Chapter Four First Date
You know how hindsight is twenty-twenty?
It’s only after I put on what I considered to be a cute date night outfit and put my hair up in a sexy-messy bun that it hit me.
Lt. Rockland said it wasn’t a pity date—because I asked him right to his ruggedly handsome face. What a face.
I’m serious, the more I think about him, I can only pick out certain features, not like a whole person. Big. Tall. Wide. A jaw that reminds me of the Easter Island monoliths. Shaggy, thick dark hair.
That jaw.
I never had a jaw fetish before. Is that even a thing? Well, if it isn’t, they can name the fetish after me, because I have it.
Which makes it a shame that it belongs to a guy who asked me out owing to civic duty and politeness.
Now that I’ve had time to process our actual exchange, Rockland said it was a date, but honestly, it wasn’t intended as a date.
There was no “Oh, I’m interested in getting to know you better” vibe.
There was a “You are a lost idiot who can’t make friends on her own” vibe.
There was probably also a “I should follow up on the woman in a sexy dress holding a can of stinky tuna and sobbing under a tree because that seems a little unstable and I’m a first responder” vibe.
The polite thing to do would be to call. Make an excuse. Gracefully let him off the hook.
But I didn’t get his number. Calling the fire department is possible, but can you imagine what that would be like?
One of your co-workers telling you that your date canceled?
Sure, Gordon might be relieved, but on the tiny, teensy chance that he’s not, I don’t call the station.
(I also don’t want someone to give me a lecture about the switchboard and emergency services being used for personal issues instead of genuine emergencies.
I’m probably already on thin ice with the whole “cat up a tree” thing.)
So what’s left? Stand him up?
Stand up the guy who saved my baby? I’m horrified just at the thought. As if on cue, Chopin purrs and rolls on his back, waiting for belly rubs, looking at me with innocent kitty eyes.
Oh, hell no. I’m not like that. Besides, if a guy did that to me, I’d probably cry and eat a whole tub of peanut butter cup ice cream, feminism be damned.
Even if he was a jerk, I would still feel slighted.
Probably relieved, but also in my head, like “Why am I so bad that a jerk stood me up?” Would that big hunk of hero feel like he’s the problem because a bawling, lonely cat-lady stood him up?
God, why did I think having a boyfriend would make life better and easier when dating sucks absolute ass?
Because the boyfriend stage makes you feel happy, and you steal his hoodies, and you’re safe with someone.
And sex. Orgasms. I mean, that would be nice. Not that it necessarily happened with the last couple of guys, but with someone like Gordon—
No! Do not think about orgasms when you’ve just determined the first date you’ve had in twenty-three months is an awkward pity outing.
Damn it.
Now I’m thinking about it.
I look at Chopin as I rub his belly. “I guess I’ll go and act gracious.
No, I’ll act like the best company ever, and at the end of the night, he won’t ask to see me again, I won’t ask for his number, and that’ll be that.
Tomorrow, I’ll start looking for jobs back home.
You’d like that, right? I bet you’d like to go back home.
Live in a little apartment. We’d have people over all the time.
Your titas would fuss over you and feed you way too many treats. You’d be a city kitty again.”
Chopin abruptly rolls away from my hand and bristles out his tail. With a reproachful look, he bolts into my room and sulks under the bed.
“Great sales pitch, Andrea,” I grumble to myself, and head out to my pre-planned failure of a date.
The bowling alley is out of the main “hub” of the little town, on the two-lane road heading towards the big highways and the mall.
Sometimes driving on the roads around here in the winter or at night gives me the creeps, like this would be the perfect setting for a horror movie, with these dark walls of pines on little windy roads, and big stretches of lonely road.
Right now, in the summer, with pink skies, purple clouds, and a little sliver of moon rising, it’s pretty.
Pine Lanes is crowded, too. Families and kids are zooming around the entrance when I pull in. For a second, I wonder how I’ll find Gordon, which is dumb, because the man is the size of a boulder.
Rockland. Boulder. Ha. I’m so funny.
“God, Andrea, get a grip,” I mumble, pushing open my door.
“Hello.”
I screech and drop my steel water bottle on my cute pink canvas wedges.
Gordon Rockland has been found. He looks startled, but he drops to his knees and reaches under my car to retrieve the water bottle from where it rolled after denting my toes. “Here.”
“Thank you. And, hi. Um, sorry about that. I didn’t see you there. I don’t know how, since you’re as big as a boulder,” I mangle a greeting, apology, and probably-offensive statement into one breath. “Oh, God. I’m so sorry. Again. I’m sorry, again. You know, you can leave. I’m embarrassing myself.”
