Chapter 2
Emee
Ten steps down the street, I’m cursing myself for not getting a half size bigger on the chunky knee-high black Dolce boots I ordered from ThreadUp.
But even with my painfully squished toes, I make it to Don’s on Main, with its polished brass and lacquered cherry-wood tables looking like the inside of a 1980’s cruise ship, five minutes before I’m supposed to meet Frank for our third date.
Another of my grandfather’s euphemisms was, If you’re on time, you’re late. He may have always smelled like cigar smoke and Mentholatum, but he was a bright spot in my childhood.
“Phew.” I exhale, my heart pittering like a hummingbird’s wings, reminding me I’ve been neglecting my cardio.
I fuss with the waistband of the dress where it’s digging in, take a cleansing breath, force a bored yet approachable expression onto my face, and push through the doors.
Eighties soft pop music mixes with the sounds of laughter, the clinking of glasses and the hum of conversation as I scan the crowded space. My eyes land on a high-top table next to the bar and shocker, Frank’s early. For the first time. Things are looking up.
He’s older by six years, well-tailored, not bad looking, but, honestly, a bit of a douche.
But, this dating thing, I’m starting to wonder if it’s like a Tootsie Pop. It takes a lot of licks to get to the good part. So I’ve resolved to not abandon a potential opportunity without putting in a reasonable, if not sometimes uncomfortable, amount of effort.
Keeping my steps unrushed, I squeeze my beaded clutch, wondering if I look desperate. This is an upscale area in midtown Detroit, but still, my red dress, fuck-me boots and sparkly bag may be a touch over the top for a Thursday evening.
I’m generally a levelheaded gal, but man, dating is an emotional minefield.
Frank stares at his phone as I weave through the humming chatter of the after-work crowd. I step into a vapor cloud of cologne surrounding a group of young guys throwing back shots with loosened ties and gelled hair.
“Hi.” I greet my date with a blink and a reasonably friendly, but not desperate, smile, holding my breath as Frank slowly raises his eyes.
I expect a flicker of something magical to flicker in his eyes.
Instead, he looks at me like I’m serving him with a summons.
“Hey.” His eyes go back to his phone, tapping at the screen as I stand there, feet together, sucking in my cheeks, channeling my inner Heidi Klum. And from the way the group of guys behind me are eyeing up my rear quarters, they approve.
“Hey,” I repeat the enthusiasm I had walking through the door turning lukewarm, as he finishes whatever important business he’s focusing on before leaning forward with an outstretched arm for a side hug and an odd, somewhat creepy moaning sound.
“You look nice.”
Nice.
I look nice.
“Thanks,” I manage, as that ‘when can I leave’ feeling flutters in my belly.
“Drink?” he offers, waving his hand toward a raven haired, tattooed waitress standing at the service end of the bar.
“Iced tea.”
“Really?” He rolls his eyes with a patronizing snort. “It’s okay. You can loosen up a bit. It’s thirsty Thursday. Maybe it would help.”
“Help what?” I crease my brow, the beads on my purse indenting my fingertips as I apply unnecessary pressure to my grip. “You know I don’t drink. It’s not a problem for me, I just don’t like how it makes me feel.”
He brushes his forehead with his fingers on a sigh, snapping his tongue over his teeth as my face heats. “I was just hoping maybe you’d loosen up. Let down those walls. A little less inhibition might be good.”
“I’m not inhibited, Frank.”
What am I doing here?
“Listen,” he grunts, impatience painted all over his face. “It’s date three, I was hoping…” He reaches into the breast pocket of his blazer, retrieving a plastic card, and slaps it down on the marble tabletop with a lick of his already strangely wet lips.
“I’m—” I start, my brain working through the possible reactions to the Comfort Inn room key laying in front of me.
He couldn’t even pop for a fancy hotel.
The waitress steps up as the pounding in my temples from earlier blossoms into a full-blown migraine.
“What can I get for you, sweety?” she says with a side-eye toward Frank. Her dark eyes are framed by killer swooping eyeliner as they flick to the room key Frank is now sliding in a slow circle in the center of the table.
“I’m—” I glance from her to Frank, whose jaw is set, a flatness in his deceptively-pretty hazel eyes, realizing no matter how many licks, there will be no yummy Tootsie Roll center of this Tootsie Pop. “This was a mistake.”
The noise of the bar seems to muffle as my speeding pulse rushes through my ears.
