She was laughing again. “Kevin Bacon?”
“Yup. Doug has a petting zoo, and he names them stuff like that.”
“Like what?” she asked. “What else?”
“Well, there’s Scape Goat—that’s Chloe’s mom. Chloe’s full name is Chloe Nose Bleat.” I ticked off on my fingers. “The chickens are Mother Clucker and Chick-a-Las Cage, there’s Barack O-Llama, the miniature horse is Al Capony—”
She howled.
I grinned. “The rabbits are Rabbit Downey Jr. and Obi Bun Kenobi—”
“STOP,” she begged. “You’re kidding me.”
“That’s Doug for you,” I said, grinning. “So what’s your address? I can leave in thirty minutes.”
I heard her let out a breath. She paused for a long moment. “I’m sure you realized this, but I’m a lot older than you.”
I shrugged. “So?”
“Don’t you want to know how old I am?”
“Not really. It doesn’t change anything for me.”
“I’m going to be thirty-eight in December.”
“Okay,” I said. “I don’t care.”
I didn’t.
She paused. “Daniel, this isn’t really a good time for me to get involved with someone. I’m not really emotionally available right now.”
“No problem. We can just hang out.”
“And you should know that I don’t do what we did the other night. Ever.”
Yeah, she’d said that the other night. A few times, actually. “Well, you should know I don’t do it either. Ever.”
And I meant that too. I didn’t.
She went quiet again.
There was something fragile in the silence. I got the feeling that if I hung up without getting her to agree to meet, I was never going to see her again. Like she would just disappear back into the universe. And something told me she could go either way.
I cleared my throat. “You are not going to believe this,” I said. “Doug just bet me a hundred bucks that I couldn’t get you to see me tonight. Wild, right?”
She laughed, and I felt her decision tip.
“Okay,” she said finally. “But I’ll come to you. I won’t be able to get there for another three hours though. I don’t live close.”
I looked at my watch. It was four o’clock. “So what I’m hearing is you’re staying the night.”
“Uh…”
“I’ll tell you what. I’ll put you up in the B & B,” I said quickly. “Your own room. It’s closed for the season, so you’ll have the whole house to yourself.”
“Are you sure?”
I felt myself deflate a notch hearing she didn’t want to sleep next to me. But beggars can’t be choosers, and this was obviously something that had freaked her out the last time. “I’m sure. And come hungry. I’ll make us dinner. I got dinosaur nuggets.”
She laughed again. “Okay.”
We exchanged cell phone numbers and I gave her the address to the house. Then I hung up and turned around to Liz and Doug standing directly behind me. They were both beaming.
“She’s coming?” Liz asked, looking excited.
I dragged a hand down my mouth. “Yeah.” And then the anxiety hit me. “What the hell am I gonna do with her?”
Doug scoffed. “I think you know what to do with her, buddy.”
I gave him a look. “You know what I’m talking about.”
It was the off-season. Nothing was open. We didn’t even have a movie theater. I couldn’t even take her for ice cream, nothing.
What the hell did people in big cities do? What did we do? Bonfires? The VFW? Drive around?
“Take her for a drive,” Doug said, like he was reading my mind.
Panic ripped through me.
“She likes you,” Liz said. “She’s coming here because she wants to see you. That’s good enough.”
Was it? I mean, what the hell did I have to offer a woman like her?
Well…there was one thing. And I must have done a pretty good job of it if she was driving two hours to have it again. At least there was that.
“Just keep her laughing,” Doug said. “When a woman laughs, her eyes are closed more. She won’t notice how ugly you are.”
I snorted, despite myself.
“Call Brian,” Liz suggested. “See if he can help.”
I nodded. That was a good idea. “Okay. Okay, what else?”
Doug threw back the rest of the Coke he was holding. “I’ll make the food. I can drop off a basket in a couple of hours.”