Round Nine
BILLY
“I just think you’re doing an amazing job!”
Date number one, two, three, four, and five cry for me. They fuckin’ sob.
Oh my gosh, Aria this, and oh my gawd, Aria that.
“Single dads are so sexy!”
“You’re a police detective and a widower?! It’s just so tragic!”
“How do you juggle parenthood and police work?”
“How do you date with a little boy at home?”
“Do you wish you could find the love of your life and bring her into his life?”
“Does Jeremy cry for a mom?”
“I bet he’s just desperate for a lady to cuddle with!”
“Ya know what, Detective?” The instant I flop onto the chair opposite Eliza, she snarls, “Give me your gun. I wanna shoot myself.” Surging forward, she snatches my beer and tips the three-quarters full bottle back, chugging, chugging, chugging until it’s empty, then she slaps the bottle back onto our table and burps.
“I know every single one of these dudes, and they all have some weird let’s-wrestle-in-bed fetish.
None of ‘em are brave enough to say that shit to me literally any other day, but lump a hundred thirsty guys into one room, and suddenly they’re talking sex dreams.”
I crush my hands to my eyes and smother my yawn before it takes me under. “I got a bunch of women who want to stroke my hair and sing my son a lullaby.”
“This is why I travel to get laid.”
“Eliza!” Ollie barks from three tables ahead. “Quit it!”
“I don’t wanna quit it, Oliver! I wanna be ravaged by a man who knows what he’s doing.
But here we are in a room full of singles, and my best options are my freakin’ brother, a couple of married twins, a possible trip over to the ladies’ side, or…
” She brings her eyes back to mine. “A cop who might’ve changed my diapers twenty years ago. ”
“Definitely changed your diapers,” I grumble. “Definitely not gonna ravage you. Sorry, kid.”
“S’okay, I suppose.” She lets out a breathy sigh. “I could always slap an Uber sticker on the back of my head and call it a day.”
A buzzer sounds, and men shuffle, so I snatch my empty beer bottle and stand with a tired grunt.
“Catch ya later, Lizey Loo.” I ruffle her hair and earn a feral hiss from the depths of her throat.
“Make good choices.” I wink and trudge right, then I drop in front of Rose and flash a bright grin.
“You’re not gonna cry about my dead wife, are ya? ”
She settles back in her seat, a glass of wine pinched between her fingers, and a playful smile curling her lips. “You’re not gonna cry about my dead brother, are you?”
“Naw. Hardly even knew the bloke.”
She chokes out a soft snicker and adds a brief note to her papers.
“Ollie keeps staring at you.” I peek three seats along and smirk at his beady-eyed glare. “He’s got a problem with sharing his girl?”
“He can be a little possessive sometimes.” She brings bright eyes up to mine. “Fall in love yet?”
“Nah. But I flirted with Remi for a sec. It was the best entertainment I’ve had in a while. You?”
She clicks her tongue. “I’ve written a few names down, just in case, ya know? Having options is important, especially for a home-wrecking scam artist like me.”
“Mmhm.” I snatch up her notepad and scan her scribbles.
“Ollie. Ollie. Ollie. Ollie. Alana, cos she’s cute.
Eliza, cos she’s badass. Clifford, but he’s my boss, so it’s more of a brotherly thing.
Oh look, I got a mention.” I spin the book around and show her glaring fiancé.
“I made a love connection, Oliver. Suck it.”
He surges up from his chair and sends it scraping across the floor.
Abandoning Alana, he strides back three seats, grabs the scruff of my sexy shirt, and drags me to my feet.
“Go sit with Alana for a bit. I wanna check out this list my Rosaline has crafted.” He snatches it from my hand and shoves me out of the way, then he plops down and plants a vicious kiss on Rose’s lips.
“No touching!” Eliza gags. “Ollie! The rules were clear.”
“Come sit with me, handsome.” Alana reclines with her legs crossed, her heeled foot swinging forward on a gentle sway. “I’m the only woman in the room who doesn’t have a date. You wouldn’t embarrass me like that, would you?”
“Of course not. What do you take me for?” I stroll over to her table and bring Ollie’s chair back in, but then I look to Alana’s left and lock eyes with a furious, and irritatingly pretty, Magnolia Sava.
“Sit down,” she snarls. “Shut up. Behave. If you do not wish to conduct yourself appropriately, then take your chair and get the hell out.”
“I paid my hundred bucks.” I tug my seat in and ignore Alana completely. “What the hell is wrong with you, anyway? Are you always this pissy, or do you save your moods especially for me?”
“It seems you bring it out in me. Do you leave your son at home often just so you can fraternize with fifty women in one evening?”
“About as often as you leave your stuffed cat at home so you can fraternize with fifty men. What’s your problem anyway, Magnolia?”
