Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 87181 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87181 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
“Cheers to you, too,” I mumbled. “Do you want a drink or not?”
“You can’t be serious. You have to know the show Cheers. Where everybody knows your name? And they’re always glad you came? With Ted Danson! Kelsey Grammar. Kirstie Alley.”
“I think that show was called Frasier.”
Her hands flew to her chest as if she was seconds away from having a heart attack. “Blasphemy! You can’t be serious!”
I wasn’t.
It was just nice to annoy the living hell out of her.
I knew the show Cheers. I didn’t see what that had to do with our current situation.
“What does Mano’s have to do with that show?” I asked.
“Well, the show is about having a go-to place around the corner where everyone knows you. I wanted this to be mine since it’s close to my apartment. So you can’t work here because we had a meet-ugly.”
“A meet-ugly?”
“You know. The opposite of a meet-cute. A bad exchange of first meetings.”
“What’s a meet-cute?”
She stared at me as if I’d grown three heads or something. “I don’t have time for this. I’m about to meet a guy for a first date in ten minutes, and I need to focus. Can I see your specialty cocktail menu?”
“We don’t have a specialty cocktail list.”
“What?! How do you not have a specialty cocktail list?!” she exclaimed as if I’d just sent a dagger into her chest.
“I told you!” Ayumu said from the other side of the room.
I grumbled and set the classic cocktail menu in front of her. “Pick from here or tell me what you want. Nothing fancy, though.”
“Fine. I want a vodka water with lemon and lime. But when my date gets here, I’m going to order another one, but can it just be water. I don’t want to get too tipsy but still want to seem like I’m chill and having a grand ole time?”
From my experience working in bars, that wasn’t an insane request. It was common for women to ask me to do the water switcheroo when they were out on dates.
“You got it.” I grabbed her drink, set it down, and was thankful when a few other customers came into the restaurant to distract me from Olive Oyl sitting at the end of my bar, sipping at her vodka water as she checked her phone now and again.
By the time her date arrived, he was thirty minutes late, which would’ve been a red flag enough for me to get up and leave, but she shot up from her seat with a glimmer of hope in her eyes as she walked over and introduced herself.
“Hi, I’m Holly,” she said in a tone that dripped with sweetness.
“Martin,” he replied, shaking her hand.
Her name was Holly. I didn’t know why, but that felt fitting for her personality.
She seemed so tickled by the fact that he showed up. They sat down at the end of the bar as if he hadn’t done a single thing wrong. They ordered food and went on with their date. A few more customers trickled into the restaurant, and I wandered around to check in on the tables to ensure everyone had the time of their lives.
Now and then, there was a small dash of curiosity in me as I glanced over at Holly to witness how the first date was going. Every time I began to eavesdrop, the guy was either talking about his expensive lifestyle or dropping names of famous individuals he knew. He’d make terrible jokes, and Holly would laugh at them as if they were funny. His eyes almost stayed glued to her chest the whole time, and he did not ask her a single question about herself.
Then he asked to split the bill.
She mentioned she could cover it all, and the douchebag let her.
He told her he’d call her sometime. I doubted he would, seeing how she declined the offer to go to his apartment for a nightcap. All in all, it looked like a date from hell, but oddly enough, Holly seemed to be hopeful. As if she was looking forward to him calling her.
Was that a meet cute they’d just experienced?
Because if it were, I’d take a meet ugly any day of the week.
Holly showed up consistently for the next two weeks with a different date each night. I wasn’t sure if Mano’s was becoming her Cheers location or her mating territory. Regardless, I’d held a handful of secondhand embarrassment for Holly for the past two weeks.
This woman was a professional serial dater. She came out with fourteen men since we’d opened the restaurant. I knew I’d been out of the dating world for a good minute, but that seemed extreme.
How was she not exhausted? How did she not mix up her dates?
The odd part was that she looked extremely hopeful with every guy who accompanied her at Mano’s. Some would offer her a handshake, while others went in for a hug. One even went for the ass grab and played it off as an accident.