Kami

The butterflies are back, and not just because I got called home from work early to deal with Sugarbear getting through the fence in my piddly backyard and eating Mrs. Ostermeijer’s mums. Placating my neighbor was fairly simple, but if Sugarbear gets through the other fence, it won’t be so easy.

And it’s not like I can just call up doggy daycare and ask if they take extra-large varieties for while I’m at work.

Maybe tomorrow, I’ll take her to work with me. We do have a parking lot. And she loves my dogs.

So tonight’s butterflies are once again due to a date.

A real date. With Douglas. A man who isn’t a hockey player. And who wears glasses, and who Muffy assures me is no more than thirty-five. And who wants to meet at a wine bar downtown.

Nick knows wine exists, but he’s more of an Irish whisky kind of guy. Or Irish beer. Or sometimes a mix of the two.

Not thinking about Nick tonight, I remind myself.

Tiger howls when I dance into my slingbacks. Like I’m cheating on her for having a date. “It’s a work night,” I tell her. “I won’t be out late. Promise.”

Pancake rolls her eyes and flops to the ground in front of my couch. Dixie tries to trip me and bounces all over the living room. She’s a pinball, leaping off the couch, missing the recliner, bouncing off the wall, skidding to a stop before the TV stand.

“You three are fine.” They got an extra-long walk with Sugarbear after work, and then we played fetch in the front snip of a yard for half an hour while Sugarbear ate her grains in back, during which I only thought about Nick and the thirty apology teddy bears approximately three million times. “Dates are good for me. And so they’re good for you. Don’t you want someone else to play fetch with?”

Tiger flops on her back next to Pancake and makes her goofball howl again. Dixie skitters out of the room and dashes back in two seconds later with her stuffed monkey that she likes to play tug of war with. She drops it at my feet and pants up at me.

“After my date.”

She, too, flops mournfully onto the rug beside Pancake and Tiger. I unplug my phone, snap a picture of the three of them looking pathetically adorable, and send it to my mom. Then I head for the door.

Half an hour or so later, I’m being seated in a suede-lined booth big enough for two beside the exposed brick wall at Noble V, one of the trendier wine bars in downtown just down the street from Chester Green’s. Muffy made the reservation for us, claiming she owed me for dancing with William. My date hasn’t arrived yet, but I wonder if Muffy’s men are just the late kind. Plus, I’m ten minutes early, which is unusual when I’m heading into downtown at rush hour.

I guess the city’s campaign to get more people on public transportation is working.

I fiddle with the menu, glancing at the fine writing on the thick linen paper tucked into the leather menu cover. The wine is easy—they have my favorite Riesling from a small winery outside the city near the Blue Ridge Mountains—but too many things on the food list sound great for that to be an easy choice.

Nick would go for the hamburger, but I—dammit.

I don’t care what Nick would go for.

The salmon sounds good. Fish is good. Healthy. Sophisticated. Undoubtedly delicious here. I flop the menu down and glance around again.

Everything’s dark wood. High, exposed-beam ceilings. The bartender’s young and hot and wearing a black button-down, and the servers are all in total black too. And oh my god, that’s Doug Dobey, Felicity’s ex-boyfriend, talking to the hostess.

I duck my head over the menu again, because now I’m thinking about Felicity.

And Doug.

And the thousands of cookies printed with dick pics that Nick sent Doug, who then dumped them on Felicity’s lawn, when they broke up.

Nick does not do anything small.

Also, Doug went a little stalker nutso after that. We haven’t had reason to talk since the break-up, but I’d still rather not see him.

Who wants to see their friends’ psycho exes? Especially when he was ultimately the reason the entire Thrusters team got sent to charm school?

Heat surges across my neck, and I lunge for my cell phone, because my date’s name is Douglas.

Muffy wouldn’t.

She wouldn’t.

But did she know?

I’m failing to unlock my phone because my hands are shaking so badly when the hostess’s black shoes stop beside my table. “Ms. Oakley, sir.”

I whip my head up, and fuck.

Doug’s lips part as we make eye contact. He’s in pressed jeans and a blue button-down. His brown hair is neatly trimmed. So’s his beard. His glasses reflect the candlelight on the table. And if I didn’t know better, I’d think he wasn’t a psychotic crazypants.

“Is this some kind of a fucking joke?” he demands as he looks me up and down.

“I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” I stutter.

The hostess glances between us, then shoots a look toward the bar.

“Did Murphy set you up to make me look like a fool?” he snarls.

I pull my phone out and aim it at him. “I’m recording every word you say. You’re going to back away and let me leave, and never, ever talk about this huge mistake again, and I won’t show this to Ares Berger.”

“Fucking—”

“Ma’am?” The gentle-voiced manager joins us as I’m scurrying out of the booth. “Is everything okay?”

“Blind date gone wrong,” I tell him, because that’s simpler than my idiot cousin set me up with my friend’s psycho ex. “May I please have an escort to my car?”

“I can’t fucking believe this,” Doug seethes. “My first date in a fucking year, and it’s this bitch. Fucking Muff Matchers. I’ll put them the fuck out of business for this.”

“Sir—”

Whatever else the manager says, I don’t hear, because there’s a hollow whoosh in my ears and the entire dimly-lit restaurant takes on the hues of hell. “Oh, you better take that back right now,” I growl.

“You’re a bitch,” he repeats. “And this dating service is run by retar—”

Everything after that gets a little hazy.

I know I take a swing at him. Someone screams. Maybe a few someones. I definitely connect with something, because there’s a sharp sting radiating from my middle knuckle to my elbow. Hands grab me. I thrash about. I’m shouting. Something about dicks not calling other people names. Something about Nick chopping off Doug’s nuts if he gets in my face again.

It’s not like I can threaten that my brother’s going to do it.

A wall of mist hits my face, and I realize I’ve just been tossed out of Nobel V and into the night. Streetlamps illuminate the wide sidewalks and couples in dark jackets and groups of single women laughing together walk past.

“I don’t know what he did to you,” the hostess tells me as she hands me my coat and purse, “but damn, girl. I want you on my side next time my boyfriend pulls a dick move.”

“Can I escort you to your car, ma’am?”

The manager is outside the bar too, watching me as though I’m a lit stick of dynamite.

“I’m sorry.” I shake my hand out—did I break it?—and realize my sinuses are clogging and my cheeks are wet. “I don’t usually—”

I swallow hard, because I don’t usually lose my flipping mind at wine bars is just too weird to force out. I don’t even know myself right now. “No, thank you,” I finish.

The manager shifts a look over his shoulder, and I realize he’s asking just as much for my safety as for Doug’s.

Probably more so for mine.

Maybe.

My heart’s still pounding like it’s in a boxing ring.

“I have friends just down the street,” I tell him, gesturing at the glowing neon sign for Chester Green’s. I doubt my friends are there—it’s not a game night—but I know the bartender and several regulars.

Plus, there’s no way Doug would walk in there.

Everyone in Chester Green’s knows who he is, even if Muffy apparently doesn’t.

And after that, I definitely need a drink.

And then I’m going to kill Muffy.

Again.