Even though I came into the date with a little trepidation, I had to admit that my attitude had changed when Barney walked into the restaurant, looking like a young Hugh Grant.
Okay, maybe I could figure out a way to like the name Barney after all, since the man was a chef, a restaurant owner, and looked good enough to eat. Hopefully, he had a personality to match because his good looks were only going to get him so far.
The waiter returned and placed an order of fried calamari on our table that we didn’t order. “Compliments of the chef.”
“Thank you.” Barney winked at me. “It pays to know people. Then, if you work the system right, you butter them up, and ride the gravy train to free calamari on the house. Works like a charm every time.”
If he thought a free appetizer was going to impress me, he was dreaming. Plus, he just admitted that he kissed people’s butts to get free things.
Don’t be quick to judge. Give him a chance.
I would take Dee’s advice for now, especially since my favorite item on the menu was being prepared at that very moment, but my bullshit detector had never failed me before and the meter already had some movement at the beginning stages of this date. Not good.
Trust your gut.
Barney snapped a photo of the dish and winked at me again. “It’s for my Instagram page.” He picked up a piece of the calamari and analyzed it, nodding his appreciation. “This restaurant is the cream of the crop and this macadamia panko crust is the greatest thing since sliced bread.” He held it in the air between us like he was going to feed it to me.
It was a little bit presumptuous of him since we had just met, but oddly enough I found it romantic at the same time. I leaned forward to get my mouth closer, but then he pulled it back out of reach.
What the hell was that?
I was all for a little playful fun, but this was way too early in the dating game for such nonsense because I didn’t even know the man yet. Plus, I was starving. I didn’t like people teasing me with food when I was hungry. Did the man have a death wish?
Barney held the calamari close to his mouth like he was going to take a bite of it and then snapped a selfie with his phone.
Whatever.
I grabbed my own piece, dipped it in the sweet and sour sauce, and took a bite.
Divine.
Barney snapped another selfie with the beach behind him and then set his phone down on the table. “My job as chef and restaurateur brings home the bacon, but marketing plays a big part of my success. That’s why you’ll see me taking numerous photos. I make a lot of dough, but social media and my online presence are my bread and butter. It keeps me as busy as popcorn on a hot skillet. I’ve got two hundred thousand hungry followers who will eat up anything I dish out online, except for the rare few who are nuttier than a fruitcake. Like my last girlfriend, for example.”
I waved off his comment. “Please, let’s not talk about exes.”
Barney ignored me. “She was prettier than a Georgia peach, but a few sandwiches short of a picnic. She didn’t understand that social media was one of the most important things in my life and that I needed to stay on top of it or the competition would eat me alive. Social media is my meat and potatoes.”
“I thought you said it was your bread and butter.”
If he was going to bore me to death with food idioms, he should at least get them straight.
“Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto. It’s the same no matter how you slice it.”
He continued to ramble on about his ex, without making eye contact with me, which was one of my biggest pet peeves.
I wonder if he realizes I’m still here. He must love the sound of his voice.
That made one of us.
I stuffed another piece of calamari in my mouth and wondered if this guy had any plans at all of shutting his pie hole.
I could play his food idiom game just as well as he could.
He was still rambling on about leaving the toilet seat up or down.
Was he a natural-born talker?
Or was he going on and on because he was nervous?
No. He was just another idiot.
This date was getting worse with every word that came out of his mouth and was going to end fast if he kept it up. They just needed to hurry up and bring me my food.
Barney took a sip of his beer. “Anyway, I had another ex who I would compare to a spring salad with pine nuts and cranberries, you know what I mean?”
“I can’t say that I—”
“She left a bitter taste in my mouth. I dropped her like a hot potato because it was obvious that she just wasn’t going to cut the mustard. You know? Why would I want to hang out with someone who’s boring?”
“Or me? Why would I?”
“Exactly! I always say that if you want to be with me, you get the whole enchilada. And if not, I am out the door like albacore.”
The last time I checked, tuna live in the ocean and do not enter or exit through any door.
Thank God the waiter returned and placed our lunch orders on the table in front of us, grilled rainbow trout for Barney and Baja fish tacos for me.
The sooner I ate, the sooner I was out of there. Barney and I were not going to happen in this lifetime or any other lifetime. Normally, I would have already left by now, but I hated wasting food.
“Hey—how about a photo? Just the two of us?” Barney held up his phone.
“That’s quite all right.”
He would most likely have stuck it on social media and the last thing I wanted was there to be proof that I knew him or that the two of us ever went out on a date.
He shook his head. “No—I meant a picture of just the two of us.” He gestured to his plate. “Me with my trout.” He handed me the phone and held the plate of fish under his nose, a big smile on his face like he thought this was just as fun as Disneyland.
Already bored out of my mind with this doofus, I zoomed in on Barney’s scalp to see if his hair was real. I snapped the picture, turned off his phone, and handed the phone back to him.
Barney glanced at his phone. “That’s weird. My phone is dead.”
“And your fish is cold. Eat.” I wolfed down my first fish taco in four bites and then picked up the second one to begin work on it, while Barney ignored his trout and began talking about another ex as he tried powering his phone back up.
“She was as thin as an Italian breadstick and—”
I held up my hand. “Please . . . just stop.” I set the taco down, in desperate need of changing the subject to something more enlightening while I finished my food and got the hell out of there. “Tell me something about you. For instance, what’s your specialty in the kitchen? I know you’re a chef, but not much more than that.”
“Ahhhh. My specialty?” Barney smiled proudly. “Bagels.”
I waited for him to laugh and tell me he was joking, but the silence became awkward.
I jumped in to get some clarification. “Bagels? What do you mean?”
“I own a bagel shop. I told you I made a lot of dough. Ha!” He laughed and slapped the table, causing the trout on his plate to go airborne for a brief second.
I stared at him. “Bagels? Really?”
“Plain, asiago, blueberry, sesame, onion, garlic, egg, you get the idea. Over seventeen varieties and ten different spreads, everything homemade. With three locations to serve you.” He grabbed his wallet, took out a business card, and handed it to me.