“Mine?” Furious, she leans closer. “Mine?! I was trying to be nice to you today. I said hello and didn’t even call you a jackass, you jackass. Why even come tonight if you didn’t intend to get into the spirit of the evening?”
“It’s hard to get into the spirit when half my dates are my friends’ wives, sisters, cousins, or criminals, and it’s especially tricky when more than one of those labels applies to the same person.
I dunno, Magnolia, enjoying myself gets a little complex when the other half of my dates break out in tears the second I sit down in front of them. ”
“If they cry when you sit, that’s probably an opportunity for a little self-reflection, don’t you think?” She points to an amused Tommy. “My dates don’t cry when they sit with me.”
“Give it time,” I snarl. “Next bell has me sitting there. I might let my dainty little tears flow just for you.”
“You’re a jackass,” she hisses.
The buzzer sounds amid grumbles and excitement. Some folks want to move, and some don’t. But when Tommy jumps up like his ass is on fire and shuffles along, I’m left staring at my next stop.
Move, Jackass!
“Fuck’s sake.” I spare a last glance for the happily married Alana Watkins, then I grudgingly rise to my feet and follow the damn rules. I move to the right, lower with a grunt, and snag a fresh beer from a passing server.
Popping the cap so that fucker pings six feet to the left, I meet Maggie’s fiery glare and buy myself a little time by taking a sip.
She looks ready to snap my neck.
“Hi, Magnolia.” I flash an arrogant smirk and effectively sign my own death certificate.
“My name is Billy. I’m a dad, I’m a cop, I’m not a virgin anymore, and I guess I wasn’t in line the day they were handing out six-foot-long sticks and jamming them right up there in the dark side of our asses… unlike you.”
Tommy hisses, snickering and lowering into his seat.
“Hi Wilbert. I’m Magnolia.” She firms her sneering lips.
“I don’t mind when people use my real name.
I don’t have children, but I want a dozen someday.
I’m not a virgin either, and that stick you think is so far up my ass?
” She shakes her head. “That’s not a stick at all.
It’s called standards, and every time you come within twenty feet of me, everything kinda puckers up, and my brain screams run away, Maggie! He’s weird and has cooties.”
“You got cooties,” Tommy giggles. “Wilbert’s got boy germs.”
I slam my fist against his shoulder and knock him halfway out of his seat.
“Shut up with that Wilbert shit.” Bringing my gaze back to Maggie, I glare.
“I’m finding it difficult to accept that sweet little girl I knew in second grade is…
” I wrinkle my nose. “You. Always considered you one of the smart ones.”
“You were right. I am smart. That’s why my subconscious insists I hit you with my car.”
Alana chokes on her drink, swiping the dribbled droplets from her chin.
“Intelligent people don’t become love experts. That’s a made-up job for folks who have no other prospects.”
“Hey, now.” Fox pipes up from a half-dozen seats along our row.
“Mine is a job made up by someone who had no other prospects. Firstly, the fact that I could sell milk to a dairy farmer makes me quite brilliant, and secondly, that made-up job still pays enough to supply my man with Captain Underpants books and ravioli. Chill, dill pickle.”
“I know about your wife.”
Maggie’s voice softens. It crackles. It fucking sucks the oxygen out of the room as I slowly bring my gaze back to hers.
“What?”
“I know,” she murmurs. “So then I felt like a giant asshole for the things I said about your divorce. I promised myself I wouldn’t argue with you anymore.
That I wouldn’t let you goad me, and if I was extra lucky, I could even finagle a neutral greeting from the cop next door on his way out of the driveway. I was going to be nice, Billy!”
“Don’t let my dead wife stop you from being you, Magnolia.
” Fuck her. Fuck pity censorship. And fuck my friends, too, whose eyes snap back to their own dates, their smiles wiped clear now that Aria’s back in the room with us.
Again. “You wanted to fight with me before,” I grit out.
“I’d hate to find out you’re going easy on me because you felt bad about my marital woes. ”
“I want to be nice to you.” She slowly pushes her chair back, her hands firmly gripping the chair frame, and her long—fuck, it’s pretty—silky brown hair falling forward.
Silence hangs for a beat, despite the buzzing conversation of a hundred people inside one room, but then she brings golden eyes up and stops on mine.
You’re pretty, and it pisses me off.
“I also want to win the fifty-million-dollar lottery, but I don’t see that happening, either.
Take your five minutes, Detective. You still have twenty-five dates to get through before this evening is over.
” Rising from her chair, she smooths her dress over long, lean legs, then she strides back to her original podium, switches on the microphone, and beams out at her captive crowd of fifty men, forty-nine of whom she’s happy to sit with for three hundred seconds.
“Hello, everyone.” She tucks long locks behind her ears, her lips glistening with perfect red lipstick.
“My schedule says we’re coming up on the halfway mark of the evening.
At the next buzzer, feel free to take ten minutes, stretch your legs, organize your notes, and be ready for the second half. I hope you’re having fun.”