Chapter 4

Chapter Four

EVERSON

I normally loved my job, but I had been antsy all day while waiting for my date with Vander. It was hard to believe he had agreed to one. He didn't strike me as the type to agree to a casual date. Then again, that wasn't my style, either. Maybe that would make things work for us.

Vander waited for me outside the restaurant. He was handsome in his jeans and white button-down shirt with a blue shirt under it. The sleeves were rolled up, revealing his beautiful forearms. He struck a remarkable balance between casual and elegant.

"Sorry for keeping you waiting," I apologized. "It's been a while since I've been down here, so I forgot how harrowing it is to find parking on Saturday nights in the summer."

"You're still early." I appreciated his attempt at reassuring me. He seemed like someone who would be a stickler about punctuality. "It's a nice night out, so I didn't mind waiting. I only just got here myself."

I grinned at him. "Liar. You've totally been here for at least fifteen minutes because you're the type who always arrives early to avoid being late."

A smile tugged at the corner of his lips. "Maybe."

"You mean definitely ."

He held the door for me, then guided me inside by the small of my back as we entered the restaurant. I couldn't stop myself from grinning at how chivalrous my Sir Grumpsalot was. It was adorable.

Once we were seated and placed our orders, it was finally time to talk. "Did you grow up here in Sunnyside?"

He shook his head. "No, I'm from a little town in Colorado you probably haven't heard of before."

"Try me."

"Wintervale."

Damn, he had me on that one. "You're right, I don't know it. But it sounds lovely."

"It's a great place to be from, but the cold was too much for me. There are basically two seasons there: winter and winter's coming. I wanted to live somewhere warmer, so Sunnyside sounded like a heavenly place to move to."

"I'd ask if you looked for places with sunny names and settled on here, but you don't seem like the type who would throw a dart at a map and move somewhere unknown on a whim."

"No, I'm definitely not." It drew a tiny chuckle from him I savored. "I had a college roommate who was from here and always raved about it. I went home with him to visit his family one spring break and fell in love with the place."

I couldn't resist prying. "But not with your roommate?"

He wrinkled his nose in a cute way. "Ethan is a great friend, but he's too messy for me to deal with. I had to move out because we wouldn't have been friends if I had stayed. I've been to museums that had less culture than the stuff growing on his dishes in his kitchen sink."

I had to laugh at that. "So you're saying he was pioneering his own ecosystem of filth?"

"Basically. If I didn't do the dishes, they weren't getting done. Whenever I'd go on strike in the hopes he'd take care of them, sometimes the things growing on them looked sentient." Vander shuddered. "And it's not as if I'm completely unreasonable. If he left ice cream bowls in the sink overnight and put them in the dishwasher in the afternoon the next day, I'm totally fine with that. But I draw the line well before leaving stuff long enough for mold and god only knows what else to grow on the dishes from neglect."

"Then I'm very happy to say I'm of the same mind as you. I don't care if something's left overnight to soak because you don't want to unload the dishwasher after a late-night snack. But I'd definitely do them the next day. It's too gross not to."

The relief on his face was cute. "I'm glad you agree. Once I visited his family, I understood why he was that way, but I couldn't handle it. It was too stressful."

"Was his family's home a mess, too?"

Vander shook his head. "No, it was the total opposite. His mom had severe OCD, so everything had to be white-glove levels of perfect clean. He rebelled by becoming a slob when he moved out. But surely, there should be a happy medium between the two. If his mother knew what his apartment looked like, she'd go on a cleaning spree for the ages."

"Do you live with anyone now?"

"No, after that and several other bad roommate experiences, I decided the only roommate I'd ever have again is a spouse."

I chuckled as our server dropped off our drinks. "That sounds like you have some fun nightmare stories."

"That's one term for them. My freshman-year roommate was trying to sleep with every woman on campus, so he had a nonstop parade of them in our room. He refused to entertain them elsewhere, so our compromise was he'd shut off the overhead lights, and I'd put on sound-canceling headphones, then turn my back on them going at it, so I could fall asleep. Otherwise, I'd never have gotten any rest."

"Wow, that's awful and impressive all at once. You could seriously sleep through them having sex?" I shook my head in amazement. "I'm a light sleeper, so I doubt I could, even with sound-canceling headphones."

"He was a fast finisher who didn't give the women a reason to make a lot of noise, so the headphones usually drowned out the bedspring squeaks and fake moaners."

It was shocking to hear. "And the ladies were fine with that?"

"There were plenty who invited me to jerk off while watching them, but obviously, that was as tempting as a root canal." Vander rolled his eyes. "You'd be amazed at how many of them were willing to stay with me in the room, pointedly ignoring them."

"Please tell me you got revenge by flaunting sex with men in his face."

That got a little laugh out of him. "I absolutely would have if I were the brazen type. But getting payback that way would have felt too disrespectful to my partner. Not to mention he was homophobic, so he probably thought that was his way of turning me straight or some bullshit like that. I can only imagine what would have happened if he caught me in a sexual situation with another guy."

