Hare Today, Bear Tomorrow (Mating Call Dating Agency #1)(6)
“She’s... yeah, definitely not,” Garnet said with a fond smile. “This guy must really be something if he’s doing that to her.”
“Let me tell you this,” Eve said with a hint of secrecy in her voice. “I’m all business with men. Absolutely straight faced and serious. But this guy—Stacy—he had me cracked up like one of those old Mad Magazine spy cartoons can. I’ve just aged myself terribly, but you get the idea.”
“His name is Stacy?”
“Yeah, Stacy Graves. But let me tell you, he doesn’t look anything like a Stacy. He has some alias that he works under, but he won’t tell me what it is. Something about not wanting me to think he’s a lunatic for doing what he does.”
“Which,” Garnet said, balancing a fork on the end of her finger, like she always did when she was even the slightest bit nervous, “you still haven’t told me.”
“Well, he collects baseball cards and also said something about being a nerd. Listen, you really do need to talk to this guy, and the reason I’m dropping this bomb on you with such short notice is that he’s only got three days before he leaves town again.”
Immediately, Garnet’s heart sank, and the sigh she released told the whole story. “Oh,” she said. “I thought he was looking for something serious. I don’t have time for the up and down of another one-night-stand. Or long-weekend-stand. Whatever.”
“Oh no, no,” Eve said quickly. “That’s not it at all. He travels for work.” She was very proud of the way she’d dodged that bullet – if it even was a bullet at all. “He’ll just be off on business for a time.”
“Business? I thought you said he was”—the question was cut short by something that sounded to Garnet a hell of a lot like someone tickling a toddler. “Fun?”
“Can you hear this?” Eve asked. “He ain’t in any normal kind of business. Look, do you want to talk to him or do you want to just go out? I promise this one’s a keeper. And if anyone is in the business of picking the heroes from the zeroes, it’s me.”
For a second, Garnet bit her bottom lip between her square, slightly-sharp incisors. She had a story due in forty-eight hours about the degeneration of the American news media, and a shift at the library the next morning. “What the hell,” she said. “You only live once, right?”
“Yeah, YOLO,” Eve said.
“Oh God I so didn’t mean it like that,” Garnet said.
“It’s true though, you really do only live once. And I need to get this guy out of my office before I get the White Lake police in here because my damn secretary can’t stop cackling like a damn loon. Listen, what kind of food do you like?”
“Shit, Thai?”
“Was that a statement of cause and effect?” Eve laughed. “Sorry, okay, I’ll have him meet you. Unless you want him to pick you up?”
“No, no,” Garnet said. “Meeting is fine. I’ve heard enough blind date horror stories to have a shred of caution left.”
“This one is... well anyway, sounds good. I’ll text you the restaurant. And as always, first date is on us. That’s how we roll at Any Stripe. Talk at you soon. Or text at you, whichever.”
A smile broke out across Garnet’s lips even as she looked at herself in the reflection of her refrigerator door and realized that she needed a hell of a lot of hair and makeup work if she was going to put her best face forward. But then she realized that... you know what? If a guy didn’t want to take her as she was, then what kind of guy was he anyway? It didn’t matter how funny and exciting he was, if he was some kind of prick that wouldn’t give anyone without six layers of foundation the time of day, she didn’t want any part of him anyway.
With resolve strong enough to withstand a hurricane, Garnet pulled the jeans back on that she’d discarded as soon as she walked into her apartment about an hour before. The hairs on her legs prickled against the gentle tug of denim. For just a second, she thought maybe she should do something about that hair. And then she thought, why? It isn’t like she was gonna be shedding those jeans anytime soon.
She just wasn’t that sort of bunny. Er, not that sort of girl.
No matter how much she wanted to be, she just wasn’t. Even if the guy really did have all those things Eve said he did.
As she continued to wage a mental war on whether or not to get out her razor, Eve’s text message with the location of the Thai place interrupted her train of thought.
On her way out the door, Garnet grabbed her keys and gave herself one last look in the mirror. “You know what?” she asked. “Aside from that zit on your cheek, you ain’t too bad, girl. Hopefully the guy is worth all this stress.”
From the corner of her eye, she noticed her lip gloss sitting on the small table. “I can at least do this, though,” she told herself as she slicked it on.
She doubted it – she really did. But anyone that could get the cool-as-ice proprietor of the most famous shifter dating agency this side of the Mississippi as worked up as she was?
Yeah. YOLO.
Sometimes, as dumb as they can be, bumper stickers are right. As much as it pained her to say it, sometimes they hit the nail right on the head.
With images of smiley faces and SHIT HAPPENS floating in front of her head, Garnet couldn’t figure out exactly what the hell she was doing, but she knew that whatever it was, just doing something different felt good.