It was worth it.
Fuck, it had to be worth it.
• • •
Shelby was already sitting at the bar when I got there. She was talking to h• • •er dad with her back to me, so I slid onto a stool at the empty table Tom had reserved for us. He caught my eye, and I couldn’t believe I was pulling this off.
All right, so I was a little ahead of myself here. I’d only walked in and sat down. I still had to pull off the whole ‘strangers’ thing I’d suggested, something that seemed cuter on paper than in real life.
How did you explain yourself to the person who knew everything about you?
One of the servers brought a beer over to my table and I thanked him, just watching Shelby. She’d hidden in her room before I’d left, and now I saw why.
I’d never actually seen her on a date before. I usually saw her in yesterday’s sweatpants and a tank top with crumbs all over it. That was her uniform, so seeing her like this was different.
Her dark hair fell over her shoulders, perfectly straight, and her body was hugged by a black dress that had a slit at her knee.
I almost didn’t want to see her from the front. I didn’t think I could take it if she looked this good from the back.
I nodded to her dad when he caught my eye again. He leaned over the bar, pointing in my direction. Shelby turned her head, frowning at me.
I grinned.
She turned back to her dad for a brief second, then grabbed her wine glass and walked over to join me at the table.
I was right. I couldn’t cope with how beautiful she looked. Her dress had a high neckline that left her arms totally bare, and she wore black high heels that made my eyebrows raise when I stood to greet her.
Touching her hip, I leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Hi. I’m Jay.”
“Oh, my God.” She laughed. “Are we really doing the stranger thing?”
“Yes.” My lips twitched. “Hey—you’re wearing high heels. Anything is possible.”
She stuck her tongue in her cheek before she smiled and rolled her eyes. “You’re ridiculous, you know that?”
“It’s part of my charm.”
“Did you have my dad keep me busy at the bar just to do this?”
I shook my head with a serious look on my face and pulled out her chair. “No. As a complete stranger, I’ve never met the man at the bar before.”
Shelby covered her pink lips with her hand as she sat down. “This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever done, and I’m writing a book about aliens with three penises for a client.”
“Oh, you’re a writer?”
She looked like she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It took her a minute before she sagged, smiling, even though it was clearly against her will. “All right. I’ll play along. Even though this is totally stupid.”
The grin on my face was so wide it was going to split my cheeks. “Let’s start again. Hi. I’m Jay.”
She took a deep breath, and the expression that flashed across her face told me she couldn’t believe she was doing this. “I’m Shelby. It’s nice to meet you, Jay.”
She was right. This was ridiculous. But shit, we’d started it now, so we were going to see it through.
This was the last time I planned a first date.
“So, Shelby, what do you do for a living?”
Her lips twitched and she cradled her wine glass. “I’m a writer.”
“Oh? What do you write?”
“Personally, I write romance, but I also do freelance research articles for local papers and ghostwrite.”
“What’s ghostwriting?” I leaned forward. And, hey, it was a valid question. I wasn’t actually entirely sure.
“Other people hire me to write books for them. Depending on how much work they want done, some people will send me a rough outline and I’ll start from scratch, but others will send me a really rough draft and have me re-work it into a proper book.”
“Sounds interesting. What do you usually write for that?”
“Anything. I’ve written romance, paranormal, fantasy… Right now, I’m ghostwriting a book about aliens invading Earth.”
“Fun.”
Her eyes glittered. “They have three penises.”
My lips twitched. “And you’re officially the most interesting first date I’ve ever had.”
She laughed, flicking her hair over her shoulder. “What do you do?”
“My dad owns a chain of gyms across Texas, and I manage the one here in town.”
She flicked her gaze to my arms, then leaned forward on the table and rested her chin on her fingers. “Oh? So you work out?”
She was deliberately being overly-flirtatious in an attempt to get me to stop this stupid charade, but it was so much fun, I couldn’t.
Now, I wanted to keep it up to see which one of us would break first.
“Now and then,” I said, smirking. “What do you do for fun? Do you have any interesting hobbies?”