“Did you tell her what he said?”
“I did make that mistake. She demanded his number, and I think it was so she could use it to track him down, find his address, turn up at his door, and deliver a solid beatdown.”
Josh nodded slowly. “Sounds about right.”
“Mhmm.” I sipped my wine again. “Anyway. He wasn’t fooling anyone when he slipped out after spaghettigate, so he’s never getting a date in White Peak.”
“Who was your server?”
“Rihanna.”
“Ouch.” He winced. “Yeah, he’s never getting a date in Montana. For a teenager, she’s got one hell of a gossip network.”
“No kidding. She figured him out straight away. I expect she’s already gotten his full name from the reservation list and found out everything except his birth weight.”
Josh chuckled quietly, and we fell into a comfortable silence. Literal silence because there wasn’t even the sound of wildlife. It was eerie and a little disconcerting, but no sooner had I finished my wine than the sound of birds scattering from the trees at the end of the yard filled the air.
I set my empty glass on the table in front of us, and Josh immediately reached to pour me another. Sensible Kinsley on my right shoulder whispered that I should stop him because I was opening the store in the morning, but Naughty Kinsley on my left shoulder told me to go ahead and drink all the wine because hey, I deserved it.
I’ll let you guess which Kinsley I obeyed.
After a few sips of my second glass, a breeze filtered through the yard. It carried a light chill that elicited goosebumps from me and made me shiver.
“Do you want my sweater?”
I glanced across at Josh and shook my head. “Then you’ll be cold.”
“I’m not cold right now.”
“Because you’re wearing the sweater.”
“Here, it’s fine.”
I stood before he could remove one arm from it and headed for the back door. “Coming?”
With a heavy sigh, Josh grabbed his glass and the bottle and followed me inside. Since he was so good at locking doors, I called the request for him to do that over my shoulder and went into the living room.
When he joined me, he filled our glasses with the last quarter of the wine bottle and sat on the other end of the sofa. “So… More research next time?”
I nodded slowly. “Yes, please. Maybe I’ll spend a little more time talking to them, too.”
He shrugged one shoulder, taking a big mouthful of his wine.
“Don’t you have to drive home?” I knew he would have had a beer at Bronco’s and he was already one glass of wine in.
Josh paused. “Shit. I’ll call a cab and come get my truck in the morning. Is that okay?”
“As long as you’re not blocking me in. I have to be at the store at seven-thirty.” I leaned so I could see out of the window where I had a view of the driveway. “It doesn’t look like it.”
“If I am, just call me. I’ll be awake anyway.”
I looked pointedly at his glass and raised my eyebrows. “How often do you drink wine?”
“It’s not my beverage of choice,” he said dryly. “But I still have to go to work.”
“Okay, fine.” I waved my hand dismissively. “Is this my life now? I have bad dates and commiserate with you instead of my girlfriends?”
“I felt the need to apologize.”
“A smart man would have brought chocolate. Or cake. Or pie.”
“You requested wine.”
“A woman always needs snacks with wine.”
“And here you thought I was the one teaching you about dating,” he said dryly.
I knocked my fist into his arm, but there was no heat behind it. “I’ll have you know I was an excellent date tonight! I was courteous, I didn’t talk about my books, and I definitely didn’t rant about how badly they fucked up the third Harry Potter movie.”
“Yes, but by the sounds of it, you literally couldn’t do any of those things.”
“And? After that date, I know how I sound when I do, so I won’t do it again.”
“Ah, there we go. It wasn’t a waste of time after all.”
“Personally, I think anyone who actually thinks they made a good job of that third movie is someone who should be weeded out early. Make sure you ask my potential dates that in future. It’ll save us all some time.”
He laughed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Why do you hate it so much? You have a complete vendetta against that movie that I’ll never understand.”
I shifted on the sofa so my back was to the arm and I was facing him. “Did you ever read the books?”
“Years ago, and only once. Not enough times to ever remember what really happened.”
“They butchered the book, Josh. This wasn’t a ‘oh, we had to cut things out for time.’ It was an honest-to-God shake up of the entire book, so much so that half of it doesn’t even make sense!”
“That doesn’t explain it.”
“Okay, in the movie, Harry gets his Firebolt at the end, right?”
“Yeah. Sirius sent it, didn’t he?”
“Exactly! In the books, he gets it in the middle, and it’s confiscated because they thought Sirius had sent it to harm him. It’s a whole plot point in the narrative about how evil Sirius is and how badly he wants to hurt Harry, and do they bother to include it? No, no. They don’t. They just couldn’t be bothered. And the worst part is that Azkaban is actually the best book of the entire series.”
Josh leaned over and wrapped his fingers around my wrist, then made me lift my wine glass to my mouth. Dutifully, I sipped, but in my efforts not to laugh, ended up snorting the wine up my nose.
“That didn’t go as planned,” he deadpanned.
“No shit.” I laughed, wiping my nose with a tissue from the
