30 First Dates

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30 FIRST DATES

by

STACEY WIEDOWER

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Copyright © 2015 by Stacey Wiedower

Cover design by Estrella Cover Art

Gemma Halliday Publishing

http://www.gemmahallidaypublishing.com

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Unlucky in Love

April

Erin Crawford closed her gaping mouth and tried not to be too obvious about it as she shot another quick glance across the bar.

At
him
.

At Noah Bradley. The love, so far, of her life.
Why'd I break up with him again?
She sucked in a sharp breath and let it out in a sigh. Oh, yeah. Because he just wasn't that into her. Bad timing. Bad decisions. Bad…karma?
No way.
She didn't deserve this plight she'd been handed.
Bad luck
, she decided. That's what it was.

She was just plain unlucky in love.

"Do you want to get out of here?"

Erin jerked her head around and found herself looking into a set of familiar brown eyes. She smiled sheepishly.

"Sorry. Yeah, I really do." She eyed Ben Bertram's half-full pint and picked up her own nearly empty glass. "Take your time, though. I
refuse
to let him chase me out."

Her eyes flashed. Ben just looked amused.

She glanced over at Noah again from under her lashes. He hadn't noticed her yet. She'd arrived before him but after Ben, and when she walked in Ben was already seated at a tall, round table in the far corner of the room. They'd met here a few times since he'd come back to town. The place was one of her favorites—the food was good, the beer selection wasn't too shabby, and the ambiance was somehow both frenetic and laid back. Like her.

She surveyed the bar, where happy hour was in full swing. Light-colored wood sheathed the floors and walls. On the ceiling, rows of dropped, rough-hewn beams were lit with strands of twinkling, white lights. The patrons, most of them in their late twenties and early thirties, were still dressed for work in skirts and suits, but collars were loose and jackets were hanging over the backs of chairs.

Erin watched as a waiter rushed by with a teetering tray of empty pint glasses. She'd been a server before, so her heart went out to the guy as he nicked the corner of a table with his elbow and almost lost the whole load. Lucky for him, he corrected in time and kept the stacked-up tray intact. A smattering of applause broke out from the tables around him, and the guy smiled wryly before disappearing into the kitchen. Erin thought if his hands weren't so full he might have bowed. That's what she would have done.

She kept her eyes on Ben, aware that the noise had drawn attention in their direction.
Has he seen me yet?
The place wasn't big, and from her vantage point in the corner she had a view of the whole room. When Noah had walked in a few minutes earlier, she'd noticed him immediately. She hadn't seen him in…what, six months?

She sighed. He looked good. Much happier than he'd looked when he was with her. Things must be going well for him.
Maybe he took my advice.

No, she'd know it if he had. She'd have seen it in the tabloids.

She glanced over at him again, and this time he was staring right at her.
Oh, damn. Damn, damn, damn. Oh, hell.
She met his gaze, forcing herself to keep her expression steady. He looked a little stricken.

Before she could stop herself, she winked at him.
OMG. Why do I DO things like that?

She was keenly aware of Ben's eyes on her from across the table. Across the bar, Noah gave her a polite nod and smiled. She smiled back, glad he wasn't close enough to see that her lips were trembling. She looked away from him and back at Ben, who was smirking at her.

"Good job," he said. "Very cool."

She shook her head. "I can't believe he's here. I mean, I guess I can. I know he works, like, five minutes from here. It's just that I haven't seen him in ages. Not even when I
wanted
to see him."

Ben's dark eyebrows furrowed, lines appearing on his forehead beneath his tousled hair, the color of damp sand. She fought the urge to reach up and tug the rogue strand that always curled away from the rest across his forehead. She'd been fighting that urge since they were seven years old and his family had moved in two doors down from hers. She usually lost.

"I don't know what you saw in that idiot, anyway," he said in a matter-of-fact tone. "He treated you like shi—"

"Oh, you hush," she interrupted him. "He didn't treat me badly, and you know it. He was just in love with somebody else—that's all."

Her voice was flippant, but Erin knew Ben heard what she didn't say. Ben had been the one she'd called for advice when Noah had grown despondent, when he'd spent weeks reading books written by his famous ex-fiancée and then tried to hide that fact from her, though she wouldn't have minded if he'd just told her he was reading them. Ben had been the one who'd seen her through the breakup crisis despite the fact that he was 2,000 miles away, finishing his Ph.D. at the University of Washington, while her best friend Hilary—the one friend she'd known longer than Ben—was right here in town.

Ben knew that six months later, she wasn't over Noah, not even a little bit.

"Wanna make out and make him jealous?"

He leaned toward her, elbows on the table, and waggled his eyebrows. She reached forward and shoved one elbow with the tips of her fingers, knocking it off the edge. She giggled and wrinkled her nose.

"No offense, babe, but that'd feel a little like incest." She picked up her sweating water glass and took a sip. "Besides, it'd be my luck that Jeffrey would walk in here right when we got hot and heavy."

A pained look crossed Ben's face, replaced instantly by disgust. "Jeffrey." He dragged the word out, saying it in the same mocking tone he'd used when they were fourteen years old and she'd started walking home from school with Tyson Burch. He'd warned her Tyson was a cocky, big-mouthed prick, and she should have listened to him. But then, he'd warned her about every guy she'd ever dated—even the ones he'd never met.

"What is the old chap up to tonight, anyway?"

She glared at him. "
Jeffrey
," she said, "is working late. He's coming over later."

"What is this? Like, date five? Six?"

"Actually, I've stopped counting. I've been seeing him for about three months now."

