Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 83102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
“Hate to break it to you, Sawyer, but this poor girl was avoiding you like the plague while y’all were in the tasting room. I figured there might be a juicy reason why.” Crawford volunteers this information with unabashed amusement.
Oh my god. I squeeze my eyes closed and pray for an earthquake.
“Is that right?” Sawyer asks with a curious lilt. “Maybe it has to do with the fact that I took her on a date Saturday night.”
My eyes ping open.
Crawford chuckles. His eyes narrow as he crosses his arms and looks at me for an explanation. “A DATE? See, she left that part off.” He looks back to Sawyer, asking, “How’d you screw it up? Forget to hold the door for her or something? Maybe that pissed her off.”
“Not that I recall,” he says with a laugh.
“Hope you cleaned up beforehand. Didn’t try to wear your work clothes, did you?”
“I dressed nicely,” Sawyer assures his grandfather while looking curiously at me.
“It was a perfectly fine date,” I insist with a snippy tone, hating every minute of this.
Crawford grimaces. “That don’t sound too good, son.” He shakes his head at the sad prognosis. “I doubt you’ll be getting a second date.”
“No! He won’t!” I say in a rush.
Sawyer’s eyebrows hit his hairline. “No?”
Crawford howls with laughter, but Sawyer doesn’t blush with embarrassment. He’s too cocky for that. “That’s a shame. I got your number from David this morning. I was planning to call you after work to see if you wanted to get together tomorrow night.”
Would I have answered if he’d called me out of the blue?
No. Absolutely not, but I would have wanted to.
How pitiful.
“Sorry you went through the trouble…”
“Maybe you should give him one more chance,” Crawford says to me. Then he pauses before continuing, “On the other hand, Sawyer, you had your chance, and if you blew it, you blew it.”
Sawyer frowns at his grandfather. “Whose side are you on, old man?”
Crawford holds up his hands in innocence. “All right, I’ll stay out of it. But between me and you, you’d be a fool not to beg her for a second chance.”
“He’s right,” Sawyer says with an endearing grin. “One more date, Madison?”
Of course he’s confident enough to insist in front of an audience. Am I the first woman who’s dared to turn him down for a date?
I have no idea how to proceed here. Going out a second time wasn’t in the cards for us, but I just want this awkward exchange to be over with, so I hurry and answer. “Fine. Whatever.”
I’ll just…ghost him or something. There’s no way I’m going on a second date!
“A SECOND DATE?!” Kendra sounds beyond enthused by the news when I call her after work.
“Yes. No.” I’m still confused. “It was a verbal agreement, nothing binding. I’ll get out of it.”
“Oh no you won’t. One more date will really seal the deal.”
“Seal what deal, Kendra? This is silly! One date is all I agreed to, and it would have ended there had his grandfather not meddled. He was the one to convince Sawyer to ask me out again even after I made it clear that the answer would be no!”
This doesn’t surprise Kendra. “Of course his grandpa loved you! Are you kidding? Did you flutter those long eyelashes? Did you flash him that winning smile of yours? I swear you would have killed in the pageant scene when you were young.”
“No, I didn’t do any of that. I insulted his grandson within a few minutes of meeting him, actually.”
“You what?!”
She’s shocked because insulting family members isn’t my usual MO; I would have never behaved like this in my last relationship.
Matthew Mason is technically Matthew Mason IV, the youngest in a long line of Alabama politicians with far-reaching influence and money so old they can trace it back to the Stone Age. The first time I was invited to join him for a formal family dinner, we’d been dating for ten months and I knew him well enough to realize Matthew was extremely nervous about introducing me to his family.
“Is that the nicest dress you have?” he asked as we were about to head out the door.
I looked down at my white eyelet midi dress, belted snugly around my waist and accented with adorable cap sleeves. I’d agonized over it inside a little boutique on North College Street. It’d cost a pretty penny (more than I had to spend at the time), but I thought it looked exactly like what a dutiful southern woman should wear to meet her boyfriend’s conservative parents. In fact, it looked like what I could wear to accompany Matthew and his parents on the campaign trail.
“Maybe button it all the way to the top?” he suggested.
“Like a pilgrim?” I teased, trying to get him to loosen up. The dress was more than demure enough already. If I buttoned it up any further I wouldn’t be able to turn my neck.