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“I don’t do a lot of dating, guys, but I’m pretty sure that was a disaster by anyone’s rubric.” I dropped my purse and squatted down to enthusiastically rub the cats. Ada put her two front paws on my knees, so I hooked her into my arms and stood, still rubbing her head. I brushed my cheek across hers and sighed. “At least I got good food out of it. Not that Luke would agree with that, either.”
Who couldn’t eat salsa? It wasn’t as if it had some kind of insanity pepper in it, either. Just onions, garlic, and tomato. Not even jalapeño. I’d asked. Was food compatibility a thing?
Austin loved that Mexican restaurant. In fact, before Scott’s nephew had arrived on the scene, the guys used to alternate between the cantina and the deli. When they’d been going to the cantina, I’d invited myself along.
Austin never said no.
I sighed and let Ada jump out of my arms. Maybe he hadn’t said it. But maybe he’d wanted to?
I needed to stop thinking about Austin. He’d made it clear we were BFFs. Period. Luke was interested in me, so I was going to see where it went.
Of course, given our first date, maybe he wasn’t interested anymore.
My phone started ringing. I groaned and answered.
“Hi, Megan.”
“So? How was it? I need details!”
I flopped onto my sofa, my head dropping back so I was staring at the ceiling. “The food was good.”
“Uh-oh.”
I closed my eyes and tried to summon bright energy. “No. There’s no uh-oh. It was a first date. Those are always awkward, right?”
“No. They’re not supposed to be, at least.”
“Not helping.” Because really, if first dates weren’t supposed to be a disaster, I was going to have to rethink this whole thing with Luke.
“I don’t want to help. You shouldn’t be dating Luke.”
“Yeah? Who should I be dating?”
“We both know that answer.” Megan’s sigh turned into a raspberry at the end. “But he’s a clueless doofus.”
Austin. It was true. That was exactly what he was, and it didn’t look to be changing anytime soon. “We’re friends. I get not wanting to risk that.”
“Really?” Megan made a rude noise. “I didn’t realize you were a chicken.”
“Hey! Am not.” But maybe, deep down, I was. I wasn’t going to make a move on Austin and risk him turning tail and running the other direction. I valued his friendship, for one. And for two? I wasn’t comfortable being the instigator in a relationship. Call me old fashioned, if you must, I wanted a guy to ask me out. I wanted someone who was interested enough in me to be willing to take a risk.
“Yeah, okay.” Sarcasm dripped from Megan’s words. “So the food was good. How was the conversation?”
“We talked about the youth trip to Mexico and how he connected with the missionaries there in the first place. That kind of thing.”
“I guess that doesn’t sound bad. Was there conversation about who you are in there, too? Who he is? That whole getting-to-know-you thing?”
“Yeah. Of course.” Not a lot of it, but some. Once we both seemed to recognize that we weren’t going to see eye-to-eye about mission trips, we sidestepped.
“And did he ask you out again?”
“No.” I bit my lip. “That’s a bad sign, right? He was supposed to want to make plans right away?”
Megan grunted. “I don’t know. There are those guys out there who have a three-day rule.”
“A three-day rule? Like what, they wait three days before they make contact again? I thought those guys were only in sitcoms.” I couldn’t see Luke falling into that category. He had to know how ridiculous it was, didn’t he?
“Sad to say, they are alive and well on the dating apps.”
