Magical Midlife Dating: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Novel (Leveling Up Book 2)

by K. F. Breene

  I grimaced. I didn’t know what that meant, but I assumed it wasn’t good. “What sort of guy is he?”

  “And ruin the surprise?” He winked, that action always upping his level of hotness. I was certain he knew it, just like he understood the impact of his muscle shows. The plain shirt made his very opposite of plainness more noticeable.

  I met that wink with a scowl. “He’s not dangerous, right? Nice guy?”

  “Not dangerous, no. You would’ve been fine without the magic.” He turned toward the cash register. “Middle of the bar. Blue dress shirt.”

  “Good luck,” the guy next to me said, and lifted his beer in a salute. His buddy followed.

  “Right, sure, yeah. Thanks.” I stepped back from the bar and cautiously headed to the middle, looking at the backs as I did so. Since this bar was mostly full of magical people, most were in good shape. They might not do much fighting these days—Austin had ensured O’Briens was a safe haven for magical misfits—but they apparently lived in a state of readiness in case their pasts came back to haunt them.

  …wide back in black…thin but muscular back in red…toned female back in purple…a little padding covering a powerful body in a very bright orange sweater that would fade after the first wash…

  I stopped as I reached the blue dress shirt loosely draped over a much softer body than I remembered from his profile pictures. Gray-white hair created a horseshoe around a balding, shiny head that also did not match the pictures I’d seen, his hair different in both color and plenitude. Large love handles worked to escape the straining brown belt on the gray slacks.

  This person did not scream “middle-aged and in great shape” like he’d very clearly identified himself on his dating profile and showed in his—obviously quite dated—profile pictures. I wasn’t expecting a bodybuilder, but “athletic” seemed to mean something different to him than it did to me.

  Two seats beyond him, Niamh glanced back at me. Without a word, she shifted back toward the bar. I didn’t know if that was good or bad. Maybe she was just giving me my privacy…for the first time ever.

  “Um…” I inched closer, scanning to make sure my date couldn’t be anyone else. No one else wore a blue dress shirt, but maybe Austin had been confused. I could only hope. I inched closer still. “Gary?”

  The man straightened up and half turned, revealing loose jowls and a collection of wrinkles. His dull, watery eyes brightened when he saw me, and his gaze did a sweep, similar to Austin’s.

  “Oh, wow.” His yellowed smile revealed crooked teeth, yet another discrepancy from his profile. What else hadn’t he mentioned? Knowing how to work a little magic with Photoshop?

  He struggled off the stool, his movements stiff. “Hel-lo!” He laughed and moved in for a hug.

  “Oh…” I tried not to grimace as his arms encircled me. I patted his back, stiffening.

  “You look even better than your picture! You don’t see that very often,” he said with a toothy grin, gesturing to the open stool next to him. “I’m so used to women lying about their weight, you know? They say fit, but…” He gave me a long look as he struggled back into his seat, indicating these women clearly didn’t live up to his expectations. Once seated, he sighed and looked around. “Boy, am I relieved. I figured, since you wanted to meet at a bar—sit at the bar, no less—that you must be one of those women.” He widened his eyes, his brown peepers swimming in white for a moment. He must’ve seen my “confused, bordering on annoyed” expression. “Bar bunnies, you know? The kind at the end of their rope, grasping at straws, desperate for a man…” He laughed. “But that’s not you at all, is it?” His grin said we were sharing a joke of some kind.

  I couldn’t even form a response. This madness was coming at me so fast that I wasn’t sure what to do with it. Surely there were a few sarcastic remarks I could’ve fit in there somewhere, but first I had to come to terms with the fact that he’d chosen to talk like this to anyone, let alone to a perfect stranger on a first date.

  “But no, look at you,” he said, more seriously, his gaze appreciative. The needle on my creep-o-meter started waggling toward the red zone. “You’re nice and trim. You keep yourself up.” He turned to flag a bartender, waving at Paul, a guy in his mid-twenties who seemed timid for a shifter. “That’s important. So many women your age let themselves go. It’s tragic.”

  Still trying to unpack all of this, I stared at him in disbelief. This guy was worried about finding a woman who kept herself up, but he clearly didn’t hold himself to the same standard. What, he expected to find a girlfriend with no tummy and probably great tits while he sported a big tummy and matching tits? Like…who was he trying to kid? Talk about throwing rocks in a glass house. I hoped the shards struck his jugular.

  Was it too late to pull that runner?

  “She’s just gotten here and already this date has gone tits up,” Niamh said.

  So much for respecting my privacy.

  “Say the word, and he ends up in an unmarked grave,” the man between Niamh and me, a guy I had never met, said softly, facing straight ahead. Very sly. “I’m good to help, if you want. Say the word. That guy is a joke. You should invite him outside and then ring his bell. Dicks just don’t get it.”

  My date’s elevated voice rang out across the bar, authoritative and demanding. He was clearly annoyed he hadn’t already been seen to regardless of the fact that both Paul and Austin were helping other people. Either that, or he was trying to show off for me.

