Page 37 of Playing the Field
CHAPTER 20
Gracie
The first thingBart tells me on our drive over to R&D is that he was there last night and he’s still recovering from the hangover.
“Normally, I know the drill. A full glass of water and two aspirins by the bedside at all times, right? Only last night, I think I passed out before I could do the right thing.” He laughs and guns the engine of his Mustang. I look out the window and wonder what the appropriate torture for Ashley is going to be for sticking me with Bart.
I should give her the benefit of the doubt, I suppose. How could she know that a hard-partying guy like Bart wouldn’t be my soulmate? And hey, maybe he can be. I need to get past what he’s saying about the past three nights of drinking at different bars and find out.
“What do you do for fun?” I ask.
“This,” he says, eyebrows bouncing. “Spending time with abeautiful lady. Touch is my love language.” I feel an actual lurch of bile that I need to suppress at his cheesy response. I may not be the most social being out there, but I’ve been on plenty of dates and had a couple of boyfriends. I know sometimes we all get nervous and say silly things we wish we could take back. Bart doesn’t seem to have that self-reflective gene.
“I was thinking more like pickleball,” I mutter, wishing I’d asked Ashley more questions before letting her set me up.
He rests a hand on my knee. It feels far too personal to have his thumb rubbing my bare skin, so I shift so his hand falls to the seat and try to make it seem like I’m fascinated by something outside. “I didn’t know there was a Sweet Cream place so close to West Hollywood.”
“Yeah, right there.” He drapes his arm over the back of my seat instead, and I decide I can live with that. As we drive, my mind drifts back to Hunter standing in the kitchen, his muscled, tattooed forearms on full display, the sinewy bulk of his shoulders straining against the thin fabric of his shirt.
His face was a complicated maze of emotions, and I can’t help thinking maybe some of them had to do with not liking the idea of me going on a date. I push those thoughts from my head because I need to deal with the present, where Bart is honking at the car in front of us for slowing down.
“Dude, figure it out!” he yells out his window. The guy in front of us gives him the finger out the window and stops the car at the valet stand at R&D Grill. Great, now we get to dine at the same place. But Bart’s car shoots into traffic to go around the other car, earning him some honks as he cuts people off. “I’m not paying seventeen dollars for valet,” he says, zooming down the block and taking a hard right at the next street.
Slowly, we creep up the road as he checks each available break between cars to see if it’s a driveway. Finally, when we’re about four blocks up, someone pulls out of a spot. Bart parallel parks and hops out of the car.
I open my own door, and we walk the four blocks to the bar. “I get it. Seventeen dollars to park is insane,” I say.
“Right? I’d rather spend that on another drink.” Bart walks at a quick clip, as though he can’t get that drink soon enough. Funny, I feel the same way.
The bar is packed. It’s only a small, eight-seat bar with a couple of high-top tables against a window that looks out onto the sidewalk, where more than a dozen people are waiting to squeeze inside. Bart waves at the host, who ushers us past the crowd and over to a tight corner of the bar near the kitchen.
From our vantage point, I see that half of the place is a restaurant, hence the “grill” in the name. It seems less loud and crowded at those tables, but I try not to look too longingly in that direction. I want to be a good date, even if I can already tell this will be a one-and-done. It’s the people-pleasing part of me.
Bart flags down the bartender and asks me what I’d like. “Glass of white wine. Thanks.” He orders himself an old-fashioned, leans his back against the bar, and smiles at me. His eyes dart around, surveying the crowd as though he’s checking to see if he recognizes anyone.
“Are you a regular here?” I ask.
He nods. “Yeah, I get here about once a week. Sometimes twice. It’s kind of a scene, but you know how it is when you’re single. You go from here to Bud’s to L&O.” He laughs, and I don’t bother telling him that I’ve never been to any of those places.
The bartender pours my wine into an oversized glass, which Bart hands to me. Our hands brush as he transfers it, and I’m hyperaware of the contact. Hyperaware that there’s zero feeling when his hand touches mine, except the slightly clammy feel of his skin. It’s nothing like the crazy zing I feel at the barest hairline graze from Hunter.
A barstool opens up, and Bart slides onto it, moving me with both hands on my waist so I’m standing between his knees. I’m still close enough to the standing room only crowd that I getjostled when people move past me to and from the bar, but I don’t want to stand even closer to the bulge in his pants. It doesn’t feel good that he keeps touching me. I’m not flattered, and I don’t feel the least bit of chemistry.
Does he? Could he possibly feel anything when I’m about as turned on as a mildewed towel?
Maybe this is dating in LA. Perhaps it’s different from what I’m used to after so many dinners with techies who were happy to get out of their cubicles and take off their headphones. And I’m including myself in that lot. If this is what I’m in for by saying yes to blind dates, I think I’d rather stay at home and sneak glances at my hot roommate. At least that makes me feel something.
The bartender finishes making Bart’s drink and winks as he hands him a shot to go with it. Bart downs the shot and takes a healthy gulp of his drink before holding his glass out to mine. “Cheers. To Ashley, the matchmaker.”
We clink glasses, and I take a sip of wine. Bart locks me between his knees, and through the thin silk of my dress, I feel his hand on the back of my thigh. If I step forward, it forces me closer to him. If I move back, I’m pressing my flesh into his hand.
“Take your goddamn hands off her.” The rumble of that deep voice sets chills along my skin.
Bart’s brows furrow in confusion, and he looks from me to the hulking figure of Hunter standing next to us. “You heard me,” Hunter says with clear menace in his voice.
“She’s my date. You can go pound sand,” Bart says. He slugs down the last of his drink and raises the glass toward the bartender to ask for another.
“Doesn’t give you the right to manhandle her.”
