As the seconds tick by, Tinley contemplates her current predicament. She could get up now and not sit through another atrocious date, or she could finish the evening, gain another five pounds from the chocolate concoction sitting in front of her, suffer through the last date, and be done with it. She weighs the pros and cons of her choice for far too long and the chair across from her scrapes along the floor. The hairs on the back of her neck go up and she cringes while feeling around the table for her fork. Might as well dig in while she’s still got the chance. Who knows what kind of disaster is in store. She takes a giant bite of the chocolate lava brownie and it immediately melts on her tongue. The combination of cookie dough chunks mixed in with the rich molten syrup flowing down over the dessert is enough to put her in a sugar coma.

She reaches for another bite as her date sits down in the seat across from her. “Hey, I’m—shit, sorry. I keep forgetting about the no names thing. You’d think by now I would know better. I’m your last date for the evening.”

Tinley’s ears perk up at the sound of his voice; it’s super low and incredibly sexy. She feels along the table for her glass of wine and takes a large gulp of liquid courage before responding. “That’s okay, I’ve always been a fan of rule-breakers. Some rules were just meant to be broken. For now, I’ll just call you Mystery Date Number Four.”

A husky chuckle floats across the table, and she can’t help but be instantly attracted. She can’t see his face, but with a voice like that, it doesn’t even matter what he looks like. “Is that because I’m your fourth date or are you ranking us? What’s my competition look like?”

All thoughts of being ladylike go out the window as Tinley lets out a full-blown belly laugh. If this guy only knew. “If by ranking, you mean which date was the worst, it’s hard to tell at this point.”

“Is that so? I had some pretty bad ones myself.”

She laughs internally at the disastrous dates she’s had so far. There’s no way he can compete. “I don’t know, my dates were pretty awful. I don’t think you can top them.”

“You want to bet?”

“Oh, we’re making bets now? I guess our relationship just cranked up a notch. Instead of it just being a blind date, we’re now at the blind acquaintance level.”

She’s not sure where this level of confidence came from, but she’s liking how easily the conversation is flowing with this guy. It’s completely effortless and she’s just comfortable. It’s never been this way with anyone before.

“Is that a thing?”

“It is now.” She finds herself nodding along as she answers until she remembers he can’t actually see her.

“Fair enough.”

“How about we go back and forth and find out who truly had the worst dates?”

“I’m game, but I’ve got to warn you, mine were pretty bad.”

We’ll see about that. Hers went from bad to worse. “My first date, the guy had anger management issues, as in screamed at me from the very beginning and wouldn’t even let me get a single word in.”

“That’s pretty bad, but the woman I had for my first date wanted to call me ‘daddy’ and kept asking me to spank her.”

“Without seeing your face? I get being into some kinky stuff, but don’t you have to trust the person you’re doing it with first?”

“Apparently not. Now c’mon, spill on the second date.”

“Oh, that guy was a real winner. He was twenty-one, pretty sure he was a frat guy, and he wanted to have a four-way with himself, me, my sister, and my roommate.”

His laugh surrounds her, and she just wants to wrap herself up in it.

“I need to know, how did that discussion come about?”

“They’re the ones who signed me up for this and it just came out, and I guess to college boy, that’s an invitation to bring them to the bedroom. So gross.”

“Yeah, that’s a little weird. My second one wasn’t all that weird, just a crazy cat lady.”

She knows exactly which woman he’s referring to; it wasn’t very hard to peg her as a cat lover based on everything she was wearing. “There always has to be at least one in the bunch. My last date, he definitely takes the cake. He told me he was an alien from another planet, had a whole story about the name of his people and the planet he comes from.”

“You’re right, you win. I can’t top that at all. Where do these people even come from? Do they just suddenly come out of the woodwork for shit like this?”

She can’t just win because he says she wins; that’s boring, and she’s such a snoop. She has to know what actually happened. “C’mon, you have to tell me. What happened on your last date?”

“It was pretty uneventful. We got two minutes into the date and she got up and left. She didn’t say anything either. So, I couldn’t tell you if she went to the bathroom or if I got a complete brushoff.”

“You’re right, I totally win.” Even if she won in the sucky date category, everything is looking up with her current date. At least they are having a conversation together—it’s more than she can say about the other guys.

The bell rings for the fourth and final time for the evening and Tinley’s shoulders drop. She is actually enjoying herself on this date and doesn’t want it to end. They didn’t really get to know each other, but the conversation was flowing easily and they had a fun banter going on. Who knew something like that would happen?

“It was nice meeting you. Maybe I’ll be hearing from you again soon.”

“Yeah, it was good meeting you as well.”

Her shoulders slump forward even more. That was a brushoff if she’s ever heard one. No point in trying to get this guy’s number after that.

“Okay everyone, thank you all for coming. We’re going to have all the guys leave the room and then we’ll turn the lights back on. We’ll have everyone fill out a comment card with the date you’d like to see again. If there are any matches, you’ll each get the other’s phone number.”

It doesn’t take long for the guys to leave the room, and suddenly everyone is blinded as the lights come back on. It takes a few minutes as Tinley blinks over and over, but finally, her eyes adjust. Looking down, she finds the comment card that was just mentioned and grabs the pen lying next to it.

She quickly fills in the information about her fourth date, but doubt starts to set in. What if he doesn’t want to see her again and she waits around to be told that? Rather than risking rejection, she quickly fills it out, writes in her permission for him to be given her phone number, and drops it off at the table at the front of the room. Only time will tell if he actually reaches out or not.