  If it was the latter, boy was he in the wrong bar. I didn’t dare warn him, though. I kind of wanted to see how it would all play out, while also wanting to knife myself to escape this horrible foray into dating life.

  “Hey,” he barked, “can I have another gin and tonic here, and a…” He turned to me as Paul finished up and hurried over.

  “Glass of Pinot Noir,” I murmured.

  “Which one?” Paul asked. “We have two now, since you like that kind so much.”

  “Oh…” I pulled the wine list to me, looking for the options.

  After a silent beat, Gary moved his hand in a circle to hurry me up. “Come on now, don’t take all day. Women!” I glanced up in time to see him rolling his eyes at Paul exaggeratedly. “They can never make up their minds.”

  His condescending chuckle drop-kicked something deep inside of me. How many times had I been minimized because of my sex? How many times had a man reduced me to some clichéd version of an indecisive female, or a bad driver, or a hysterical woman, because I didn’t have a penis to swing around and constantly fiddle with? They had always done it as if to say, “Aren’t they all the same? As men, we just have to humor them. It’s our lot in life, sadly. Can’t live with them, can’t kill them, am I right?”

  I hated the grating laughter that always seemed to follow. Laughter like this clown was currently exhibiting. It seemed to establish a them versus us mentality, with me on the outside. Me as the lesser.

  Fire kindled in my belly.

  Grab life by the balls. Raise your voice until you are heard.

  Only, I had no idea what to say. I had no idea how to combat something like this, aside from knifing him. I’d always been taught to react to such “jokes” with a silent smile, to act like boys would be boys even though the belittling made me quail inside.

  “I got hers, Paul,” Austin said as he approached. He placed a clean wine glass in front of me, his gaze heavy on mine. He was checking in, I knew. Ever my knight, my guide when I didn’t know how to be strong. I couldn’t tell by his expression if he knew I was thinking about the burly guy’s offer and Cheryl’s willingness…

  Austin pulled the cork out of a bottle and reached for the glass.

  “Whoa, whoa.” My anger and annoyance momentarily took a back seat. Sometimes wine sat around forever in this place. He’d poured me the equivalent of grape vinegar a few times. “How long has that been open?”

  A blue-sleeved arm reached into my vision, and Gary’s damp hand grasped my forea
rm. “I’m sure it’s fine,” he said. “Just take it.”

  I knew he was reacting to Austin’s natural predatory dominance, sensing the hierarchy and falling in line so as not to upset the rather large man with lots of muscle and crazy eyes, but his attempt to subdue me just added coal to my locomotive.

  I gritted my teeth and sweat coated my forehead. My fingers tingled and I wasn’t sure why, but I was sure his hand was in the wrong place, as was the muzzle he was trying to place on me.

  Before I could turn—before I could even speak—Austin leaned forward with such unspeakable malice that I, strangely, felt a little relief from the furnace raging within me. His gaze beat into Gary’s face as he somehow poured the glass without looking. Add that amazing party trick to his long list of talents.

  “Opened when you sat down,” Austin growled, the roughness of his voice spreading a crazy, primal fear through my body.

  Run! Run now! it screamed.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could just see the burly guy next to me get up and walk off toward the pool and bathroom area. Beyond him, Niamh had both hands clasped on the bar and a determined expression on her face. She felt Austin’s power and was actively trying to ward it off.

  “Yes, well, th-that’s wh-why I told her to take it,” Gary stammered. “Did you hear me? I told her—”

  “I heard you. It is not a man’s job to police his date. It is his job to make her comfortable and show her a good time. So far, you’re failing. Try harder.” Austin turned away. Not a drop had been spilled.

  Paul landed in a moment later with the gin and tonic. “Sir,” he said, and then scampered off.

  I reached for my glass as Gary turned to me, face red with anger and embarrassment from being put in his place. Austin’s ego might not be fragile, but this guy’s sure was. “Well, now do you see?” Spittle slapped my face.

  That was about all I could take. Time to see what I was made of, and how quickly I could make him run from this bar. If he wanted a kiss good night, that kiss would be from Cheryl’s spring-loaded blade.

  5

  “Jessie, ye gotta walk away now,” Niamh said before I could let him have it. “You’re on the edge, girl. The whole bar can feel it, just you trust me. If ye accidentally do another summons for help, I’m not sure we’ll like what shows up from this send-off. Walk away. Let Austin Steele sort this out. This type of thing is what the big lummox is good fer.” Her voice reduced to a mutter. “Lord help us if someone is sneaking around Ivy House tonight. That el’ house will feed off your mood and flay those poor bastards alive. Edgar will go hungry, and then he’ll wander around the town with his weird smile and hunched body and the cops will come callin’. I couldn’t be botherin’ with them tonight, sure I couldn’t.”

  I hesitated, because I knew Niamh was speaking in my best interest (and also her own). Usually she’d egg me on, hoping for violence. Given she was forgoing a show and talking about Ivy House getting violent because we were connected, and Edgar did say it fed off my emotions…

  “If you’d just taken the wine like I—”

  I held up my finger, and when Gary wouldn’t stop muttering about my perceived shortcomings, I talked over him.

