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She wobbled as she stood and had to brace herself on the counter.
“You didn’t plan on driving home tonight?” Beck asked.
“Not any longer.” The ground moved a lot more while she was standing than it had when she’d been sitting down. “Can I sleep here?”
“Sure. The sheets on the guest bed are clean. Do you need me to get out the aspirin?”
“No, I know where it is by now.” She didn’t indulge in this much alcohol often, but when she did it happened at Beck’s house. Though not often was still often enough to have a routine. She shook her head, regretting that action immediately.
“Thanks, Beck. For doing this with me. I’m not sure I could have done this on my own.”
“I don’t know what took you so long. It seems like everyone is doing online dating these days. Hell, my younger sister has three apps on her phone for it.”
“I liked the idea that I could do it on my own. Meet someone like they do in the movies.”
“You know, signing up for online dating doesn’t mean you can’t still meet someone while in line at the grocery store. Though that would probably be easier if you didn’t have your groceries delivered.”
“Only when I have a deadline at work,” she said defensively.
“Oh, get upstairs,” Beck said with a wave. “This won’t be so bad, you’ll see. You might meet some nice people.”
“That’s what Jason said.”
“Who’s Jason?”
“He does maintenance around the office. Caught me working on my profile. I think he’s one of those people with three dating apps on their phone.” Her lips had slurred over the word “think,” so she muttered the word under her breath several times until she felt like it came out correctly.
“Oh, well, I don’t know this Jason fellow, but it sounds like he has the right idea. Have fun.”
“I—” she paused, giving herself extra time to concentrate on the next word “—think my spreadsheets are fun.”
“They’re fun for you,” Beck said, placing a heavy hand on Marsie’s shoulder. “Just don’t let them get in your way. Math and statistics can’t solve all the world’s problems.”
“The hell you say,” Marsie said with a laugh as she grabbed her purse and stumbled down the hall to crawl up the stairs. “I’ll clean up in the morning.”
“Maybe we’ll be lucky and Neil will beat us both to it.”
“Ha!” Marsie looked up the long set of stairs that seemed steeper than usual. Which was probably the alcohol. Then she sighed, lifted her foot and began her climb. Like dating and finding a mate, one step at a time.
CHAPTER TWO
IF A DATE was going well, Jason usually ordered another drink. Not enough to get him light-headed, but something to hold on to while he and the lovely lady across the table talked and laughed. If a date was going south, he had, on occasion, ordered enough to drink that he had to Uber his way home after seeing the woman to her car.
Tonight was one of those other nights. Those nights when he was two hours and one drink in, and Allison hadn’t caught any of his polite overtures about the night being over. The waitress had disappeared into a black hole on the other side of the restaurant.
Not a black hole. The customer whose table she’d attached herself to was very cute. Even Jason could see that and men weren’t his type. However, he wasn’t the only non-cute-dude customer who wanted her attention and wasn’t getting it. Someone was going to complain to the manager soon. It might be Jason, if he could figure out how to get Allison to stop telling a story about her childhood cat and get out of this chair.
“My mom had said I shouldn’t name him Muffin, but it went with our breakfast animals. My brother had his dog Bacon and my dad had Pancake and…” She paused to drink from her water glass.
Good enough. “Allison, please excuse me. I’ve really got to use the bathroom.”
Her water glass was resting on her bottom lip as she looked up at him. “Okay. Sure. The best part of the story will be here for you when you get back.”
“I can’t wait,” he said, then kicked himself. He liked his job because he liked people. He got to work with his hands, improve the way the world worked one small repair at a time, and chat with all the interesting people who worked at the research firm. He also knew how to flatter people and make them feel good. Most of the time, he was sincere about it. But then there were nights like tonight when habit kicked in and Allison was smiling up at him, pleased that he was going to listen to some boring story about Muffin, and he wished he could be a dick, toss money on the table and leave.
