughter.
His eyebrows shoot up. “Really?” He looks down at his shirt and pulls on his tie. “Um, that’s not necessary.”
Ouch. Wow. I’m on a fucking roll. I force a smile anyway. “At the very least, this week’s order is on the house.”
“No, wait! I mean, I’d love to go for a drink with you. I just don’t want you to feel like you have to out of responsibility.”
“What?”
He frowns at me and shifts uncomfortably. “I’m sorry. What?”
I press my forefinger into the squishy spot between my eyebrows and wiggle it around for a second. “Dropping the subtleties, I was trying to casually ask you out for a drink using the pretense of yesterday’s embarrassing coffee and sex toy kerfuffle. But really I’m just asking you out. In case that isn’t translating.”
He stares at me and pulls on his tie again. “I’m...accepting?”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Neat. Ernesto’s, tonight, say sevenish?”
“Okay.”
“Awesome.”
I’m only slightly aware of the throng of people standing around the two of us. Butter is statue-still at the register, holding someone’s twenty over the cash tray. Shannon is standing beside me, grinning as she stuffs some cookies into a bag.
The older man she’s prepping that bag for points at Ben and me and announces with a grin, “I’ll take one of what he’s getting.”
Ben turns a bit pink and scoots down toward the register. I arch an eyebrow and smile at the old man. “Sorry, sir. We just sold out.”
I get to Ernesto’s a little early, and I’m sitting at the bar, stomach flopping, ignoring how bizarre this entire situation of mine is by sketching tiny Coopertown Ravens on a bar napkin, when Ben comes walking in. I set my pen down on the bar top and smile. “Glad you could make it. I wasn’t sure the translation stuck.”
He grins and rolls his eyes as he takes the seat next to me. “In my defense, I find your shop a very difficult place to keep any wits at hand.”
“Fair enough,” I concede. The bartender comes by and Ben casually orders the same beer I’m drinking. My curiosity is piqued, so I channel my skin-twitching anxieties into Q and A. “Did you order that because it’s what I’m drinking, or is this what you usually drink?”
“Excuse me?”
“The beer. Is that your usual drink?”
His eyes narrow slightly at me, considering. “No, it’s not. And yes, I ordered it because it’s what you had, and it was easier. I didn’t really think about it.”
“If you’d gotten here first, what would you have ordered?”
His lip twitches. “Why do you ask?”
“The drink of choice can say a lot about a person,” I suggest, morphing my nerves into theories. “It’s not an exact science, but I think there’s something to it. Like, if you ordered a whiskey, but made a sour face with each drink, I’d say you were trying to impress me with your manliness. If you ordered a martini, I’d wonder more about what kind of business you do. If you ordered a fancy martini with lots of specifics, I’d say you might be a little pretentious. If you had a beer like this on your own, I’d say you were laid-back. But see, you ordered it because I had it, so now I don’t know much at all.”
Somewhere in my mind, a voice reminds me that Ryan always orders whatever’s on tap.
Ben laughs and rubs his hand over his forehead. “You get all of that from a drink order?”
I take a sip of my beer and try not to imagine how Ryan’s date with Alice will go as the bartender sets Ben’s glass down in front of him. Ben stares at the drink and chuckles to himself. He twists a bit in his chair, and I point to his chest, exclaiming, “Hey! You changed your shirt!”
He looks down, then back up at me. “Yes?”
“Did you change your shirt because we were having drinks, Ben?”
He laughs loudly and rubs his hands roughly over both eyes this time. Reaching over, he grabs his glass and takes a very long drink.
“You are...” He sets his beer back down and stares at me, grinning as he searches for the appropriate word. “Very intimidating. Do you know that? I honestly can’t tell if this is your personality and I should be really intrigued, or I’m being punished for the other morning.”
I sit straight up, mortified. “What? No! I’m not punishing you! Why would you think that?”
He leans forward and puts one hand on the bar. “You’re just really forward. Not that it’s a bad thing,” he clarifies. “I just kind of feel like I’m making a poor showing, you know?”
Running a hand through my hair, I huff. “I’m sorry. I think I’m so used to being Little Miss Sassypants with everyone at the shop, I don’t know when to shut it off. But I swear this isn’t a deliberate thing.” A horrible calculation of the sheer volume of time I’ve been with Ryan pops into my head. “And...um. Wow. This is probably an overshare, but I just realized it’s been an age since I’ve been on a date, so it’s possible the etiquette has escaped me. Really, I’m sorry if I offended you.”
He smiles kindly and leans back in his chair. “You didn’t. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t reading you wrong. And how long is an age?”
I do the math in my head and try not to visibly shudder. I don’t have the stones to say I haven’t been on an actual date in probably three years. Nor do I have the stones to say that technically I’m only on a break from the person I went on those last dates with.
I’m an asshole.
I finally say, “Longer than a while, less than an eon?”
He studies me for a moment. “I get that. This is actually my first night out in a good minute.”
“Life, am I right?”
“I will cheers to that with my questionable drink choice,” he says with a wink.
“Aww.” I laugh. “I really am a jerk. I’m sorry. I just think it’s
