“What can I get for you guys?” she asked.
“I thought the special looked good,” Josh said, nodding toward a menu board that advertised a double cheeseburger with seasoned fries.
“For both of you?” the waitress asked.
I went ahead and nodded. We were at a bar. It wasn’t like there was going to be anything more elaborate on the menu to choose. The waitress acknowledged the order and headed to the kitchen. I took the opportunity to fill the break in the conversation with a new subject so we could steer away from cornhole.
As we were talking about our favorite movies, I couldn’t help but glance over to where Deacon was sitting. I was wondering why he was there. He’d been sitting alone when we got there, and I assumed he was meeting somebody. Maybe the guys. Maybe a date. But he already had food in front of him and seemed to be nearly finished with it, so it didn’t make sense that he was waiting for someone else to arrive.
He was still sitting there alone when I looked over at him again. He was looking at his phone, and I didn’t think he noticed me, but before I could turn my attention away, he glanced up and offered me another smile.
I needed to pay attention to Josh. He was who I was there with, and it wasn’t fair to him for me to be constantly checking out another man. I’d agreed to go out with him because I wanted to give him a chance. Now was the time for me to prove that.
The food came, and we tucked into the greasy burgers and fries that took seasoned and brought it all the way to too spicy. The rest of the date was fine. We chatted and shared stories and even laughed a little. But when we were finished eating and he asked if I wanted to go somewhere else, I shook my head.
“I have to go to work in the morning,” I said. “I think we should go ahead and call it a night.”
Josh didn’t argue and brought me home. He walked me to my door, and I turned to stop him there, making sure he understood this was as far as it was going to go.
“I had a really good time, Becky,” he said.
I cringed. He’d obviously heard my uncle calling me by the pet name and thought we were on familiar enough grounds to take up the habit as well. There wasn’t much point in correcting him. Not because I was going to accept it like I did from Gus, but because I didn’t really see myself spending time with Josh again.
“Thank you for dinner,” I said.
“You’re welcome. Good night.”
He leaned in for a kiss. It was chaste and brief, and he walked away without another word. I went inside and let out a massive sigh as I kicked off my shoes and tossed my purse to the side table. The date hadn’t been bad. I had gone on far worse.
It was just that there were no sparks. No nothing, really. It felt like nothing more than exactly what it was—having dinner with someone I had just met. I wasn’t attracted to him, and I didn’t feel any kind of connection with him.
Throughout the night, my mind kept going back to Deacon.
Seeing him while I was on the date with Josh was a total embarrassment. It shouldn’t have been. There was no reason for it to be embarrassing for Deacon to see me out with another guy. And maybe it wouldn’t have been if it was someone else. But it was Josh.
Josh and his sideways baseball cap and commitment to introducing the world to the wonders of cornhole on a global competitive scale.
The truth was, Josh was sweet, but he was so young. So very young. We found out through our conversations that he was a year younger than I was. That didn’t sound like much on the surface, and I likely wouldn’t have thought anything of it a couple of years before. But since I had been hanging out with Lauren, Desiree, Harleigh, and the guys so much, it only highlighted that this man was young.
That wasn’t something I was going to be able to handle.
I scrubbed off my makeup, hopped into pajamas, and went to bed frustrated with myself. I had just been thinking about being alone and how my loneliness was getting more noticeable. Then a perfectly nice guy invited me on what turned out to be a perfectly fine date, and this was how it turned out.
And if I was really being honest with myself, I knew why. I could talk about Josh being too young as much as I wanted, but the truth was the only reason he seemed so young was because I was comparing him to Deacon.