Ellis took another sip of her drink and forced a smile. “Yeah. I’m a freak, right? Eleven years without sex. Not quite the forty-year-old virgin, but close.”

“You are not a freak, Ellis Sullivan!” Julia said fiercely. She gestured at the couples on the dance floor, and in particular at a woman about their age who was grinding her hips into her dance partner, her arms locked around his neck, eyes closed, lips apart. “The freaks are these chicks who’ll give a lap dance or a blow job to some asshole they just met at a bar while on vacation.”

“You’re just saying that,” Ellis said. “Although I appreciate the sentiment.”

“Okay, fine,” Julia said. “I’m not going to make you tell me.” She raised an eyebrow, as though daring Ellis.

Ellis slurped up the last of her cosmo and took the bait. “Oh well. I guess it won’t hurt. I mean, lots of people do it.…”

“I knew it,” Julia said triumphantly. “You were online dating, weren’t you? Come on. Out with it. eHarmony or Match.com?”

Ellis buried her face in her hands. “Match.com. It was the year I turned thirty. I made this stupid New Year’s resolution that I was going to really be out there, you know, in the marketplace. Never again. I’d rather die alone, the crazy lady living in a double-wide down by the river, with forty-seven cats and a houseful of hoarded tin cans and toilet paper, than try that again.”

Julia rubbed her hands in delight. “Tell me everything. Don’t leave out a single, grotesque detail.”

“I only did it for three months,” Ellis said. “Two different women I worked with met their husbands that way, and they were totally normal, average to above-average nice guys. But I think those women got the last two normal guys on the planet. Either that, or I’m just a major creep magnet.”

“Details,” Julia interrupted. “Gimme.”

“Gawwwwd,” Ellis moaned. “I’ve spent years trying to forget all this stuff. And now you want me to dredge up all the dirt again. Isn’t it enough that I admit I made a major mistake?”

“No,” Julia said. “Quit stalling.”

“Okay,” Ellis said, wincing at the memory. “The first guy—his name actually was Guy—seemed nice, at first. We e-mailed back and forth for a couple weeks, until I convinced myself he wasn’t some kind of psycho axe murderer. We met at a coffee shop on a Saturday morning. He was wearing jeans, a polo shirt, well-groomed, nothing scary at all about him. Until he ordered.”

“What? What did he order?”

“It wasn’t what he ordered, it was how he did it. I mean, he made the waitress repeat our order back twice to him, and then when she brought the coffee and his danish, he made this big stink about how she’d screwed it up, and insisted he’d asked for decaf. And I heard him. He did not ask for decaf! And then he said the danish was stale, and it tasted fine. He harangued this poor girl for five minutes, until she was in tears, and when we finished, he left a penny for a tip.”

Julia rolled her eyes. “I can’t stand a waitress baiter. Or a stingy bastard. I’m guessing you never saw Guy again.”

“Never,” Ellis agreed. “But the next guy was worse.” She shuddered. “I’ve blocked out his name.”

“No you haven’t.”

“Okay. It was Bart. Or Barf, as I came to think of him afterwards.”

“What was wrong with Bart?”

“He was maybe the best-looking guy I’ve ever gone out with. I mean, gorgeous. Tan, muscular, elegant manners. He took me to dinner at this really nice Italian restaurant. And of course, he ordered in Italian, which was a little bit of a turnoff. I mean, who gives an entire order in Italian?”

“You can’t hate the guy just because he spoke Italian.”

“He did kind of remind me of Kevin Kline in A Fish Called Wanda, but it wasn’t the Italian that was the turnoff. It was the fact that he took me on a date—commando!”

Julia guffawed. “Seriously? How do you know? Maybe he was just wearing, like, you know, low riders.”

Ellis blushed beet red and giggled. “I know, okay? He was totally commando.”

“I don’t believe it,” Julia said, taking a long sip of her drink.

“No, Julia,” Ellis said, leaning forward again. “The way his pants were cut, sort of loose, you know, I could tell he was, you know…” she whispered, “free balling. That’s what Baylor used to call it. But Baylor only did it at the beach, when he was a teenager. Not on a first date at a nice Italian restaurant!”

