1
EMORY
“You know what they say about an oyster’s aphrodisiac properties.”
Really? He was going to use that line? If the guy wanted to think Rocky Mountain Oysters were actually oysters from the sea, then I wasn’t going to tell him otherwise. I smiled vaguely at… Bob. No, Bill. Something with a B. He was in his thirties, well dressed in a suit and gray tie, as if he came directly from work at a bank. He had all his hair, was well groomed, yet seemed perfectly… average. Average wasn't bad, but he was an idiot. He was shoveling in fried bull testicles as if the free food might run out.
My friend Christy had decided to forgo a sit-down dinner for her engagement party, instead having an open bar and finger foods. I guessed she’d put the Colorado specialty on the menu to mess with the out-of-town guests. The invited group had taken over a private room that connected to the bar area of a popular restaurant in town to drink and socialize. Clearly, the socializing part wasn’t going well because I had to watch Bob/Bill chow down on one bull ball after another.
I’d nibbled on some chicken satay and bruschetta and a few other options the wait staff had passed around and tried not to wince as he used a cocktail napkin to wipe crumbs from his chin.
“You should only eat oysters in the months that don’t have an R.” He nodded as if to confirm his statement.
“Yeah, you can eat these guys probably anytime,” I replied.
He stuck a toothpick in one on the small plate he held, stared at it. “Yeah, being fried helps.”
Yeah, that was it.
Christy had met an amazing man in her fiancé, Paul, but his cousin, who was attempting to work his lackluster charm on me, was a complete dud. He actually thought he was eating real oysters. We were in landlocked Colorado not a coastal town.
I averted my gaze toward the wall of windows. The restaurant was on the third floor of a historic boutique hotel with amazing western views of the mountains.
I really wanted to give him the brush-off, to tell him he needed a breath mint and some dental floss, but he was related to Paul, and I owed it to Christy to keep from alienating one of her future relatives. Besides, I’d probably have to see him at the wedding in a few months, and God forbid he was one of the groomsmen. As a bridesmaid—the oldest bridesmaid in history—I'd probably have to walk down the aisle on his arm. I tried to smile and nod as diplomatically as possible. Smile and nod, but he had the personality of a sea slug or an oyster. We’d talked about Paul and Christy for a minute or two, but after that… he showed himself to be a player. He stood a little too close, his gaze surreptitiously dropping to my chest, and he had an odd leer. It had to be a leer, or he had some kind of tick in the corner of his lip.
Why the guy was lingering with me where there was zero hope of… anything, I had no idea. I’d been burned by a man, okay, scorched to a charcoal briquette, and I wasn’t looking for another one. I’d survived the divorce, survived because Chris needed a mother, needed me to be the strong one. But he was away at college now, and I wasn’t shielded behind the role of parent any longer. I could chat about off-sides rules in soccer or PTA fundraisers, but talking to a guy, a real guy and not another parent from high school, was unbelievably hard. I doubted Bob/Bill knew about any of that, and probably once he discovered I had a child—even an eighteen-year-old—he'd take his bull balls elsewhere.
God, I was such an introvert! I hated big crowds, new people, loud noises. I wasn't a party person. Because of this, it was hard meeting new people. I was terrible at it, unlike Christy, who never knew a stranger. The whole introvert-extrovert dynamic had helped when she’d been able to pull me out of my shell my first day of work, thankfully introducing me around my new department, which had made us instant friends. It wasn’t as if I was shy or weird or anything, but I was definitely set in my ways. That was what I called it, at least.
Christy called it lonely, and I couldn’t think of anything more depressing than that. She considered me lonely.
Lonely!
She wasn't being mean, just honest. But, I'd been cautious for so long, and it had been even longer since I dated. Like almost twenty years. Two decades. That was why I showed up at the engagement party without a plus-one and why I wasn’t interested in Bob/Bill and his ridiculous pick-up tactics. Sure, a guy would be great, but I wanted a few brain cells between the ears. While my vibrator didn't talk and got the job done, it wasn't like a real man. The weight of him pressing me into the bed. The hard feel of him between my thighs. In me. But an orgasm with a real man wasn't worth playing games, and I didn't want to even learn the rules of dating in the twenty-first century. Watching Bob/Bill wipe his mouth again, there was no doubt my vibrator was going to win tonight.
I sighed and took a sip of my water. “Look, I’ve got to go. Christy’s waving me over. Good luck with eating those oysters out of season,” I said.
I took a step away, but he put his hand on my bare arm. He grinned, and I noticed a slight overlap of his front two teeth. “I like to live dangerously.” His thumb stroked over my arm, and I stepped back out of the hold.
Right. I inwardly rolled my eyes.
Clearly, he didn’t take any chances since he was talking to me and not some of the other women in the bar area who were more provocatively dressed and a sure thing. Younger, too. At thirty-eight, I wasn't really old, but most women my age didn't have a son in college. Some, I knew, were herding their kindergartener to peewee soccer.
I wasn’t giving off any indicator to Bob/Bill that said take me home with you. The way I had my arms crossed over my chest, even while holding my glass, was a classic indication of not interested. He had no clue. Zero. A woman wanted a guy who pushed her up against the wall and kissed the ever-loving daylights out of her. Well, I did. Wild monkey sex would be good, too. This guy? Not a chance. If I had to guess, I’d say… accountant.
I took a sip of my ice water with lime and glanced up at him through my dark lashes. “What do you do?”
He put an empty half shell on his plate. “I’m an auditor with Social Security.”
Close enough. I nodded vaguely, trying to keep my eyes from glazing over. He was looking for a woman who wanted the white-picket-fence life with two kids and a dog—and oysters. Been there, done that. I even got the T-shirt and now used it to clean my toilet.
Glancing at Christy from across the crowded room, I saw her laughing at something the woman next to her said. She looked amazing in her red silk halter dress, her tanned shoulders and back exposed. Her hair was sleek and long and her makeup was definitely night-on-the-town heavy. It was a different look than her business attire for her job at the hospital and even fancier yet than my everyday ER scrubs. Surprising Paul with her daring outfit had been her plan when we’d gone shopping for her dress, and the way his hand rested just north of appropriate on the small of her back as they chatted and mingled with their friends, I’d say it worked. They were blatantly in love, and it was a little hard to watch sometimes. The tug of longing was strong, like an ache, for I’d never seen the look Paul was giving her ever from Jack, my ex. What hurt wasn't that I'd missed out but that I might never have it.
My own dress wasn’t remotely in the same caliber as Christy’s. I wasn’t trying to please my future husband, and I wasn’t looking for one either. Not at a bar and not with Bob/Bill. I had no clue how to pick someone up, and I wasn’t twenty-one anymore. My dating skills weren’t just rusty, they were stored in a time capsule from the late-nineties. I observed other women around the bar area. Some wore less clothes than I did when I was in my pajamas, leaving not much to the imagination. They smiled coyly, touched, crossed and uncrossed their legs, batted their eyelashes.