Page 1 of The Wrong Date Deal

Chapter One

Piper slid through the crowded bar, weaving between the other patrons in search of the friends she knew were already there. Spotting them didn’t take long once she reached the seating area. They’d clearly arrived hours before she had because they’d managed to secure a high top.

“Piper?” Hermes called as he spotted her through a gap in the crowd.

Piper finally made it to the table and gave the three of them an exhausted look.

“Date went well?” Massima asked, wincing as she leaned across the table towards Piper.

Piper shot her a look. “Yeah, really well. We’re busy making out over dinner right now.”

She laughed.

“What happened?” Hermes asked as Shea jumped out of her seat, gesturing that she was getting Piper a drink.

“Ugh. I don’t know,” Piper said, squeezing Shea’s arm in thanks as she passed by. “Have you ever met someone who is just… painfully bland the second you meet them and it’s clearly not going to get better?”

“That bad, huh?”

There weren’t any spare seats available but Piper sat in Shea’s seat while she was at the bar, mostly to avoid anyone else trying to take it from under them.

“What did she do?” Massima asked. The bisexual neon lights shone in her dark brown eyes as she watched Piper without blinking, clearly eager for the story.

“Nothing,” Piper sighed. “Like, literally nothing. I don’t want to criticize—”

“But do anyway,” Hermes prompted with a laugh.

Piper shook her head. “Well, I think I’d have had a better night if I’d gone out with a cardboard cutout. She didn’t seem nervous or uncomfortable or anything. In fact, she seemed perfectly at ease. She was just at ease saying nothing, doing nothing. I showed up, and she just nodded, and stood there waiting.”

“Wow. Massive NPC energy.”

“Yes!” Piper said, grateful someone got it and gave her the words. “Exactly like that. It was as if I had to do some special task for her to speak to me, but nobody told me what the task was.”

“So, you just left immediately?” Massima asked, fascinated.

“No, no. At first, I did think it was just nerves, so I asked if we should go inside the restaurant.”

“And?”

Piper sighed. “And… despite stating that she’d made the reservation days ago, it turns out, she hadn’t.”

“What?”

“Yep. Got inside and instead of asking for the name the reservation was under, she just stood there, staring at the host.”

“Oh, my god.”

“Exactly. I tried to prompt her and she just looked at me like I was supposed to have made the reservation. Which, like, why would I have done that if we were at a restaurant she said she was booking?”

“I think I’d have left right then,” Hermes said, sipping his brightly-colored cocktail. “If you’re starting out lying, it’s not going to get any better, is it?”

Piper hummed, the sound getting lost in the noise of the bar. “I can tell you that it did not. They didn’t have a table, so we needed to wait at least forty-five minutes. I gave them my name because… I don’t know. It just seemed like the thing to do. So, we went to the bar—and she didn’t say anything.”

“Nothing at all?” Massima asked, her eyes wide.

“Not a damn thing. I asked if she liked lemonade because we had to get something, but the whole situation was a mess. She nodded.” Piper shook her head. “So I ordered two. And, again, she didn’t say a word as we waited for the drinks. Not one, single word. Just leaned against the bar like everything was fine and normal.”

Hermes let out a low whistle. “Wasn’t she talkative when you were texting?”

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