Chapter 30
Vivi had seen train wrecks. Emotional ones, professional ones, the kind that involved crying in a public restroom and the kind that involved sending a work email with the word “ducking.” But nothing, nothing, had prepared her for watching Spud Buttons try to date.
Being that it was Tuesday, she sat two tables away at the Drunken Rooster, armed with a lukewarm martini and the small-town version of camouflage—sunglasses the size of satellite dishes—and watched as hope drained from Judy-the-Flight-Attendant's eyes like someone had pulled a plug.
This was supposed to be Spud's glow-up. Her dating bio Olympics. Instead, she was watching her champion trip over the starting line and face-plant directly into the track.
It wasn't Judy's fault. The woman was perfectly pleasant, smiling politely, nodding with professional-grade patience, wearing her I have been trapped in a plane with two hundred feral passengers before and I can handle anything expression.
They were a match because they were both kind, faithful, salt-of-the-earth types with shared values and a shared church.
What Vivi had not accounted for was Spud's emotional faucet being cranked to full blast the moment he got nervous. The man was a runaway confession train barreling toward a woman who had absolutely not signed up to hear his entire romantic history before appetizers arrived.
Vivi winced as Spud gestured wildly, his face earnest and deeply unaware he was detonating his own date in real time.
Judy set down her water, smile wobbling. "So you were married twice?"
"Three times, actually. Twice to my Louise and once to her cousin. But as soon as we realized we were kind of kin, her cousin and I, we called things off."
"You married the same woman twice?"
Spud nodded with the unstoppable sincerity of a golden retriever who had found a very good stick. "Yep. Loved her both times. Love of my life. Well—she was before she passed."
Judy blinked. "Oh, wow."
Vivi waved her hands to catch Spud's attention, and when he blinked her way she did the wrap-it-up gesture. Instead of pivoting, he misunderstood and started talking faster.
"Cancer," Spud barreled on, leaning in way too close. "Terrible and so unexpected it broke me in half. Still kind of does sometimes. Like last night, actually—"
Vivi silently pressed her forehead to the table.
Spud. Dear sweet Spud. I love you. But this is not how you impress someone. This is how you get escorted out by emotional TSA.
She scribbled furiously on her notepad, then held it up:
Ask her something funny about herself. Do NOT mention exes, church, or death. Keep it light.
Spud peeked at it, then looked at Judy. "Tell me something funny about yourself?"
Judy's eyes lit up like she'd been waiting for exactly that question.
"Oh! Okay. So I went to a murder mystery party once.
My job was to stand over the dead body of an heiress and announce that the family jewels had been stolen.
" Her voice dropped low and conspiratorial.
"The family jewels was a diamond necklace.
Simple enough, right? Except when I bent over—" She paused, cheeks going bright pink.
"The slit in the back of my dress rode up.
All the way up. I ended up flashing the entire room.
The next day a few of the other participants were on my flight. It was so mortifying."
Vivi hunched over her notebook, pretending to scribble, but she was just watching.
Spud reached across and patted Judy's hand—a little hard but patted it all the same. Then, voice low and soft, he said, "That sounds awful. But everyone has moments like that."
Vivi's chest tightened. She had to work to keep the smile off her face because he was actually listening to Judy.
Showing real care—the clumsy, genuine kind that couldn't be faked.
It was strange to see him like this, vulnerable and tender and awkward all at once.
And that's exactly what makes him worth rooting for.
Vivi leaned back, a small private satisfaction settling in. This was what she loved about the work—watching two people fumble toward each other in real time from a perfect vantage point. Seeing the thing she'd set in motion actually move in the right direction.
It was the one part of her life right now that felt clean and uncomplicated and entirely within her control.
Spud took a breath, scratched the back of his neck, and gave that sheepish half-smile she knew all too well—the one that meant he was about to completely wreck his own dignity on purpose.
"Speaking of funny," he started, his voice a little loud and every hair on Vivi's body stood at attention.
Oh no. That's the windup face. That is absolutely his windup face.
"So, one night I had a little too much whiskey …
don't look at me like that, it happens. Anyway, later on, my late wife got in a romantic way.
" He nodded sagely, as if narrating a cautionary tale from a medical journal.
"Only problem was, the equipment was at half-mast. Like one of those lazy flagpoles that just refuses to salute. "
Vivi sliced a hand across her throat. Six times.
Abort. For the love of God, Spud, abort mission.
"She came down a little too hard," he continued, clapping his hands together with a crack loud enough that a man two tables over visibly winced. "Snap."
Judy gasped. Vivi whimpered. Lottie nearly dropped a whiskey shaker.
"Had to go to the doctor," Spud added cheerfully. "They splinted it. Like a busted finger. Couple of popsicle sticks, tape, whole nine yards—"
"Excuse me," Judy blurted, standing so fast her chair skidded back. "I ned to use the restroom."
She hurried off.
Spud sat back and exhaled like he'd nailed it.
A full thirty seconds passed.
Judy did not return.
Vivi chewed the end of her pen. Poor man. He'd laid himself completely bare—awkward, self-deprecating, embarrassingly human—and his date had literally fled the building. There was something in that which hit a little closer to home than she wanted to examine right now.
She knew something about being too much and letting things spill out before she’d thought about the consequences. About watching someone's expression shift in real time and knowing, with a sinking certainty, that you'd said the wrong thing.
She stayed in her booth, silently rooting for him, until five minutes had passed with no sign of Judy. Then she sighed, slid out, and walked over.
Spud looked up at her, confused and a little wounded in a way she recognized—the look of someone who had genuinely tried and genuinely miscalculated.
"You think she's coming back?" he asked.
"No," Vivi said gently. Then she sat down beside him. "Absolutely not. She's halfway to California reconsidering her entire dating history."
He groaned and buried his face in his hands. "I panic-talked."
"You nuclear-panic-talked," she corrected, rubbing his shoulder. "Spud, you don't have to trauma-dump your entire medical chart on a first date."
"She asked me for a funny story!"
"No, you asked her. Then you told her your fracture story. We specifically talked about that story."
He let out a helpless laugh, the kind that was half-sad. "I don't know how to talk to women anymore."
"You do," she said, softer now. "You're good and kind and honest. Those qualities are rare these days."
"Too honest."
"Okay, yes," she admitted. "Sometimes you need a filter. A tiny, very necessary filter, installed between your brain and your mouth."
He sighed. "I'm a mess."
"You're a loveable mess," Vivi said and meant it—more than she might have a month ago, before Bridlewood had gotten under her skin in ways she hadn't planned on.
Before she'd learned that loveable messes were sometimes the most real people in the room.
"You're rusty, not hopeless. Next time, no ex-wife memoirs, no groin-related war stories, and absolutely zero mention of popsicle-stick splints. "
He nodded miserably. "Got it."
"And when you get nervous, ask her questions,” she added, tapping his chest lightly “Let her talk. You don't need to fill every silence with whatever that was."
Spud cracked a small, real smile. "You think I'll get a next time?"
Vivi squeezed his arm. "With Judy? No. With someone else and me running your dating life? Absolutely. I am not letting you go down like the Titanic again."
She said it with confidence the way she always did when it came to her professional life. She just wished that she felt half as certain about her personal life.