He raised an eyebrow. "Wow. I didn't realize things had gotten so…serious."

"They're not," she said. "Well. I don't know—maybe they are." She shrugged. "Maybe they will be?" She grew thoughtful and then leaned toward him, her voice dropping a few notches. "The thing is—
I've
got to get serious. When I broke up with Mathew, I thought there'd be something better out there. I didn't think I'd be sitting here seven years later, staring down thirty's doorstep, still living with a roommate and hanging out in bars."

The corners of Ben's mouth twitched. "I happen to know you like hanging out in bars. And I didn't realize you were in such a huge rush to settle down." A sudden, knowing look flashed across his face. "Hey, is this a 'list' thing? You want to get married before you're thirty or something like that?"

She scrunched up her nose in disgust. "No, I don't want to get
married
. Good grief. Do you even know me at all?" She paused. "Besides, you've seen my list."

He scrutinized her for a few seconds, then sat back in his chair and shrugged. "Well, it's on Sherri's. I just thought, you know, you girls and your biological clocks and all. It's not a crazy question."

She reached across the table and batted his shoulder, glowering at him.

"Thanks a lot."

He laughed. "You know what I mean. I'm the same age you are."

"Yeah, but it's cool for guys to stay single, play the field. For women it's still a stigma." Her gaze traveled over his deep-set brown eyes, his dark blond curls, his perpetual five-o'clock shadow. "When
you
get a little gray, you'll look distinguished.
Dr.
Benjamin Bertram. Twenty-two-year-olds will swoon."

He laughed again. "Yeah, but they'll only want me for my body. You, you're the total package." He leered at her.

She rolled her eyes. "You're not gonna dig yourself out of this hole, Dr. Bertram. You might as well stop now, while I'm still speaking to you." She nodded toward his glass. "And drink up. I want to get out of here." Glancing around, she added, "Seen our waitress lately?"

Thirty seconds later, their server emerged from the kitchen and stopped at a nearby table. Shooting one more look in Noah's direction, Erin signaled to get her attention.

*  *  *

On her way home from Chuy's, where she and Ben had gone after the bar for what in her opinion was the best cheap Tex-Mex Dallas had to offer, Erin mulled over his comment about her list. Around Christmas, a week or so after Ben's dissertation defense, he and Erin had spent a Saturday night in her apartment with Sherri (Erin's roommate), Hilary (Erin's best friend since birth) (they'd met as babies because their moms were friends), and Hilary's fiancé, Mark.

Over a magnum of Yellowtail they'd artfully paired with Parmesan-sprinkled popcorn, Sherri started talking about an article she'd read about bucket lists. Some chick had started a nationwide trend, she said, by blogging her list of thirty things she wanted to do before she turned thirty.

Then and there, Sherri got up to retrieve a notebook and started her own list. The others made fun of her at first, but then one by one they ripped pages out of the notebook and followed suit. Before long they'd turned it into a drinking game. By the end of the night all five of them had a list of thirty things they swore they'd do before the big three-oh.

Erin's list was filled with things like mastering French, running a marathon, and taking salsa lessons. Achievable things, she thought. Reasonable things. Unlike Sherri, whose list included (highlighted, in all caps), "No. 5: Be the bride instead of the bridesmaid," Erin's love life hadn't made her list at all.

She thought about that. Okay, so she wasn't married and she wasn't engaged. She was only twenty-eight, and this was the 21st century. It wasn't like she was some kind of Victorian-era spinster. Besides, she had a boyfriend—and he had potential. She shook her head.
Why am I obsessing about this?
It was pointless. Despite her complaints to Ben at the bar, she was happy with her life as it was.

Erin wound through the parking lot of her apartment complex in her little black Audi, a gift from her mom and dad when she'd decided to move back to Dallas. She'd been shocked by it—not because they weren't generous, just because it wasn't like them. She was an only child, and all her life she'd grown up hearing how they didn't want that to spoil her. When she'd turned sixteen, instead of being given a car like most of her friends had, she'd ridden with her dad around Frisco's then-modest business district to pick up job applications. She'd worked her butt off for her first car, a dark blue '94 Sentra with a scratch on the passenger side door and a dent in the left fender. Her current car was purely a result, she figured, of her parents' giddiness that she hadn't cut and run at the first opportunity. She knew they'd expected her to haul off to San Francisco or New York or to Florence, Italy, where her freshman roommate now lived. Hell, she'd expected it herself.

She drove past a bank of mailboxes and slowed as she approached the green-roofed row of covered parking spaces that housed her reserved spot. Irritatingly, a white BMW was parked in Number 32, her space. She backed up a little and pulled into Sherri's spot across the driveway.

She'd lived in the complex almost four years and with Sherri more than six. They'd been sorority sisters at the University of Texas, and when they graduated Erin landed a rare hometown assignment with Teach for America and Sherri got a job with a downtown Dallas accounting firm, so becoming roommates seemed a given. Though they were opposites in almost every way—Sherri was blonde, blue-eyed, and curvy with a sweet smile and a steady, pragmatic presence, while Erin had dark hair, wide green eyes and was always upbeat, always moving—they were well-suited for living together.

Erin walked through the landscaped courtyard that led to the door of their brick and stucco townhouse. The sun was still visible over the western rooftops, low in the orange- and purple-streaked sky. Though it was only mid-April, already the oppressive heat that draped Dallas like a cloak in summertime was bringing out the noisy Texas crickets and making the over-watered, absurdly tropical foliage in the complex's gardens wilt with thirst. She breathed deep, inhaling the scents of fresh-cut grass, fresh-turned earth, and early blooming hibiscus.