“So, can I have your cell number?” Moxon asks after he pulls away.
My eyes crinkle. “No.”
Moxon frowns. “No?”
I shake my head. “If you wanna take me out, why don’t you write me a card, asking me. Old school, personal, romantic.” I pull out a notepad from my purse and jot down my address.
“You making me chase you, dream girl?”
I nod. “I think I am. Maybe it’s a defense mechanism. A way to guard myself in case this is just a joke to you...”
“It’s not a joke. I’m done with other women.”
I smile, liking what I hear. “Good. Then prove it.”
“You really won’t give me your number?”
I shake my head. I don’t want to make this easy for Moxon, not after the booty calls he got the other night, and the way I have stripped to nothing for him two times in a row.
“My words aren’t gonna be as clever or as cheeky as yours, dove.”
I lick my lips. “I’m not looking for Shakespeare.”
“I know,” Moxon says firmly. “You’re looking for a man who wants to fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after.”
I swallow. Hard. “Did I say that too?”
“You did.”
I cover my face. “I was being silly.”
He pulls my hands down. “I don’t think you were, not about that. And Millie,” he adds, “It’s not too much to ask for. You deserve all that and more.”
Then he walks away, the paper with my address in his hands, a bounce in his step. Seeing him at his shop, with his brother, it reminded me that he’s more than a blue-collar playboy. He’s also a man. A real man.
The kind of man I want.
As I drive, I can’t help but wonder where this is going, wondering how it got so real, so fast.
11
MOXON
If I want her for keeps, I gotta pull out all the stops.
“You are really taking her out for Valentine’s Day?” Mike asks as we walk out of the shop for the day.
“Hell, yeah. She’s the woman for me.”
“You know that after two evenings together?”
I nod. “I wrote her a card, asked her out. She wants me to beg for it, so I will.”
“Has she answered?”
I shake my head. “Don’t expect her to. In the card I just said, meet me at Chez Monique on Valentine’s at seven.”
“Fuck, man. You went all out. Chez Monique’s?”
“It’s Millie we’re talking about.” I don’t tell him just how all out I went. Don’t want him to think I’m off my rocker.
I’m wearing my suit and tie. The dozen roses are on the table. I ordered a bottle of champagne. Hell, I don’t even know if she likes champagne. But I’ll get her anything she wants.
She wants to be wooed, I’ll woo her.
“Sir, would you like to start with something?” the waiter asks. Thankfully, I don’t see a single person here that I have a history with. Good. I want Millie to know I only want a future with her.
“No, I ‘ll wait for my date,” I tell him, looking at my watch. She’s ten minutes late.
But then she’s twenty.
Forty.
An hour.
By then I’ve finished three glasses of water and need to pee like a motherfucker. But I don’t want her to walk into this restaurant and not see me.
Finally, though, enough is enough.
She isn’t coming.
I order a slice of cheesecake to go and the waiter must feel sorry for me because he tells me since the champagne is still corked I can have it too. Might as well, considering I paid for it.
Leaving the restaurant, I drive through a burger joint, get a fucking quarter pounder and fries and then head to my new place.
I let out a long sigh as I cruise down the highway, loosening my tie, wondering how I could have read her so damn wrong.
I thought she was the one.
Maybe should have said more in the card, tried harder.
Guess no matter how much I try to polish myself up, she still sees me as a guy who sleeps around and has grease under his fingernails. I may have believed in love at first fucking sight, but it doesn’t mean she did.
12
MILLIE
The flight is delayed. Twice. And then I have a forty-five-minute drive back to my apartment.
Except my car breaks down.
Again.
Happy Valentine’s Day to me.
My stupid phone still doesn’t have reception in half the places I go, and so here I am, a week later, back on the side of the road feeling more alone than ever.
I thought getting an all expense trip to LA to meet the card executives at Best Regards was going to be my ticket to a happily ever after. Turns out they wanted to buy me out, without offering me a job. Sure, I’d have a nest egg with the sale, but Filthy-Sweet is my company. I grew it from the ground up and I just started it less than two years ago.