“Or did he fix your carburetor?” Kat said, snickering.
“Maybe he changed your oil,” Teddy suggested.
Zoe snorted, focusing on her sister as she answered. “He was awful. I was so bored. I barely made it to dessert, honestly. All he wanted to talk about was cars. Like, listen, I like a sexy car as much as the next gal, but buddy, in no way, shape, or form do I give one single shit about the sixty-eight Chevelle you’re restoring. He talked for literally an hour straight about how he bored out the cylinders to get all this extra horsepower. I legit told him I wasn’t all that interested and could we talk about something else, and he was like, yeah, sure, and started in on—I shit you not—the upholstery he was planning on using.”
“Ohmygod,” Teddy said, putting the steam wand away and leaning against the wall near Autumn. “I had a date a lot like that a few weeks ago. This guy I met on Tinder. Yes, I’m still using Tinder. He was hot, I swiped, we DM’d, he made good conversation, had a good pickup line, so we met. In person, he was nowhere near as hot as his bio made him seem, and he literally only wanted to talk about airplanes. He’s a pilot, I guess, which is great. But god—airplanes. For two hours.”
Autumn wanted her hair done in braids that wrapped around her head, and Kat and I were by far the best braiders of the group, so we’d been tapped to do her hair. Of course, Autumn could have paid for a glam squad herself, and you know Seven offered, but Autumn insisted it was us. And, I had to admit, this was more fun. There was champagne, for one thing.
The worst date stories continued as Kat and I worked on the braids.
“Your turn, Laurel,” Lizzy said; Lizzy’s job was to help Autumn into her dress once hair and makeup were done. She’d been sitting off to one side, out of the way of the hair and makeup, sipping champagne. “Worst date. Go.”
I sighed. She knew this story already, but the other girls didn’t. “My first year working with Lizzy, it was just her and me, as Kat hadn’t hired on yet. We would trade which of us got the good listings, right, so we both had a chance at the bigger commissions. It was my turn for the good listing, and when it came in, it was this plum of a place in Laguna Beach. Top floor condo, two units that had been combined. The biggest listing we’d had, and I was freaking out. I was there every day, fiddling with the staging, updating the photos, just obsessing. I discovered there was a drip leak under one sink, and I just freaked the fuck out. Called every plumber I knew, but they were all weeks out, and I had a showing that day. I mean, the first showing I’d scheduled on this massive listing, and I had a leak. No one could come look at it. So I was sitting in my car in the parking lot, yanking my hair out trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do. And I saw this guy carrying a toolbox to a truck. He was big, he was sexy, and he had tools. Problem solved, right? I had a feeling it was just a loose fitting or something, but what the hell do I know? So I do my best flounce over to him where he was messing with the tools in the back of his truck.”
Lizzy started snorting.
“Shush, you.” I tied the braid off and started on another. “I asked him if he could fix something for me. ‘I have a plumbing problem I was hoping you could help me with,’ is verbatim what I said. I hadn’t meant it as a come-on, but hell, he was cute, maybe I could get the leak fixed and have him check my plumbing, right?” I sighed. Continued. “He fixed the leak in about ten seconds, and said, ‘now, about the plumbing issue.’ It’s on like Donkey Kong, right? Oh, it was on. I had an hour still before the showing, so I got him to do me up against the wall in the bathroom. Plumbing issue fixed. He laid some serious pipe, you might say. Good, right? He asks me out afterward.”
“After he screwed you?” Kat asked.
“Yep. He was still tucking himself back into his pants, which, let’s just say took a while. There was a lot to tuck.” I sighed wistfully, remembering. “God, he was hung. Anyway, I agreed, because I was still in that post-orgasmic la-la-land, and I wasn’t thinking. So he says, I’ll pick you up tomorrow night at eight. Great. I’m ready by seven fifty-five. Because maybe we could get a quickie in before dinner and get it on after the date.”
Lizzy was trying hard to not laugh, now.
“Money doesn’t impress me. Show up in the sexiest car on the planet, I’ll be like, great. Nice car. Now let’s see your package.”
Kat snorted. “You have a one-track mind.”
“Yes, yes I do.” I waved at her. “Now shush. We’re getting to the good part. He showed up ten minutes late, in his work van. Not his personal truck, oh no. That was a nice truck. Newer, kind of plain but nice. I’m fine with that. I’m not gonna judge you based on what you drive. I judge you based on how good the dick is.”
“Ohmygod, Laurel,” Teddy cackled. “You’re horrible!”
“How is that horrible? I’m not making any excuses. I let them know ahead of time that it’s not going to be a situation where we walk off into the sunset together. We’re going to have a little date for the sake of appearances, we’ll go back to my place because let’s face it my place is nicer than most of theirs, ninety-nine percent of the time, and then we’re going to fuck. And if the dick is good, I’ll give you one more ride on the pony. If not, bye-bye. And listen, I’m not picky. I don’t care what you drive, how much you make, whether you’re built like The Rock or Seth Rogen. My criteria is, do you interest me at all? If you’re funny, great. If you’re built like a superhero, great. You just need one thing to catch my attention, and I’ll give you a shot.”
“What you’re saying is, you have no standards whatsoever,” Kat said, eyeing me sideways, “and that you’ll fuck anything with a dick and a pulse.”
“A dick, a pulse, and something interesting.”
“And the plumber in this endless story of yours,” Autumn said. “What did he have?”
“Well, to be honest, he was picked for his looks. I am most easily swayed by looks. And he had the looks.” I waved. “Anyway. All that to say, I’m really, really not judgmental about what I’m picked up in. I’ve gone out with guys who picked me up in their grandmother’s ninety-six Buick LeSabre. I’m okay with that. But the work van? The plumber’s van? Red flag. But he had a good excuse—a last-minute call to some sort of exploded pipe.” I sighed, remembering. “I tried. I really did. I got in, climbed over the mountain of McDonald’s bags and liters of Mountain. Dew. Red flag number two, because ew. But then as we were driving, I kept smelling something. And it was not a good smell.”
“Oh no,” Zoe said, laughing, covering her mouth. “That’s not good when he’s a plumber who just had an emergency.”
“Turns out, the emergency had been a burst sewage pipe.” I closed my eyes, because the smell was something you don’t forget. “He’d gotten pretty messy, and he’d put the soiled coveralls or whatever in a plastic bag in the back of his van. But that bag was not equal to the task of containing the stench. And, even worse, he himself still stank. Like raw sewage, to be exact.”
“Why didn’t he call or text and say he needed a few extra minutes to shower and change?” Teddy asked. “Like, did that not cross his mind?”