A Girl Like You by vinnie Kinsella (good books to read for 12 year olds .TXT) 📕

“Town hall. Behind the front desk.”

“Yeah? I think we were in there a couple years ago, older man had symptoms of a heart attack and we were dispatched. Got there in under three minutes. Turned out it was anxiety.”

“Probably paying his tax bill,” I wrote. “People look like they’re going to keel over when they come in.”

“Yeah, I’ve had that feeling myself.”

We asked the obligatory questions: Divorced five years, Curt had two grown kids and an apartment in the next town over. He had plans to build a house, but his work schedule barely gave him time to sleep, so that was on the back burner for now. He never watched TV and cooked once a week at the firehouse. His specialty was stuffed shells with homemade sauce.

We also exchanged horror stories about Fish.

“I’ve been ghosted more times than I can count,” he wrote.

“Thought it was just me. Women do it too?”

“Oh yeah, especially after the first date. We have a good time, then they disappear and never answer texts again.”

I couldn’t imagine anyone ghosting fireman Curt. Hadn’t they known a good thing when they saw it?

“Well, I met a fireman,” I told Eddie the next day when we went for asiago cheese bagels at Brew Coffee.

“Ohhh,” Eddie said, settling back in his chair. “Do tell.”

“He’s fifty, and 6 feet tall.”

“So, he’s already your type.”

“Do I have a type?”

“Sweetie, you know you like them tall and younger.”

“Yeah, if I can find them.” I pulled a bit of cheese off my bagel to chew.

“So, when are you meeting?”

“Maybe dinner this weekend; he has to work an overnight Friday so he might sleep Saturday.”

“Saving lives is draining.” Eddie chuckled.

“I know, right?”

“Is that one of the old geezers coming up the street?” Eddie pointed out the window.

“Jesus, let’s get out of here,” I grabbed my purse and practically ran before Wes could see me and rope me into an extended conversation about town gossip.

“Caught up on sleep,” Curt texted Saturday afternoon. “You pick a place and time and I’ll be there.”

There were too many restaurants to choose from, so I called on my best resource.

“Maddy, I can’t find the right place to have dinner tonight,” I texted.

“What are you looking for? Romantic? Pub with lots of people in case you run out of things to talk about? Candles on the tables?”

“None of those. Someplace with wine, and food that doesn’t come in a spinach wrap.”

We debated a while before deciding on Spice, a nice but not fussy restaurant in downtown Ashton. I pulled up the menu online and picked a meal—grilled chicken with roasted asparagus—to avoid the awkward moments of deciding what to order.

I texted Curt to meet at 7:30 at Spice.

“See you then,” he replied. “Let’s have a great time.”

It was exactly what I wanted.

I wore ghost leggings with black boots and a long maroon sweater. Parking was always an issue in Ashton, so I left home at 7:00 for the fifteen-minute drive. Another good sign: a car was pulling out of the parking garage just as I drove in, giving me a premium spot. Spice was a short walk and I was inside with a wine spritzer by 7:15, trying to discreetly check my hair in the reflection of my phone.

Curt was ten minutes late, but that gave me time to drink half my spritzer, and when he came over to the table, he was wearing a long coat and the cute knit hat from his photo.

“Jessica?”

“Curt?”

He held out his hand and shook mine, that limp way some women do, then hung his coat on the back of the chair where it grazed the floor. Frowning, he folded the coat in half and placed it carefully over the chair so it didn’t touch the ground. I’d tossed my wool jacket carelessly behind me and was actually sitting on part of it.

“What’s good here?” Curt said, pulling off his hat to reveal a severely receding hairline.

Don’t get me wrong; I had no problem with the follicley-challenged. But the tux photo was clearly more than a few years old.

“I hear the chicken is good—”

“Here we go, wings, wanta share a couple dozen?”

“Um, no thanks, not really a wing person.”

Curt tipped his head to look at me. “How can you not be a wing person? That’s un-American.”

“Sorry,” I said weakly.

When the server came over, Curt ordered a crab dip appetizer and wings, extra hot.

“You like crab?” he asked, handing his menu to the server without looking at her.

“I guess so.”

But when it arrived it was a cheesy, milky mess with chunks of crab I could smell even before he scooped up a heap with a tortilla chip. It was possibly the worst thing to order on a first date. That, and the wings.

“I’m probably going to smell like seafood the rest of the night.” Curt laughed.

“Probably.”

He laughed again, as if it were actually funny.

“So, tell me more about your kids,” I said, leaning back in my chair to get away from the pungent smell of cheesy crab.

Curt’s face darkened. “They treat me like an asshole these days. Lived with their mother, my ex, since the divorce, and she’s turned them against me with her lies.”

“Wasn’t your divorce, like, four years ago?” I polished off my spritzer and looked around for the server to order another.

“Five. But it dragged out in court for years. Worked three jobs to keep that bitch happy and all she did was complain.”

“Wow,” I said, signaling the server from another table and pointing to my wine glass for another.

When the food came, Curt asked for extra wet wipes. “I really get into my wings,” he told the server. “Can get a bit messy. My date will have to tell me if I’ve got hot sauce on my face.”

My grilled chicken was charred and the asparagus limp.

We’d covered all the small talk questions by text, so I was at a complete loss as to what to say. We ate in awkward silence.

“So, you never told me if you had pets,”