Page 71 of Infatuated as They Come
“Uh, hi,” I said flatly. If he was about to flirt with me, I was not in the mood.
“I saw you sitting alone. Do you mind if I join you?”
“I’m—”
But he slid into the booth before I even had the chance to utter out my next words. I held in a scoff, watching as the man sat right across from me, his blue eyes lighting up. He was older than me, at least forty, the strands of his grey hair all neatly swept back as he adjusted the sleeves of his suit jacket.
“I’m waiting for my boyfriend,” I said pointedly.
“You’ve been waiting for a while. I’ve been watching you all night. Me and my buddies have.”
“Buddies?” I asked, and he nodded over to the side, to one of the other booths where I saw a whole crowd of suited up men old enough to be my father. They were all sending me grins, a couple of them tipping their glasses my way. “Oh, how fun for me.”
“I don’t think your boyfriend’s showing up, honey,” he said.
“Don’t call me that please.” That word sounded gross if it was coming from anyone other than Sawyer. I was trying to be polite, but I still grabbed the menu again so I could bury my face in it, eyes stuck on it like I hadn’t already read it a hundred times since sitting down.
“What should I call you?”
I kept my lips firmly pressed together. “Look, could you please just—”
“That’s the part where you tell me your name. My name’s Grant.”
“Cool. My boyfriend’s gonna be here really soon.”
“You’ve been sitting here for nearly an hour.”
“He’ll be here.”
“Well, in the meantime, why don’t you and me talk?” He pressed a hand to the top of the menu, dragging it down so that I was forced to meet his eyes. “Do you wanna eat? Get whatever youwant, I’ll pay for it.”
“My boyfriend’s going to pay for my meal,” I said. Sawyer wouldn’t even letmepay for our meals when we went out. There was no way he was going to let some other guy do it.
“He’s not coming.”
“I’mnineteen,” I said firmly, hoping my age would finally deter him.
His grin just widened. “That’s even better.”
“Ugh.” I couldn’t hide my disgust anymore. “Can you please go before I call someone over here to get you away from me?”
He got his wallet out, sliding a card out with his thumb and forefinger. Then he put it on the table with a smack and pushed it across the table towards me. With his far too glittery and gold Rolex on display—that was all part of the show, I could tell—I watched a full-grown adult man try and impress me by showing me his ever so exclusive black card. As if I hadn’t ever seen one before. As if I didn’t have one in the purse sitting right next to me.
“If you want something off the drinks menu, I can arrange for that too,” he said.
“I’m nineteen,” I repeated, wincing as he pushed up his sleeves some more.
“You like it, huh?” He tapped at his watch. “Eighteen carat yellow gold. Thirty-six trapeze-cut diamonds. I can let you try it on if you want.”
There were very few traits that I got from my father, but there was one he had instilled in me from an early age, and that was the ability to smell new money from a mile away. I had met plenty of guys like the one in front of me, and they all had the exact same formula they followed after they hit it big and found sudden success. They’d tug at their sleeves to show off their expensive cufflinks or rest their car keys in a spot I’d be sure to see, desperate for me to eye the logo of whatever tacky sports car they just bought.
What the man sitting across from me didn’t know was that I very much preferred my boyfriend’s messy hair and ripped shirts and beat up truck.
“What drink do you want?” Grant asked.
Pressing a firm finger to his stupid little card, I pushed it back over to him. “I don’t want a drink and I don’t want you to sit next to me. Please go.”
He slid the card over again. “Your guy isn’t coming.”
