I'm Not Charlotte Lucas(10)
“And stealing parking spots from poor, defenseless women.”
He had the grace to look abashed. “I circled this lot twice. It wasn’t my best move, but I only need to run into the store for one thing.”
There was my exit. “I’ll let you go, then.”
I looked through the windshield and caught Mariah’s wide-eyed look of irritation.
“Hey, Charlie, wait,” Andy said, jogging around me to block me from my driver door. “What are you doing this weekend? I would love to get dinner with you. It would be nice to catch up.”
His hazel eyes glittered, looking darker than I had remembered. Twilight pressed in on us, and the hazy glow from the setting sun was doing weird things to my vision.
Andy stepped closer, quirking his mouth into the half-smile that had drawn me to him initially in the sandwich shop over a year ago. He was handsome. That had been the draw, hadn’t it?
“I don’t know, Andy,” I said, moving back a step. Getting dinner together sounded like a date, and I didn’t think Andy knew how to do just friends. “I have a thing this weekend. Besides, I’m not sure we’re a good idea.”
“You think?” he pressed. “I seemed to think our problem was timing. Now, I’ve been thinking of you, and then you turned up here. That’s got to be fate.”
Yes. Timing. Constantly. The man was never able to commit—or keep his commitments. He’d left me waiting far too many times, and I’d had enough of it. Wasn’t that a good enough reason to break it off with someone? True, Andy had no glaring personality flaws that I recalled in that moment, but I needed a man who put me first.
Didn’t I?
Andy smiled again, and my heart flipped. What was it about attention from a man that made me feel so giddy? I needed to get a hold of myself. Think rationally, I commanded.
“What about Saturday night?” he asked. “We can keep it simple. Dinner at Trattoria Girardi.”
Yep. Italian food was definitely date food. I could feel myself softening to him, as though my body was veering his direction of its own accord. His gaze boring into mine wasn’t helping my head remain clear though.
A loud honk vibrated from the hood of my car, and I squealed, jumping backward. Mariah leaned over the center console. “Cumin!” she called.
Right. My pulse soared, and I rested my palm against my heart. “It was nice to see you,” I said, stepping around Andy. Another car passed by, skirting far too close to my elbow. “I need to move my car.”
“Dinner?” he asked, his head tilting to the side.
Hadn’t I once thought that this man would be my Mr. Darcy? He had never been intrinsically bad . . . he just made me wait around a lot. For Andy, everyone else seemed to have priority over me. But that was certainly a trait that could change if he really wanted it to. We’d ended things a year ago. Surely that was sufficient time for him to mature and change, right?
Besides, I was never going to find my Mr. Darcy if I rejected dates. First the charity ball and now this. Man, I was on a roll.
“Okay,” I said, my smile growing to match his grin. “Dinner.”
“It’s a date.” He slipped his hand into the pocket of his slacks and dipped his head, a show of humility I didn’t remember from last time. My heart raced as I slid into the car. Gripping the steering wheel with both hands, I watched Andy walk to the front doors of the grocery store through my rearview mirror.
“I guess I’ve got a date,” I said.
“Didn’t that guy ditch you like all the time?” Mariah asked, shooting me a judgmental look.
“People change,” I argued, putting the car into drive. I started circling the lot, looking for an empty space.
She pulled out her phone, and the light from the screen glowed on her face. The sun was gone now, the sky nearly dark. I listened to the click of Mariah’s fingers on her phone screen, punctuated by the occasional blinker sound from my dashboard.
Mariah sighed. “Mom just texted. You took too long, so she ordered pizza. But we’ve got to go pick it up.”
“Okay.”
“People don’t usually change, you know,” Mariah said. “But women always want to believe they can be the one to make that happen.”
“Since when did you become so wise?” Sarcasm dripped from my tongue. I wasn’t about to let a seventeen-year-old deter my newfound hope. She didn’t have actual world experience. “I’m not saying he has changed. But it’s been a whole year. Why not give him a chance?”
Andy was tall, blond, and charismatic. When he gave me his attention, he made my heart race. I wouldn’t commit to the man until I was sure he would prioritize me, but it was only dinner. I was welcome to walk away after that, so I might as well give it another try.
Besides, my twenty-seventh birthday was fast approaching. The similarities between my life and literary Charlotte Lucas’s were too many for comfort right now, and I didn’t want to end up a spinster like her. If I was going to avoid that lonely fate, I didn’t have much time to lose.
***
It was Friday night, and my blind date was on his way. The dress was stunning, my hair was perfect, and my makeup was tastefully done—but admittedly with more foundation than I’d worn in my entire life. The fake eyelashes were heavy on my eyelids, but they looked so pretty. The heels I’d snagged at Target lifted the hem of my gown from the floor so I wouldn’t trip over my feet all night, and maybe it was Beth’s relentless grin from behind me in the mirror, but I felt like a million bucks.