Role Playing(11)

Malcolm, on the other hand, had moved to Seattle after graduation and was still running the hospice business he and Aiden had started. Aiden tried to text his best friend often, and they still played their online video games together, but ever since Malcolm had gotten married and had his kids, his free time had whittled away to nearly nothing.

Which was part of the reason why Aiden was sitting here, now, hanging out with Riley—hoping for some guidance.

It was Sunday, and he’d just gone to services at his mother’s church. Now, they were at the Copper Kettle Diner, an institution in Fool’s Falls. Almost exclusively decorated with antlers, the restaurant also featured really good food, including biscuits with elk sausage and gravy that were incredible. The after-church coffee klatch that his mother indulged in with women from her weekly Bible study was a similar institution, and Aiden had been taking his mother since the car had “broken down.” She was in her element at a long table on the other side of the restaurant, talking and laughing and gossiping with the contingent of ladies of various ages. He usually had a coffee and read something or played a video game until she was ready to go home.

After he and Riley had put in their breakfast orders, he sighed. “I need to find a date.”

Riley’s eyes widened over the rim of his mug, which he then put down with a clatter. He visibly swallowed, then grinned broadly. “Hot damn! Finally!”

Aiden blinked. That was more enthusiastic than he had been anticipating.

“I have been waiting for you to get yourself out there,” Riley continued. “You’ve been here, what, two years? Three?”

“Something like that.” Aiden took a sip of his own coffee.

“In that whole time,” Riley continued, “I haven’t seen you out with anybody. Not once.”

Aiden frowned. “Um . . . my dad was dying? And . . . I was taking care of him?”

Riley looked abashed. “Fair. But he’s been dead for a year, right? Besides taking care of your mom, what the heck have you been doing?”

“I do things!” Aiden protested. “I’ve been taking some community college classes. Stuff I’d wanted to try but never had time to. Took an English class and an art class, and I’m thinking of gardening next . . .” Granted, they weren’t anything challenging—nothing that was leading to a degree—yet they helped him get out of his own head. The situation with his mother was getting him down, especially since he couldn’t quite feel settled in Fool’s Falls. He’d hoped that the college might help him find people to connect with, which had worked. Kind of.

“Did you meet anybody there?”

“Yeah. I set up my online gaming guild with a bunch of people I met in Contemporary Fiction.”

Riley rolled his eyes at that. Aiden knew that as far as Riley was concerned, “online gaming” was right up there with “forty-year-old virgins” and “living in your mother’s basement.”

“No, I mean did you meet any women,” Riley emphasized. “Did you hook up with anyone?”

Aiden shook his head.

Riley’s expression was one of patient irritation. “What you need is a dating profile,” he said. “Couple of them! Man, if they’d had these back in our day, I would’ve gotten laid like carpet tile, you know?”

Aiden grimaced. “That isn’t the . . .”

“I mean, I was making out pretty damned well,” Riley continued with a laugh. “But now? Holy shit. Tinder! If you want to hook up, it’s right there, like . . . like ordering a pizza!”

Even at fifty, Riley was striking. Much like Aiden, Riley still had a full head of hair, although his was dark brown, going gray at the temples. His pretty-boy looks had aged well, too, sort of Brad Pitt as a brunet. Since his divorce fifteen years ago, he’d cut a swath through the local women, and most of the women in the surrounding county. Possibly some nearby counties, as well. His expertise with all things dating was the reason Aiden was asking for his help, after all.

Still, Aiden didn’t need quite this much eagerness.

“Riley . . . ,” Aiden warned, and Riley rolled his eyes.

“Don’t tell me: you want a relationship,” Riley said, with a note of amusement. “You almost got married to someone you’d been with for years and years, so I get it. But I can help there too. I mean, I don’t want to be in a relationship, but I’ve dated plenty of women who wanted more than I was interested in. I can think of at least five women off the top of my head who would love exclusivity . . .”

“No. I am not interested in a relationship!” The words popped out, more vehemently than he’d intended, and Aiden winced when Riley’s eyes widened.

“No shit,” Riley breathed. “You’re finally going the casual-sex route?”

“Jesus, Riley.” Aiden rubbed his hands over his face, suddenly uninterested in his biscuits and gravy.

“You are so west side,” Riley teased with a chuckle. Ever since Aiden had moved away from Fool’s Falls and Eastern Washington, Riley had been on him about turning into a “Seattle hipster” full of social justice, wokeness, and pretension. “There’s no shame in my game, man. We’re in our prime. I still get plenty of women, believe me.”

Before Riley could regale him with any conquest stories, Aiden quickly jumped in. “I’m just looking for a date for Jason’s wedding, okay? It’s kind of important.”