When they got downstairs, he offered her another drink. Apparently, he was even going to be sweet while she extricated herself. She politely declined. As he kissed her good-bye at the door, after she’d declined his offer to drive her home and apologized once again, he said, “Don’t worry about it. Maybe you’re just not the hookup type.” Then he planted a chaste peck on her cheek. “But regardless, the guy who does get to be with you—in whatever form—is gonna be one lucky bastard.”
Walking down the sidewalk, she felt like she was doing a walk of shame. Not the traditional kind, but the journey was still infused with regret. Was she ever going to get it together? Was she doomed to spend her life alone, rattling around in her big house with only her vibrator for company?
Maybe you’re just not the hookup type. Greg’s words echoed in her mind. If she wasn’t the hookup type, and she wasn’t the relationship type—at least not for a good long while—what did that leave her?
Chapter Eleven
Dax was strolling along College Street after the second Godfather movie, wanting to stretch his legs before settling in for the final installment. In truth, he was considering bailing. The first two were rightly classics, the third more uneven, in his opinion. And it was late. He was going to have to stay at the condo as he would miss the last ferry. But he was a completist. The same part of his brain that saw patterns in data and had propelled him to success in the software industry didn’t like the idea of leaving before the trilogy was over. Still, he wished he had time to grab a drink before the last movie started. A beer would be just the thing to make the last movie more interesting.
“Dax! Hi!”
Or, there was always Amy.
Amy, strolling down College in tight jeans, red heels, and a flowing, sleeveless white blouse, looking like a siren moonlighting as a Calvin Klein model. He squinted past her, looking for evidence of Mr. Crest Whitestrips. He glanced at his watch. It was only ten thirty. Was it possible the date was already over? Or maybe she really was serious about keeping things casual, and she’d already…gotten what she’d been looking for. Judging by the big grin on her face as she ambled to a stop in front of him, he feared she had. “What happened to the Tinder guy?”
“Oh, he lives just up Grace Street,” she said, gesturing over her shoulder. He refrained from pointing out that that didn’t answer his question at all. She tilted her head back to look at the marquee above them. “Oh—it’s Godfather night! How was it?”
“The third one is just about to start.”
“I never saw that one. Only the first two.”
“The first two are by far superior. Francis Ford Coppola reportedly said that the first two were part of a series and this one was meant to be a semi-stand-alone epilogue, but the studio made him label it the third. It’s not really my favorite, but I have this weird compulsion to finish what I start, so I have to stay.” He was going to regret this, but… “You want to join me?”
She grinned. “Are there any horse heads in this one?”
“Nope. You’re safe on the horse head front.”
“Well, that’s a bummer. I actually loved the horse head. In a horror movie sort of way, I mean. I don’t think I’ve ever been so startled by something. Somehow, even though I was watching it almost twenty years after it came out and it’s a pop-culture touchstone, I didn’t know it was coming. Anyway, I think it was the best part of the movie.”
“You surprise me, Amy Morrison.”
She looked genuinely perplexed. “Why?”
“I don’t know many women who would get so excited about the prospect of a bloody horse’s head plopped onto someone’s bed.”
She shrugged. “Okay, well, I’m in. Date ended early anyway.”
“But you went to his house.” He didn’t want to ask. But he couldn’t not ask.
She sighed theatrically as she followed him into the theater. “Don’t ask.”
Can’t not ask—already established that. But maybe he’d weasel it out of her later. “I’m going to get some popcorn. Want some?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I’m not really a popcorn person.”
“How can you not be a popcorn person? Everyone likes popcorn. Especially movie popcorn.”
“It’s not that I dislike it.” She sidled up to the glass display cabinet. “I just like candy more.”
Once they were settled into their seats in the almost-empty theater, she ripped into her candy.
“You don’t even want a bite?” he asked, holding his popcorn bag in front of her.