Tiger Speed Dating

After Team One had made its rounds and courted all of the eligible bachelors, the ladies had been taken to a table and given their drink vouchers. Tiffany had downed her free drink, and then Abby let her have the drink she’d ordered. But drinking wasn’t really all that high on her priority list anymore.

Now that she’d already worked her way through tonight’s men, she didn’t need any more liquid courage.

“This has seriously been the best night ever,” Tiffany slurred. “So. Much. Fun.”

“You had too much to drink,” Abby replied with a grin. “But I’m glad you had a good time, Tiff. Both of us needed it.”

“Mm hm,” Tiffany cooed. “Seeing guys like that? Knowing that they want to date you? I don’t know. It was a kick, even with the gross, old, creepy ones. Like you’re some kind of goddess.”

Carmen had gone on ahead to get her car, and Abby saw it idling on the sidewalk in front of the bar. She directed Tiffany toward it.

“Did you meet anyone you liked?” she asked. Both of them were too civil to talk about the guys in the bar, for fear that any of them might have heard, but now that they were out in the night it wasn’t such a big deal. After the event was over, the MC had taken their score cards and arranged for the top-scoring man on each girl’s card to be given their numbers.

For Abby, that meant bachelor number three had her number. Typically that wouldn’t have mattered, and she’d shrug it off and assume he wouldn’t bother to call her, but she’d been surprised when the MC had given her a slip with his phone number in return.

“Surprise,” the MC had murmured to her. “The men were also able to list their top picks, and you were his. The two of you seem to really have hit it off.”

The slip with his phone number was in Abby’s purse, but she hadn’t even looked at the numbers, as though she was afraid it was actually a joke. The man with the white hair and the blue eyes was easily the most attractive out of all of them, but apart from that, there was something about him that spoke to her on a deeper level.

They hadn’t really talked, and she didn’t know him any better than she knew any other person off of the street, but he was different. Whatever it was, Abby couldn’t explain it away.

She’d written about love at first sight for years, but she’d never really believed in it. Not until that night.

“Well, yeah, I guess,” Abby said as they crossed the sidewalk. She opened the back passenger door for Tiffany and helped her friend get in. Tiffany was sloppy when she was drunk, and Abby wanted to make sure she was buckled and comfortable.

“So tell me about it,” Tiffany insisted. “Was it that guy w

ith the white hair? Those blue eyes? And those lips. Mmm. He really was something, wasn’t he?”

For the first time ever, a prickle of jealousy ran down Abby’s spine and burned in her chest. As soon as it manifested, she tried her best to ignore it. It was crazy to feel this way for a man she’d never even met.

She didn’t even know his name.

“Yeah. He was pretty great.”

“He was more than great,” Tiffany insisted. “He was hot.”

Abby closed the door and sat in the front seat. Tiffany was right behind her, and as Abby settled and buckled in, Tiffany wrapped her arms around the headrest and pulled herself forward as far as her seatbelt would allow.

“He likes you, you know,” she said.

“I guess he does,” Abby murmured. “Maybe.”

“No maybes,” Carmen said. “I saw how he was looking at you when you guys were sitting together. You didn’t do so much talking, by the looks of it, but talking isn’t all that important. What matters is the chemistry, and if the expression on his face meant anything, it was that he was into you.”

It was flattering and frightening to think that a man that attractive was into her. Abby still wasn’t sure that it wasn’t a trick. After what Tyler had done to her, she wasn’t sure she could fully trust another man.

At least, not yet.

“What about you, Tiffy?” Abby insisted. She wanted to redirect the attention of the conversation away from herself.

“Oh, yeah,” Tiffany said. “I mean, your guy was the most gorgeous one there, but his friend wasn’t bad, either. A little weird, maybe, but definitely not bad. He’s a carpenter or something? A construction worker? I’m not sure.”

With that said, Tiffany launched into her recollection of the night and kept the both of them laughing with her stories and her exaggerations. Liquored up, Tiffany was even more vibrant and funny than she was while she was sober.

But the more Tiffany talked, and the more time Abby had to think about their dates and what they’d felt that evening, the more she knew that their experiences weren’t the same. Tiffany liked the men she’d talked with, and there was nothing wrong with that, but what Abby had lived through was something more than simple like.

It was desire. It was an instant connection.