My heart broke for him. "Shit, that's awful. I'm sorry you got stuck with such a shitty roommate."

"Longest damn year of my life." He shook his head. "Ethan is messy as hell, but at least he's kind and one of the most open-minded straight guys I've ever met. He'd even go to our local gay bar with my friends, especially for drag night. The queens adore him."

I couldn't help but be impressed. "And he didn't get weird about being hit on by gay guys?"

Vander snorted. "Oh, he loved all the attention he got from the twinks at Just the Tipsy. There were even a few men I thought he might actually say yes to. But he always said while it was fun being wanted, he preferred sex with women. He'd be the flirtiest guy I know if it weren't for Carmine."

"Okay, one: Just the Tip sy? Genius name for a gay bar. I need a T-shirt with their logo."

"I'm not sure if they sell them or not. But they have a website."

"I'm definitely looking that up later." I took a sip of my lemonade. "Two: who is Carmine?"

"The absolute biggest flirt in all of Wintervale. He's shameless. There isn't an adult male in town he hasn't hit on."

I grinned. "Which means he's definitely flirted with you, too."

"He owns my favorite café in town, so there was quite a lot of that over the years. You'd think it would be obnoxious, but he's all charm. He's playful and thrives on the banter, so most people don't mind. And if they do, he immediately stops. He knows his limits."

"Thank god for that, or he'd be unbearable from the sounds of it."

Vander tilted his head as he regarded me. "You'd like him. He's very vivacious."

"In my experience, while that's fun to play with, it's not something that leads to my happily ever after."

"But the grumpy, stoic type does?" He took a sip of his drink.

"It's looking more and more likely." I had a good feeling about Vander.

He set his drink down on the table. "What about you? Are you from the area?"

"I'm a lifelong Sunnysider. I'd probably freeze to death in Wintervale." I laughed as our dinners were served. "My parents are still here."

"Wow, this is really good," he said after trying his Chicken Fra Diavolo pasta. "It's got a nice kick to it."

"I'm glad you like it." I tasted my creamy rosa penne with chicken. As always, it was delicious. "This place is my favorite."

We continued eating before he resumed asking questions. "How did you end up working at the amusement park?"

"A nine-to-five desk job makes me claustrophobic, so a job out in the sun is perfect for me. I've worked there for the past three years."

Vander shook his head. "Don't you ever get tired of all the screaming kids?"

"Nah, their joy makes it worthwhile for me." When Vander frowned, I hurried to make sure he understood I didn't judge him for not being the same way. "But I get kids aren't for everyone."

"I didn't even like them when I was one." Vander continued eating. "I never know how to relate to them."

"There's nothing wrong with that. I'm impressed you toughed it out yesterday at the park with so many of them."

He shrugged. "Since I organized the event, I had no choice. But at least the day wasn't a total waste."

The implication that I was the best part of his previous day lit me up inside. "True. We got to meet, which was definitely a bright side."

"At least I get to redeem myself a little tonight. Now you know I'm not a huge grump all the time."

I grinned. "So what you're saying is you're not Sir Grumpsalot but Sir Grumpsalittle."

His laugh was dark and husky, which made my heart flip-flop in my chest. "Something like that." He wiped his mouth with a napkin before taking a sip of his drink. "I was an only child, so I largely kept to myself as a kid. I would read or play video games by myself, so I didn't really have a lot of friends because I didn't know how to relate to people my age."

"Meanwhile, I was the class clown who was friends with everyone." I savored a bite of my chicken. "Luckily for you, that means I'm skilled at getting quiet people to like me."

"It's a little like enjoying the sunshine after a long, cold winter." His small smile set off the cute budgies into flight inside me. "I'm amazed you want to talk to me at all, though. I'm practically the antithesis of you."

"But that's why you're so appealing," I explained. "Corbin and I are too similar to be anything other than good friends. But you would challenge me in exciting ways."

He looked at me with curiosity. "What makes you think that?"

"It's just a feeling I have." I felt it with certainty, down to my bones. "Plus, we both love Final Fantasy , so that has to count for something, right?"

"I suppose. But I can't believe VIII is actually your favorite. I'm usually the odd man out for liking that one so much."

"I understand where the criticism of it comes from, but since it was the first one I ever played, it's special to me. That was the game that changed everything for me."

His pleased smile was precious. "Same. It opened a whole new world of games to me. It led me to Xenosaga , which I also loved."

"The music for that game was magical."

"Yeah, it was." He stared at me with a sense of amazement. "I've never been able to talk about that with anyone before."

"Well, feel free to talk my ear off about it, because I love stuff like that. Corbin is into the shoot-'em-up games, but nothing compares to the epic scale of Japanese RPGs for me."

It was cute how Vander perked up with enthusiasm. "Exactly! I love being able to lose myself in a vast world like that. It's so much better than my reality of working in an office, doing the same thing every day. I mean, don't get me wrong. I love my job and company, which I know is a real luxury. But that kind of grand adventure is exciting in a way real life will never be."

"Something tells me we're about to start a new grand adventure of our very own." And I couldn't wait.