My Funny Valentine (Jasper Falls 5)

Erin slipped deeper into the shadows, once again wondering why she was there. Sipping her drink down to the ice, she ignored Giovanni’s big entrance and took the distraction as an opportunity to measure the competition.

They weren’t her competition, just her enemies. Her mother’s rejection was the first of many. Her teenage years were pocked with humiliating moments, the result of never having an older female around to guide her.

When her childhood girlfriends started to mock her clothes and make fun of her knotted hair or personal hygiene, Erin reflected their disgust, picking at any sore spot she could find. If she rejected everyone, no one would have the chance to reject her.

She’d said and done enough cruel things—a defense mechanism in the face of rejection. But, as a result, not a single person there would piss on her if she were on fire.

Fuck ‘em all.

She shuffled back to the bar and flagged down Sue. The bartender’s dark, guarded eyes held her at a distance. “What are you drinking?”

“Vodka and tea.” No point in niceties they didn’t mean.

Once she had a fresh cocktail, she turned. Her head foggy, and her feet no longer hurting in her four-inch heels. Her lips lacked their usual control as she sipped from the straw, but she wasn’t as upset as she’d been earlier.

“So I’m single,” Giovanni’s voice echoed through the bar.

“Shocking,” Erin muttered, chasing her straw with her mouth.

“And I’ve been traveling a lot. Being from a small town, you forget the rest of the world’s different. At home, the qualities you look for in a woman are simple. She should be a non-relative—because we aren’t that sort of small town. She should have all of her teeth. And she had better know how to cook a good cobbler. But out there.” He whistled. “Standards are different. Clean is the new sexy.”

The crowd chuckled and Erin’s brow crimped. That wasn’t even funny.

“I was recently on a date with a girl and thinking things were going pretty good until we’re at dinner and she whips out this huge canister of pot—I mean buds and buds of giggle dirt, gummies, and vape pens. We were at a four-star restaurant!”

His anecdotes were too long to follow so she simply glared at him, picking apart everything she saw. His clothing didn’t fit in with Jasper Falls. His jeans looked designer and his T-shirt was made of something more than the expensive shirts sold in six-packs at McGinty’s. Plus, he wore a navy blue blazer over his T-shirt. What a pretentious wank.

“Next thing I know, we’re twisted up like pretzels, my memory of last night is a jigsaw clip of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and I’m pretty sure I might be pregnant.”

She scoffed. Why were people laughing at this?

“I mean, I thought I was getting a bit of class with a stripper’s ass, but in the end, I’m pretty sure things got Coyote Ugly and my night looked more like a scene from Deliverance.”

When the audience laughed again, he took a swig of water and smiled.

He still looked the same, just older. Like Erin, he didn’t get married in his twenties. She found that strange, being that he’d left Jasper Falls. She supposed Giovanni was annoying no matter where he lived.

She always assumed if she got out of Jasper Falls she could find someone, but her fear of being undesirable everywhere held her back from trying. It wasn’t a comfortable thought, but an honest one. Maybe it wasn’t her reputation as much as it was simply her.

“Yeah, women are crazy. I was with this young chick who said she only had outercourse. Outercourse? I mean, what the hell is that? She spent weeks torturing me. It was so bad, when we broke it off, I was relieved. My rating system for pleasure was so skewed, masturbation with my own hand ranked up there with a chick offering birthday anal.”

“Maybe date someone your own age, dumb ass,” Erin grumbled into her cup, once again chasing her straw with her mouth.

“What was that?”

Looking up from the ice in her glass, realizing she might have said that a little louder than intended, her stomach bottomed out. She sank deeper into the shadows until her back hit the wall.

Giovanni shaded his eyes against the spotlight, and everyone looked toward the back of the bar. “Holy shit, is that Erin Montgomery? There’s a blast from the past. Figures, you’d be the one to heckle me in my own town.”

Everyone chuckled and Erin’s molars locked. Giovanni smiled as if stepping up to a challenge.

“You guys know Erin, right? She’s the only Jasper Falls resident whose birth certificate included an apology.”

Howls of laughter bubbled from the audience. The sound muffled and time slowed as they laughed at her, just like they had years before.

“You still single, Erin?”