“No, that sounds like fun. It doesn’t really sound like something you would do, though,” he pointed out.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I don’t really think of you as the type to go out drinking with your employees unless it’s after a race,” he said. “Who is this girl?”
“Her name is Merry. She’s the social media consultant,” I explained.
Cole laughed so hard I thought he might choke on the chunk of cheese he’d just put in his mouth.
“Social media consultant?” he asked. “You seriously hired a social media consultant? Who the hell are you, and what did you do with my best friend while I was up in the mountains scared out of my mind a yeti was going to eat me?”
“Mom hired her,” I said, frowning.
“Well, that sounds more like it. Minnie is definitely the type to try to keep things up-to-date.”
“Are you trying to say something?” I asked.
“That you’re an old man stuffed into a 40-year-old body? Yes, that’s exactly what I’m trying to say,” he teased.
“Very funny. I’m on the cutting-edge now. You can check all the platforms for yourself. The company is on all of them, and they are actually kept current. Thanks to Merry,” I told him.
Cole instantly called my bluff and pulled out his phone to start scanning through the various postings. His eyes widened, and then he turned the phone so I can look at the screen. There was an image of Merry at the race with Mom, and he pointed at it.
“Is that her?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “That’s at the first race of the season.”
“Now I can see why you wanted a social media consultant,” he muttered.
“It’s not like that,” I told him. “She’s my employee. Just like you said. The only reason I agreed to go out tonight is it was I thought you would like to have some fun after getting home and she wanted to celebrate her brother getting the job. It seemed rude if I turned her down.”
“All right. If that’s what you’re going to go with, I will join right in with the delusion. Let’s go,” he said.
The bar was loud and crowded as usual. I wasn’t used to being there when we weren’t blowing off steam after a long week or celebrating a win. It felt a little awkward walking in and realizing I didn’t have the entire company there. It was just about the small group socializing. But I decided not to think about it. I was too happy that Cole was back and just wanted to enjoy it. And if I let myself be honest for a moment, I was looking forward to spending some time with Merry outside of work.
We eventually found the rest of the group at a large booth in the back corner. I introduced everybody and asked if anybody needed a drink. They all agreed, and I made my way toward the bar. I was already feeling more at ease now that we had settled in. I like Brandon and thought he would be a good addition to the team just like his sister was.
Ordering a round of drinks, I added an assortment of food and made my way back to the table. Three waitresses showed up just a few moments later with pint glasses and pitchers of beer, then the baskets of food and a stack of plates. We all dove in, and very quickly the night turned into something a college-aged me would be very proud of.
“Who’s ready for a game of darts?” Merry’s friend Olivia asked.
“You’re on,” Brandon said, and they made their way over to the dartboard.
The rest of us followed suit and set up a miniature tournament. It was the first time Merry and I were in close enough proximity to actually speak directly to each other, and I leaned down slightly to her.
“You’re not some sort of dart hustler, are you?” I asked.
She looked up at me and laughed.
“I’m not a dart anything,” she said. “Be prepared to be dazzled by my exceptional lack of skill.”
She grabbed a handful of darts and stepped out for her turn. Her evaluation of herself was not an understatement. She completely missed the board twice, and the one time she hit it was on the very edge. She twirled around, arms up in the air as if she had just accomplished something amazing, and Olivia laughed, applauding her enthusiastically.
“That was exceptionally terrible,” I told her when she came back to my side. “But, if you were a hustler, that would be how you would start. So, I still have my eye on you.”
I tried to ignore the blush that crept up her neck at my words and just how tight my pants had started to feel.
The rest of the game proved she definitely wasn’t hustling, and by the end of it, we were all laughing and taking back our third round of beer. Cole pointed across the bar to the beer pong table that had been occupied by actual college-age people throughout the entire night. It was suddenly vacant, and we scooted over to claim it. Waitresses came over with more beer to fill the cups, and we positioned ourselves on either end of the table, guys on one side, girls on the other. No one else had ventured out to join us that night, so the teams ended up lopsided: Brandon, Cole, and me on one side, and Olivia and Merry on the other.