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***SJ***
“Actually,thepurplecowcharacter has more power than all the other characters. So, my friend Johnny called me a sissy for picking the purple cow and then I kicked his ass. Of course. Actually, I’ve won a championship for how great I play.”
Barry stopped to take a breath, and then forged on like he’d never spoken to anyone before and he was finally getting his chance to get all of his words out.
“Actually, I came in third place, but I think the girl in first was cheating. And the guy in second is such a loser that he doesn’t count. So, I say I won. Because I basically did.”
I took a deep breath while pretending to drink from my cheap glass of wine. Upon seeing Barry, I’d had a feeling that I would be paying for my own dinner, and I was closer to broke than I’d ever been. I didn’t know how much longer I could sit in my best dress and high heels listening to my date ramble on about video games. I was seconds from bashing my head into the corner of the table and praying for a quick death.
“I’m going to design my own game. A friend of mine is going to college for it, but I don’t think I need it. I’ve been gaming since I was like three. I’m good with computers and I think I can do it. I just have to find time between everything else I’m doing. Did I mention that I’m writing a TV show? It’s going to be based off this graphic novel I love.”
My eyes were burning from straining to keep them alert and on Barry. I didn’t want to be rude. He seemed like a perfectly nice guy. Well, he seemed like a perfectly nice child, if I was being honest. My first date in four years and suddenly I was discussing video games and talking to a guy with no job or ambition to get one. It was like being back in high school all over again.
“Um, yeah. You mentioned it once.” Or a thousand times.
I tuned out while he dove into another explanation of the show he was writing. I’d already heard him explain it in so much detail that I felt likeIwas writing the show. I took another pretend drink from my wine and smiled politely while cursing the worst tasting wine I’d ever had and the fact that I’d let Barry being a writer make me think he’d be mature.Stupid call, SJ. Stupid, stupid call.
Since moving back home to my dad’s house, I’d made a point of joining dating apps. Being brutally dumped by my fiancé of two years (boyfriend of two before that) wasn’t going to knock me down permanently. I was determined. I was strong. And already, I was regretting joining dating apps.
It really wasn’t fair that Barry had turned out to be such a man-child. I had turned down almost fifty men in search of a man. Not just any man, buta man.
I was sick of immature boys who led me on for four years and then dumped me outside of our apartment in front of a parade of people celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. A parade of drunk people who didn’t move on from the crying woman and the toe-shuffling asshole who was dumping the woman by mansplaining relationships and love to her.
Have you ever been shouted at by a crowd of drunks celebrating inKiss me, I’m Irishshirts? If not, you haven’t truly lived the same sad, pathetic life that I have. Congrats on that.
“And then the red lord would rise up from the ashes because the sexual healing from his harem would’ve revived him. He would be victorious because of the women. It’s a super progressive idea.”
Barry had seemed so much more normal than the other guys on the dating apps. He hadn’t sent me a picture of his dick or even asked if I was DTF. He’d seemed like a hero amongst oddly curving dicks. He’d even picked a nice restaurant and that never failed to impress me. As a food lover, the restaurant choice could’ve outweighed a crooked dick pic. I was kind of pissed that Barry had led me to believe that he was a mature, normal guy.
I’d shaved. Not just my legs. I’d crawled out of my pajamas and washed my body until it was smooth and smelled like a freaking tropical vacation. I’d pulled on the tiniest panties I owned. I had a wedgie that I was pretty sure was going to give me a yeast infection and the nipple pasties I had on were a set of knockoff ones from some shady store online. The one time I’d worn them before, I’d nearly ripped a nipple off. I’d risked life and nipple for mature Barry and all I’d gotten was a night of defeat and boredom.
“The women in the show will all wear these tiny Princess Leia bikini type things and it’ll be super hot.”
I sat back in my chair after putting my wine down. My stepmom had been full of advice about online dating. As if living with my stepmom at twenty-five wasn’t bad enough, she was eager to let me know exactly why everything I was doing was wrong. She was only eight years older than me, and the idea of her being right about Barry was enough to make me stay seated even when I wanted to run. After everything that had gone wrong in my life since St. Patrick’s Day, I couldn’t handle it if Reba was right, too. She was already impossible to deal with.
The fact that I was a fully grown adult still struggling to navigate her relationship with her stepmom had sent me into a full-blown crisis. I’d never been under the assumption that I had my life together, but there was only so low I could get before I just started screaming. Add in the fact that she was starting to circle ads for apartments in the paper and I was committed to seeing the date with Barry through.
Would I enjoy myself? Hell no. Would I win anything by not coming home crying about a bad date to Reba? Also no. Would I somehow stick it to her by never admitting that she’d been right about online dating? No. Never. It wasn’t like Reba was involved in the silent battle we were having in my head. I kept things professionally polite with her.
“You know…you could wear one of the bikinis. I have one at home.”
I narrowed my eyes at Barry. I’d been willing to forgive him for showing up late, being underdressed, and smelling faintly of body odor. I wouldn’t forgive him for thinking he could show up, put in zero effort, and then fuck me.
“I need to run to the restroom. I’ll be back.”
He winked. “Of course.”
I felt him staring at my ass as I strolled across the restaurant. I considered the logistics of grabbing a fork from a table as I passed so I could throw it dart-style and pluck an eye out of his head. Before I could fantasize about how good it would feel to shut Barry up, I recognized a few familiar faces.
Dominic Rose, Holden Notaro, and Barrett Taylor. Talk about real men. Barrett was my best friend’s father, but he’d been divorced from Samantha’s mother for almost a decade, and I hadn’t seen him in almost that long. Dominic and Holden were Barrett’s best friends. They were inseparable. They lived in my dad’s neighborhood, but I hadn’t spotted them since being home. I hadn’t thought about them in years, despite the fact that I’d had a crush on Samantha’s dad back when we used to hang out at his house when we were younger.
Seeing them sitting at a table together, each of them as handsome as any man I’d ever seen, I felt a jealous flutter deep in my stomach at the thought that there were three women somewhere out there who got to claim the three of them. Real men. Men who didn’t show up to a date at a nice restaurant in ripped cargo shorts and a Pokémon t-shirt.
Barrett looked up and our eyes met. A zap of awareness sliced right through me, and I couldn’t help the extra sway to my hips as I redirected myself toward their table.
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