Free Truth or Date by Susan Hatler

agreeing with me.”
    “I see you have a broad definition for the word agreeing as well.” Spinning the bottle between his palms, he shook his head. “Relationships shouldn’t be that difficult.”
    I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “How would you know?”
    Ooops, had I said that aloud?
    A perplexed look crossed his face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    I shrugged, not wanting to answer. We’d just gotten our light banter back and I didn’t want to lose it. After all, his last day at work was tomorrow and I didn’t want us to part on a bad note. But, then again, he had asked (and I’d had several beers at the pub prior to this) so it suddenly seemed like a good idea to say what I thought. “It’s just. . . You date around. A lot.”
    Instead of being bothered or insulted, his eyes danced. “You’ve been paying attention to who I date? That’s cute, sweetie.”
    My cheeks heated and I tried to play it off by taking a sip of my Midori Sour but it only made him laugh harder. I shook my head. “I wasn’t paying specific attention or anything. It’s pretty obvious to everyone in the office that you hop from date to date. I mean, you never bring the same girl to a company event twice.”
    He raised his brows, finished off his beer, then patted the table as he pushed to his feet. “You want another?”
    “Sure.” If I kept putting my foot in my mouth, maybe it would dull the embarrassment. So he dated a lot. Why was I making a big deal about it? I rolled my eyes at my unintended jealousy, downed the rest of my bright green drink, then bit the cherry off its stem. The sweet maraschino flavor burst in my mouth as I chewed on the squooshy artificially-preserved fruit.
    Glancing over at Chris as he leaned against the bar, I decided, had been a bad idea. Warmth flooded through me and I stared long enough to notice how his back tapered down to a narrow waist above very snugly fit slacks. Lucky pants. Wait, was I seriously checking Chris out right now?
    I tore my eyes away, thrust the cherry stem between my teeth, and tried to work the ends over each other to distract myself from the very real urge I had to wrap my arms around his waist. Maybe these weird feelings were because his last day was coming. In fact, this could be the last time we hang. Ever. A pang jolted through me.
    While I threw myself deep into stem-in-a-knot mode, he returned setting a glass, filled with my deliciously green drink, in front of me. “What were we talking about?”
    “The weather.” I removed the knotted stem and adjusted the soft white strap on my shoulder. “How nice the weather is for December in northern California.”
    “Right.” He took a sip of beer, leaned back in the booth, then turned his baby blues toward me. “You’re a fairly amusing girlfriend. You know that?”
    Tingles shot down my neck and over my shoulders. “So we are still together. The way you ignored me over drinks earlier, I suspected I’d been dumped.”
    He picked at the label on his bottle. “John seemed to be keeping you pretty entertained.”
    I frowned. “Yes, but he’s not who I planned to spend time with tonight.”
    His arms spread out across the booth, his hand bumping up against my shoulder. “It appeared you spent time with quite a few people tonight.”
    Ouch. Maybe that’s why he’d been acting cold. Ethan. “I thought we resolved that outside the bathroom,” I joked.
    With an unreadable expression, he stared at the ripped up pieces of paper on the table then lifted his lashes. “You like him?”
    “Come on, Chris.” I squirmed in my seat. I’d looked forward to playing girlfriend/boyfriend with him all day. Actually, to be honest, probably since last night when he asked me to come with him. And this was probably our last night together. Why did he have to ruin it by asking questions I didn’t know the answers to? Why couldn’t we just forget Ethan and work and making sure I fell for a guy who could commit? So much