Well Matched (Well Met #3)(3)

Mitch accepted the beer with a thoughtful look. “You know, if you really want to pay me back, I know a way you can help me out.”

“Oh yeah?” I picked up my cider. That first, icy cold sip was always the best. “How’s that?”

He didn’t meet my eyes. “Be my girlfriend.”

I sputtered through my sip of cider. “Be your what?” I waited for his serious expression to break, for him to give me a grin and turn the whole thing into some kind of innuendo.

But instead he grabbed one of the menus on the bar. “Let’s get some food. Want a pizza or something? My treat.”

My immediate instinct was to say no. I’d been out for an hour or so now, and I was already starting to itch to be home. I’d had enough peopling for one night. But there was something about Mitch that made me want to stay. He didn’t seem quite like himself, and I didn’t want to leave him on his own.

“Sure,” I said. “As long as you leave off the pineapple.”

Mitch snorted. “Like I’d do that to a perfectly good pizza.”

I smiled and leaned over his shoulder to look at the menu in his hand instead of getting my own. We agreed on one with a lot of meat on it and moved with our drinks to a booth. We sat in silence for a little bit while I waited for Mitch to elaborate on this whole “girlfriend” thing, but he didn’t seem inclined to.

“So . . .” I said.

“So . . .” He took a pull off his beer, then cleared his throat. “How’s . . . how’s your leg?”

“My leg?” That was quite a subject change. My car accident was three years ago—not ancient history, but long enough that it wasn’t constantly on my mind. My leg had been all but shattered then. Now it ached a little when it was about to rain. “Fine,” I finally said. “I mean, I pretty much had to give up running, but it’s fine. So why do you need me to be your girlfriend?” May as well be the one to rip off the Band-Aid, if Mitch wasn’t going to do it.

He chuckled around another sip of beer. “I phrased that wrong.”

“So you don’t want me to be your girlfriend.”

“No, I do.” He cocked his head to one side and thought for a moment. “It’s a long story.”

“Well, the pizza isn’t here yet, so why don’t you get started.”

His lips lifted in a smile, but it wasn’t Mitch’s usual. The guy was ridiculously cheerful on the worst of days, but this smile was different. It was hesitant, not like him at all. And that was what kept me sitting in the booth. “So here’s the thing,” he finally said. “There’s this . . . thing.”

I sighed. That cleared it up. “Okay . . . ?”

“My grandparents. This big family party for my grandparents’ anniversary.”

“Oh!” I barely managed to keep from cooing. “That’s adorable! How long have they been married?” It had to be a big milestone for the Malone family to be throwing them a party like this.

But Mitch squinted his eyes and his mouth twisted while he thought. “Fifty . . . seven years? Fifty-six? Something like that. That’s not the point.”

Oh. So not a milestone, then. “How is that not the point?”

The pizza arrived, and Mitch took over, serving us each a slice before getting back to his story. “The point is, the past couple times I’ve seen my extended family, I’ve gotten the ‘so when are you going to settle down and get married and pump out kids’ thing. It wasn’t a huge deal at first, but now that I’m over thirty it’s like they’re starting to panic. It turns into an interrogation.”

“You’re over thirty?” The words came out of my mouth before I could check them. I always associated a person’s thirties with being settled, maybe even a little boring. But of course I’d had a kid in elementary school and an office job by then, so maybe I was biased. Mitch, however, still acted like a teenager in a ripped man’s body, so I’d always thought of him as being somewhere in those amorphous midtwenties.

“Thirty-one.” He rolled his eyes. “Ancient, according to them, which is stupid. Guys don’t even have biological clocks.”

“True.” I managed not to roll my own eyes. If he was ancient, then I was a withered old crone. Good to know. “Anyway . . . they’re starting to panic?”

“Yeah.” He nodded emphatically while he chewed a large bite of pizza. “So I thought maybe if I brought a girlfriend that might shut them up. But I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Right. Definitely a flaw in that plan, then.”

“Yep.” He didn’t sound bothered by that. “But you’d be perfect.” Before I had time for my self-esteem to rise from the compliment, he kept talking. “You know, you’re older . . .”

“Hey.” I sat back in the booth and crossed my arms.

“No, I mean, you look pretty good for being someone’s mom.”

I shook my head. “Not any better. So the minute you have a kid you’re not hot anymore?”

“That’s not what I’m saying. You’ve heard of MILFs, right? It means Mom I’d Like to—”

I put up my hands. “I know what MILF means.”

“Well, you’re totally a MILF.”