Page 17 of Worth Loving
She’d gone to the store and forced herself to try on a pair of black pants she’d never wear in a million years to work, then put on the silk blouse her mother gave her for Christmas that she only ever wore under a V-neck sweater and slipped on her black kitten heels Tonya had complained about.
It must be that her outfit was good enough because here she was with the same confidence she had a week ago that she was missing just yesterday when she had to look in the mirror at her normal self in a plaid sweater vest and brown drab pants and almost yell, “Go be ‘ditch a date Molly’, not ‘get walked all over Molly’.”
And the best part yet, for someone who hated to speak up let alone try to sell a darn thing—the hunky bartender was buying what she was selling.
And when his son came in, the cute little boy in matching jeans the same as his father, and close to the same Nikes on his feet, she’d found the smile not leaving her face.
If she thought Dean was smoking before, it had nothing on when he was carrying his son to the sound of giggles.
She’d never thought that when she saw Mike with the twins, or Josh with Caleb.
But Dean and his kid. Oh yeah, hotness dial cranked to the right.
And when he said he never let women know he had a kid, but had told her, was he just yanking her chain?
Playing a game at flirting?
Was she too naïve to know?
She really wanted to believe he was being honest so that is what she was going to do.
He got waved over to fill an order so she picked her seltzer up and took a sip through the straw, crossed one leg over the other and swiveled in her chair.
A man was waving toward her, so she looked over her shoulder to see who he was looking for, then he laughed and pointed at her.
It was like a scene out of the movies where she pointed to her own chest and he nodded his head, then held a drink up. She assumed he wanted to buy her one, but she shook her head and smiled, then turned back quickly.
Good grief, she couldn’t handle this. It was too much too fast. She was just getting the hang of Dean, the hot daddy she was going to think of him as, she didn’t need some stranger buying her drinks.
“He does that all the time,” Dean said when he came back.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Hits on hot women and wants to buy them drinks. I’m sure you’re used to it.”
She just said, “Hmm.” What more could she say? She wasn’t used to having her shirt unbuttoned more than the top one, and guys hitting on her were an enigma.
As much as she wanted to sit there and keep talking to him, Dean had a job to do and all she wanted out of this experiment was to see if it was possible to be that confident woman again.
Besides, he had his son in the back and she wondered if maybe he wanted to go check on him.
When her lunch was done, she got her tab and knew it was time to leave, unfortunately. Maybe she’d come back another time. Another Wednesday since she knew he worked then.
As fun as this was and as confident as she felt doing it, she still picked a time where she knew it’d be dead. She’d never have the courage to come here on a Friday night or on the weekend.
Baby steps, she told herself.
“Do you get any days off?” she asked while she waited for her receipt to sign. “Or since you run the place, do you work all the time?”
It was kind of a stupid question if he had a kid. He admitted he was a single father, but maybe he only shared custody. She didn’t know those things.
And why she wanted to was odd considering she spent enough of her life avoiding drama and that might be baggage all wrapped up in a pretty little blue bow.
“I take Mondays off,” he said. “Most times. I come in around nine other days. Out of here at six unless I’m short staffed.”
“It was nice talking to you again. The little we did at least.”
“Maybe you wouldn’t mind coming in again?” he asked.
