Page 34 of Sweet Heart for the Bear

It irritates me. Makes my skin crawl.

And yet—here I am.

Two minutes late for being five minutes early, which is precisely when I planned to arrive.

I know what I’m like, butsorry not sorrythat is just how I am.

And this? This is a travesty.An absolute nightmare.

And then? Oh, then—it getsworse.

The restaurant has valet parking.

Ifucking hatevalet parking.

Every single time, the workers mess with my seat, and I get it. I do.

I’m a big guy. Not many people can reach the damn pedals when my seat is pushed back as far as it goes.

But that doesn’t mean I want to spend three minutes post-date wrestling my own car settings back into place while mentally composing a strongly worded complaint to whoever decidedvalet parkingwasnecessaryin the first place.

So instead of dealing with that headache, I slap a crisp hundred-dollar bill into the valet’s hand and say, “Hey, how about you let me park my own car? Right there. Where I can get it. Nice and quick.”

Because, let’s be honest,this date?

It’s going to go south.

I can already feel it.

It’s inevitable.

They allgo south. And that is not a euphemism for getting in anyone’s pants.

I meansouthas ingoing to hell in a handbasket.

Blind dates are not fun.

Nope. Not at all.

My nerves have my palms sweating, and I wipe them on my black slacks before heading inside.

It’s early March, so you’d think the weather would give us a break. A little mercy, a touch of warmth—something.

But no.

It’s a crisp thirty-eight degrees, and the sun is already dipping, which means it’s only going to get colder. Because, of course, it is.

By the end of the month, wemighthit the mid-sixties, but this is March. This is chaos weather. Anything could happen.

Kind of like this date.

I glance at my watch. One minute till go-time.

I don’t want to show up flustered or looking like I’ve been wrestling demons in the parking lot.

Sure, my heart might not be in this, but that’s no excuse for bad manners.

And what would Uncle Uzzi say if my date told him I arrived looking like a sweaty, distracted, unkempt mess?

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