Page 10 of The Moment You Know

“All right.” He cleared his throat, amused. “You ready?”

“I’m ready.”

“Well, the first woman I went out with told me I was being inappropriate and made her feel uncomfortable when I complimented her. She actually wanted me to apologize for telling her she looked nice, which I refused to do. She’s the reason I hesitate to compliment women now—had I not been worried I’d offend you, I would’ve told you that you look great. Because you do.”

“Really?” The extra time she’d taken with her appearance had apparently paid off. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He gave her a gentlemanly head tilt.

She returned to their conversation. “Well, she definitely counts as a bullet. Only nut-jobs don’t like to be told they look nice on a date by an attractive man.”

“You think I’m attractive?”

Paige felt herself flushing a little as she realized what she’d said, but since it was out there, she had to own it. “There’s nothing wrong with my vision.”

Seemingly pleased, Hale smiled and then continued. “My second date went to the bathroom right after we ordered our drinks and came back high as a kite. I don’t know what she did in there, but her pupils were so big I couldn’t tell what color her eyes were anymore.”

“Bullet.”

“Third date was on her phone most of the time, texting her friends and scrolling Twitter or Instagram, or whatever the hell it was. I didn’t ask. If I could’ve gotten my beer to go, I would have.”

“Bullet.”

“My fourth date was tracking fairly well—I was even thinking I might get to first base later—until I tried to pay for dinner and everything went sideways.”

“What? Why?”

“My date said I was being domineering and that women were more than capable of paying their own way. She said she didn’t appreciate my male patriarchy, or something like that. I wasn’t even really sure what that was, so I tried to joke with her. I said she could exert her female matriarchy over me and pay for my dinner, but she thought that was the opposite of funny.”

At Paige’s failure to hide her amusement, he held up his hands. “It was funny, right? But you want to know the funniest part?”

“She wasn’t sure what female matriarchy was? Because that would make two of us.”

“That would actually make three of us,” he admitted. “No, the funniest part was that her favorite book was Fifty Shades of Grey. She’d told me all about it when we were making small talk.”

Her eyebrows drew together in a frown. “Oh, no, she didn’t.”

“She did. And apparently, she thinks the guy who wants to pay for her dinner is domineering, but the guy who ties up women and spanks their asses in a book, isn’t. When I mentioned that to her, she told me that was ‘different’ because there was a contract involved.” He shook his head. “After that I switched from starting off with dinner to meeting for a drink first.”

“Well, she’s definitely a bullet, but because her favorite book is Fifty Shades of Grey, I’m upgrading her to one of those hollow-point bullets.”

“What do you know about hollow-point bullets?”

“A lot. Okay, maybe not a lot, but I know enough from movies to sound like I do.”

Hale chuckled at that, then told her, “Fifth date was the anti-football woman and the sixth …” he trailed off for a moment as if trying to remember. “She was extremely interested in how much money I made and if my suit had a designer label on it.”

“Gold-digging bullet.”

“Date seven thought discussing current events meant the latest episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians and she was appalled that I didn’t know what was happening on the show."

“I don’t know what’s happening, either, so that date’s a bullet, too.”

“Eighth date borderline lost her shit when I held the door to the restaurant open for her—”

“No. You’re making that up.”

“I wish. She told me I was being sexist and that she didn’t need me to open the door for her, because she was a strong, independent woman and all that. And when I told her I’d been raised to open doors by a strong, independent woman, she got that Oh, please look on her face and I was done with her. Literally. I told her it had been nice meeting her—even though it hadn’t been—and said goodbye. That was the shortest date I’ve ever had.”

---