Well, if he was annoyed with me going out with his relative or whatever he was… too bad. I wasn’t bringing him back here. It was only dinner. Just a nice date with nice company.
And I was looking forward to it.
One small step for Aurora De La Torre, one giant leap for the rest of my life.
I wasn’t going to let anyone ruin it. Not even Game Warden Moody.
*
“So,” Johnny asked, sipping on the one and only beer he’d said he was drinking that night, “how are you still single?”
I snickered as I set my glass of sangria down and shrugged. “Probably the same reason as you. My addiction to creepy dolls gets in the way.”
My date, my first first date in forever, laughed. Johnny had already been waiting for me inside the restaurant when I’d gotten there. So far, he’d been polite and curious, asking all kinds of questions about my job at the shop so far mostly.
And asking about my age. He was forty-one. He owned his own radon mitigation company and seemed to really like his job.
He was very cute too.
But it had taken about fifteen minutes in to decide that, as easy as he was to talk to and joke around with, at least so far, I didn’t get that… that feeling, I guess. I knew the clear difference between when I liked someone and when I liked someone.
From the way he’d checked out our waitress’s ass and the hostess’， I figured he wasn’t feeling the chemistry either. That or he expected me to be blind. Either way… it was a bust.
I wasn’t heartbroken.
And I was going to pay for my half of the food.
Pulling into the driveway not too long afterward, I was surprised to see that the garage door was still wide open. I had just barely closed my door when a shadow covered the gravel right in front of the opening. By the length and mass of it, I knew it was Mr. Rhodes.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hi,” he replied, stopping right on the edge of the concrete floor.
I stepped closer, my toes just on the other side of where the foundation was and peeked in and up. “Did you get the opener fixed?”
“We have to order a new one,” he replied, staying right where he was. “The motor burned out.”
“That sucks.” I looked at him. He’d shoved his hands into his dark jeans.
“It was as old as this apartment is,” my landlord explained.
I smiled faintly. “Did Amos bail on you?”
“He went back inside about half an hour ago, saying he had to use the bathroom.”
I grinned.
“You’re back home early,” Mr. Rhodes added out of nowhere in that serious voice of his.
“We only had dinner.”
Even though it was dark, I could sense the heavy weight of his gaze as he said, “I’m surprised Johnny didn’t ask you to go out for drinks after.”
“No. I mean, he did, but I told him I’d been up since five thirty.”
The hands came back out of his pockets as he crossed his arms over that swimming-pool-sized chest. “Going out again?”
Someone was chatty tonight. “No.”
I was pretty positive the lines across his forehead deepened.
“He checked out the waitress’s ass every time she walked by,” I explained. “I told him he needs to work on that next time he goes on a date.”
Mr. Rhodes shifted just enough under the light that I saw him blink. “You said that?”
“Uh-huh. I messed with him about it nonstop for the last half hour. I even offered to ask her for her number for him,” I said.
His mouth twitched, and for one split second, I caught a hint of what might be a stunning smile.
“I didn’t know you were best friends growing up.” That was really all I’d freely gotten out of Johnny about Rhodes and Amos. I hadn’t pressed. That information alone had been interesting enough.
Rhodes tipped his head to the side.
“What about you? Do you go on dates?”
The way he said “No” was like I’d asked him if he’d ever considered cutting off his penis.
I must have flinched at his tone because he softened it when he kept talking, looking right into my eyes all intense when he did. “I don’t have time for that.”
I nodded. That wasn’t the first time I’d heard someone say that. And as someone who had… not even been second best… it was fair. It was the right thing to say and do. For the other person. Better to know and accept what your priorities were in life than waste someone else’s time.
He worked long hours. I saw how late he came in some days and how early he left on others. He wasn’t exaggerating about not having time. And with Amos… that was an even higher priority. When he was off work, he was home. With his son. As it should be.