Free Settling Up by Eryn Scott Page A

tried.
    When my pasta arrived, I almost kissed our older, angry-looking waiter. Instead, I focused on making out with my meal, bent over, full on slurping, just barely holding back yummy noises. After about a minute, I pulled up to take a breather and my eyes met Thomas gazing at me, a smile on his face, his dinner sitting in front of him, untouched.
    “Loves art and food. A real woman of the world, you are, Lauren.” He finally looked down at his own plate and began to eat.
    I, however, was left with my mouth agape (figuratively, don’t worry, I wasn’t letting my chewed pasta hang out). He’d spent the whole time so far aggressively dancing at me, telling me all about himself, and yet he thought because I was eating and I had noticed a painting (through false pretenses, mind you) that he suddenly knew who I was. Not to mention that I’m pretty sure those two things did not make me a “woman of the world”.
    I decided right then that I had been very wrong about Thomas. I focused on my food as it remained the only good, non-baffling thing around. Also, the sooner it was gone, the sooner this whole thing could be over with.
    I suddenly got that terrible goosebumps-inducing feeling of someone staring, so I looked up. Yep. Thomas was watching me, again. His jaw clenched slightly and then he reached toward me. I kept my fork poised at the ready, just in case.
    “Got a stray hair there.” His fingers pinched at the skin on my cheek as he got hold of a hair and started to pull it toward him.
    Pain shot through my scalp because the thing was still attached to my damn head, so as he pulled, it plucked right out of me. Anger, heat, the fire of a million suns burned in my neck, my face, my heart. I pressed my lips together, tight, in hopes that the yelling I was doing in my mind wouldn’t leak out.
    Seriously? Come on, man! I didn’t have very many of those suckers left and he had flat-out stole it right off my head.
    “Whoops, I guess that one was still hanging on.” He chuckled and threw the strand of hair to the floor as if it was a piece of garbage now.
    I watched it waft to the ground, forehead furrowed in sadness.
    “And how is everything?” Our waiter sidled up to the table, craning his neck to check if he needed to clear our plates yet.
    “We’d like the check,” I said through mostly clenched teeth.
    Thomas tipped his head to the side as the waiter left (I swear I saw a hint of a smile cross the older man’s face as he turned to leave). “Is everything okay, Lauren?”
    I shook my head. “I’m sorry. No. It really isn’t. I’m just not feeling this, Thomas. You’re really nice, I just hate dance music and it seems really important to you, so I’m not sure that we’d be a good fit. I’d be happy to split the check. I’m so sorry for wasting your time.”
    He furrowed his eyebrows, his face holding the distinct flavor of surprise (really?). “Oh. Well, I suppose I understand. Darn. I guess you’re right, though. I mean, life with me is pretty much like life in a bumping club all the time, so…”
    He left the sentence hanging, and me wondering if that was some sort of DJ catch phrase, but I couldn’t think too much on it because the waiter came then with the check.
    We split the check, I gulped down the rest of my wine (to Thomas’s obvious chagrin), and I was sitting safely in the darkness (and quiet) of my car no more than five minutes later. I let my head hang forward, forehead resting on the cool steering wheel.
    The fact that my old list would’ve definitely prevented me from going through that date was hard to ignore, but instead of dwelling on it, I called my sister.
    “How’d it go?” Her voice reached that excited-Betsy pitch that made me flinch slightly.
    I filled her in. On all of it.
    “Oh, no.” I heard her stifle a giggle at the end. “I’m so sorry, Laur.”
    “Haha. I heard that. You’re just as bad at hiding your giggling now as you were when you were