Rockland stares at me in silence, dark eyebrows in his craggy face raised even higher than they already were. “Why would I leave? Why are you embarrassed?”
“I said you were as big as a boulder,” I barely whisper, mortified beyond vocalization.
Rockland looks down at himself, which means I can, too.
Holy Big Boy. Legs like tree trunks. Arms like barrels. Like, I’m not into big, musclebound guys. I have no idea why I find him fascinating.
“But I am as big as a boulder. In fact, my family—” He stops short.
My turn to give him the quizzical stare.
“My family members are all built like this,” he mutters, face pained.
“I’m still really sorry. That wasn’t supposed to be rude. Like, I like how you look.” Oh, shit. Why? How? How is it possible that I’m finally an “adult” with a career, in charge of tiny humans for nine months of the year, and I’ve gotten worse at dating?
“You do?” Rockland’s face has gone from startled to surprised to outright shocked.
“Uh-huh. In a purely objective and polite way.” I finally climb all the way out of the car and stand next to my date as he towers over me. “I blame the kids for my lack of conversational skills. I’m sorry. Again.”
Rockland nods, slowly. Eyebrows finally lower. Then, “I don’t have that excuse. I’m just bad at talking to people. I usually just save them and leave.”
I don’t know why, but that makes me smile.
He’s so honest, and he has so much to brag about, and yet he doesn’t.
And yeah, he’s sure not a chatterbox, but maybe he’s the smarter one.
I’m running my mouth nonstop, and it’s been a disaster.
“I could learn a lot from you. If I didn’t talk so much, I’m sure we wouldn’t be here. Oh! Not that...”
“You don’t want to be here?”
“I do! But you probably don’t. You’re being like... The ambassador of Pine Ridge. Helping the sobbing cat-lady find things to do because she’s lonely and pissed that she missed her summer vacation. Right?”
The shocked look is back. “Wrong. If I had a pet that I loved, and people that I loved, I would be sad if they were far away or endangered.”
“You don’t? Have people or pets, I mean.”
He shakes his head. “No. I have family. We are... We are not in communication. They don’t love me. Well, my father might have.” His face looks thoughtful, as if this is a true puzzler that he needs to figure out.
I don’t know how he says something like that without cracking. I cannot imagine not having my crazy family love me. Even Tita Carla. She may nag, critique, and disapprove, but if anyone ever hurt me, she would take him apart, inch by inch, all while telling him exactly how he’d ruined her day.
My hand leaps to his and gives it a little squeeze. “Well, sometimes your family can be made out of the people you choose.”
“Hmm. Should we bowl? Or you can leave. I would understand. I’m not good at dating.”
“Me, either.”
“Yes, you are. You are enjoyable to listen to, and so kind.” He stops, blushes, and mumbles something like “not to mention pretty.”
My hand is still on his.
I drop it guiltily, confused as to why the mere touch of his hand has made my stomach curl into a ball of buzzing nerves. “Well, I could get better at dating if I had an equally kind, wonderful person to practice with. Someone heroic,” I hint.
Rocklands nods gravely. “I can introduce you to—”
“I meant you!” I burst out.
“Oh. Me? Kind?”
“You saved my cat.”
“I’m a fireman.”
“Doesn’t matter. That makes you wonderful to me.”
His lips twitch. A half smile takes shape, and it sends a harpoon right through my heart. No arrows. No half-measures here. The big guy throws big ammunition without even trying.
“Let’s bowl, Miss Flores.”
“Thank you, Lt. Rockland, I’d love to. And I’m just Andrea, unless you’re my student.”
“You can call me Gordon.”
“That’s a very masculine name.” Oh, why? Why did I say that? I’m back to wondering how come my mouth has stopped communicating with my brain.
“It means ‘Great Fortress.’ I like it. It is one thing my mother did that I like.”
“Oh. Mommy issues?” Shit again! That sounds so messed up, so condescending. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s also none of my business if you and your parents are besties or hate each other’s guts. I love my parents, but my mother definitely stresses me out.”
“I remember that. She wouldn’t let you complain. I didn’t like that.” Gordon frowns.
He’s even sexy when he frowns.
Oh, sexy now? Handsome was one thing, but we’ve upgraded?
I need to spend an hour alone with something smutty and a bottle of wine. I’m having “cruise ship fling denial syndrome,” a totally made-up thing.