The three of us stand there staring at each other in an awkward sort of showdown. I twist my lips, squint and scratch at my neck, my toes now throbbing in my boots, unsure what to say, when a shrill woman’s voice rises over the soundscape of the bar.
“Who is this?”
The waitress and I turn in unison to see a petite brunette with fire in her eyes stomping toward our table, laser-focused on me as I do a quarter spin on my too small Dolces, trying to figure out if I know her from somewhere.
“I’m sorry?” I say, then remind myself that apologizing even before I know I’ve done anything wrong is a horrible female habit.
“Who is she?” The brunette’s attention turns to Frank, her arms crossed, hip cocked, as his sex-entitled arrogance melts away like the ice in his overpriced gin and tonic.
“Margot,” he stutters, his shiny lips falling open. “What a surprise, honey. I… She—”
He covers his nose and mouth as the room key sits in the center of the table, looking like an abandoned prom date. He sidesteps the waitress, who has shifted in my direction as if to say, whatever this is, girl, I got you.
Girl code.
The angry woman grabs the sweating glass of water from the table in one hand, then Frank’s gin and tonic in the other.
My reflexes are a split second too slow and ice cubes batter my nose and cheeks. The freezing water blasts my senses as the waitress raises her tray as a shield, a moment too late.
“You’re a cheating asshole!” the brunette screams, and the entire bar falls silent except for the sound of Alanis Morissette streaming through the ceiling speakers.
“Baby,” Frank starts, hands turning palms up, his nose dripping with clear liquid, the front of his shirt turning dark.
“Who is she? Someone from work again?” She eyes me up and down. “No. Definitely a by the hour situation.”
“What?” I gasp, water dripping from my lips, looking down as the drenched front of my four-hundred-dollar dress turns the color of a dead rose.
She ignores me, reaching forward and grabbing the hotel card, flinging it at Frank.
It hits him square in the nose, and the waitress and I both snort.
“She’s no one!” Frank’s voice shifts into falsetto. “She just walked up to my table, put down that room card. I was telling her to get lost when you walked in. I wouldn’t pay for that if it was the last set of open legs on the planet.” Frank looks at me like he took a drink of sour milk. “She’s just a whore, baby—”
I’m ready to bolt, when out of the corner of my eye, there’s a streak of blue, the scent of cologne and then, BOOM.
Frank is on the floor with a tight-lipped, angry man in a blue hoodie standing over him.
“Oh, shit,” I hiss, my hands flying to my mouth as my eyes gobble up the enormous warrior hidden behind the blue hood. He’s got five or six inches in height on Frank—and most of the guys standing around. He’s lean, but from the power of that punch?
He’s lethal.
“You ever talk to her again like that, you’ll be pulling your nuts out of your throat.” His voice is like velvet gravel as he shoots me a look from under the blue fabric which matches his eyes. My legs start to shake and butterflies flap their wings over my skin.
A chaotic chain reaction follows as all the air feels like it’s sucked from the room.
Curse words fly, the scorned brunette flings herself at blue hoodie man, sweeping a beer bottle from a neighboring table as she goes, bringing it crashing down on the side of his head.
Within three seconds, the bar erupts into a scene from Road House.
The waitress pushes me behind her, and I stumble into the table of twenty-something, suited guys, all channeling their inner Fight Club personas as they push and shove into the center of the melee with primal grunts and bared teeth.
A sea of cell phones rise above the crowd, and anxiety tangles its fingers into my core.
The bar devolves into a disordered mob that tightens my throat, leaving me gasping and sweating as bodies bump me from all sides.
There’s yelling and catcalls, and huge men converge from the corners of the bar. Frank rolls to his knees, pushing up unsteadily to his feet. I’m a long-lost thought as he cocks back a clenched fist.
The sexy stranger is currently being ridden piggyback by Frank’s wife, her arm around his throat in an attempted half-nelson. He roars, easily blocks Frank’s attempt, then lands an uppercut on the lukewarm, cheating asshole whose screen name on Hollar was HotCatch69.
Sure, hot mess, maybe. What was I thinking?
Every cell in my body crackles with heat as I take another look at the crooked-nosed, blue-eyed stranger as he stands over Frank, nostrils flaring, fists balled.
How come none of the guys online look like that?
I skip-trip toward the door, darting a final look back at the caramel-haired hottie that came out of nowhere to defend my honor. My nipples sprout to life in an exiting thank you, as I throw myself out the door, digging for my phone and deleting the dating app with a tap of my finger.