Julia’s face contorted, and she pressed a paper napkin to her face. “No fair! You made me snort gin out my nose. What did you do when you realized he wasn’t wearing any underwear?”

“What could I do?” Ellis said. “I didn’t realize it until he got up to go to the men’s room, and he was walking back across the restaurant, and you know, his goods were kinda jiggling around as he walked.”

“Oh no,” Julia laughed. “Eeeeww. Poor Ellis.”

“It wasn’t that funny at the time,” Ellis said, laughing now. “I just had to get out of there, but I’d already ordered dinner. So I scarfed down my entrée, then I faked a migraine, told him I was so nauseous I’d better leave immediately. I literally ran out of the restaurant, hailed a cab, and hightailed it home. And that was it for me and online dating.”

“Oh my God,” Julia giggled. “I’ve been with Booker so long, I had no idea things were that awful out there in the dating world.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Ellis agreed.

“So what changed your mind about dating again?” Julia asked.

“Nothing,” Ellis said. “And everything. Losing my job—it’s corny, but I think it’s time to take stock. And I’ve decided it’s now or never. If I meet a nice guy, who knows? Anyway, Ty’s not really a bartender. He’s a day trader. He’s just moonlighting here because the stock market is so crappy right now.”

“I’m no snob,” Julia said. “I wouldn’t care if he really was just a bartender. He seems like a nice guy. I think you should go for it, Ellis. Come on, a little summer fling would do you a world of good.”

Ellis toyed with her second drink. “You think?”

The waitress was back with another round of drinks, and this time she didn’t look happy. “Ty asked me to tell you ladies that he gets off in thirty minutes,” she said. “He was wondering if you’re going to stick around that long.”

“Oh,” Ellis said. “Well, sure. I mean, does that sound all right to you, Julia?”

Julia finished off her drink. “You stay, Ellis,” she said casually. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take the car and go on back to the house. I think I feel a migraine coming on. Maybe Ty will give you a ride home.”

“No!” Ellis said, feeling panicky. “You can’t go already, Julia.”

“You can stay,” Julia said, reaching over and patting her friend’s hand. “You’re a big girl. You can do this.”

The waitress cleared her throat to let them know she was waiting.

Ellis gulped. Her heart was racing. She looked up at the waitress. “Tell him I’ll be here.”

Julia stood up and put a twenty-dollar bill on the tabletop. “There’s the tip,” she said, nodding at the money. She dropped a kiss on the top of Ellis’s head. “Have a good time,” she whispered. “And don’t worry. I’ve been watching Ty all night. He does a lot of bending and stretching, getting beers out of that cooler on the back bar. I’m a hundred percent sure he’s wearing underpants.”

22

“Strawberry Shortcake is staying, but her friend is outta here,” the waitress told Ty.

“Nella!” Ty said reprovingly. “Don’t be mean. It doesn’t suit you.”

“Can’t help it,” Nella Maxwell said, dumping her tray full of dirty glasses into the bar sink. “It’s my nature. Who is she, anyway?”

“Her name is Ellis,” Ty said, filling a shaker with ice and vodka. “She’s a friend.”

“Doesn’t look like your usual variety of ‘friend,’” Nella pointed out. “The hottie who left is more your type.”

“Julia?” Ty frowned. “Not really. Anyway, I like Ellis. She’s … different.” He gazed over at Ellis, sitting alone at her table, chin propped up on her fists, watching the swirl of people around her. She was wearing a girlish pink-and-green sundress, and with her hair swept off her neck, he could see a sprinkling of freckles on her sunburnt shoulders and chest, and a surprising amount of cleavage, especially from a woman whose bathing suit looked like something you’d wear to a swim meet. Nella was right about one thing, Ty thought. Ellis looked just like a sweet, pink confection. Totally out of place in a bar like Cadillac Jack’s, with its writhing mass of on-the-make college kids and black-clad hipsters. He wanted to sweep her up and out of there, maybe back to the beach, someplace quiet, someplace without the throb of music and din of shrill voices.