  “It was nice meeting you. I think we both know this isn’t going to work, and it’s not just because you seriously lied on your profile. Update your pictures, bud. This is one step away from catfishing. If you weren’t doing such a bad job of it, I’d wonder if you were trying to land someone for your vampire friend—”

  “And that’s your cue, Jessie,” Niamh said.

  “Yup.” Couldn’t talk about vampires to normal folk. Whoops.

  “Just one minute, here,” Gary started, but I was already walking away.

  It wasn’t until I was to the end of the bar, almost to the opening that separated this part of the bar from the pool table area, that the true nature of the situation dawned on me. I slowed, Gary’s shocked and frustrated chatter fading into the background.

  The bar area had all but cleared out, only a few people lingering at the edges in booths or at tables, their eyes down and bodies hunched over their mostly empty glasses. Drinks littered the bar surface in various stages of fullness, abandoned by their owners. Even the two guys at the other end had walked away, leaving their beers behind.

  So focused on Gary and the horror show of my first date, I had somehow missed the mass exodus.

  Blinking in confusion, I resumed making my way out, leaving Austin to sort it out as Niamh had requested. I had a suspicion he wasn’t the only one who’d lay into the guy. Niamh would want her say, I had no doubt.

  A crowd loitered in the pool room, watching the balls roll around the green felt. When I entered, most looked up, then quickly back down, as though some gunslinger had entered the saloon and they didn’t want no trouble.

  “Sorry,” I muttered, knowing I was to blame for Austin’s second assertion of dominance in less than an hour.

  “Hey…” The burly guy that had been sitting next to me shrugged his meaty shoulders, standing off to the side with his hands in his pockets. “If you got it, flaunt it.”

  Those around him shifted from side to side and murmured their assent, heads bobbing.

  If I got it…flaunt it?

  I checked my boobs as I turned toward the bathroom. The cut of my neckline barely plunged, showing next to no cleavage. Sure, I had spaghetti straps, but so what? Last I checked, a little shoulder didn’t drive anyone crazy. My hem stopped right above my knee, very modest. It was a Mom’s night out dress if ever there was one, down to the fact that it didn’t fit exactly right. I wasn’t flaunting anything.

  I was clearly missing something, but at that moment, I didn’t care what it was. I shook my head and pushed into the bathroom, taking my place behind two women in jeans and flannel.

  “Excuse me.” The woman in front of me moved out of the way.

  “Oh.” I pointed at the two occupied stalls. “You’re not waiting?”

  “No, no. Go ahead.” She gestured me on and fell in behind me.

  After a step forward, the woman at the head of the line gave me a tight smile. “Here.” She stepped out of the way as someone came out of the larger stall.

  “Oops. Sorry! I didn’t mean to take so long.” A younger woman, who did have a plunging neckline and a hem that lazily tapped her very upper thighs, quickly scooted out of the way.

  “No worries,” I said, admiring her sparkly sequins as I slipped past.

  For the first time in…years, I actually wanted to try something like that. Something a little loud and a little look at me, world, here I am! I used to wear stuff like that all the time when I was in my twenties. After my body had morphed into a holding cell for a human and then refused to bounce back, I’d gravitated toward darker clothes and blacks for the slimming qualities. I’d started aiming for modest attire, something I thought better suited my age.

  But if Niamh could walk around town braless in a white T-shirt in a rainstorm, not at all worried what people thought, why couldn’t I opt for some color? Black was great, but so was the sparkly sequin extravaganza on that woman. I’d need it a little longer because I didn’t have the presence of mind to watch myself as I bent over (I’d flash the whole world, repeatedly), but what was stopping me from going for it? People’s reactions?

  An uncomfortable feeling coiled in my belly as I closed myself in the stall.

  Honestly, yes, it was people’s reactions. It was the fear that I’d get condescending looks if I stepped out of my lane or shrugged off my mantle of midlife modesty. That I’d get judged or sneered at or maybe even pitied if I showed off a little cleavage, a little leg, and a lot of personality. “Look at that woman, Janice! Good Lord, she is too old for a dress like that. Poor dear is trying too hard to cling to her youth.”

  Time to be brutally honest with myself. The fictional jerks I was imagining weren’t the problem. I was the only one holding me back. So people might think I was too old to have some style—so what?
I didn’t give two craps what people thought about me when I dressed like some sort of swamp monster. Why should I hesitate to wear the equivalent of a sexy disco ball?

  I shouldn’t, that was the bottom line. I shouldn’t let the Garys of the world push me down or treat me badly, and I shouldn’t cave to people’s expectations of women my age. Distinguished with a side of crazy fabulous, here I came!

  When I worked up the confidence, that was. Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all.

  Finished up, I exited the stall to find the same women who’d let me in front of them. One of them, now the next in line, gave me a tight smile and passed me into the stall. The other waited for whoever was taking their time in the occupied stall.

  Had they let me go first because they feared (somewhat correctly) that middle-aged women couldn’t hold their bladders? Except one of them was at least as old as I was.

  Confusion growing, I washed my hands and made my way out. Gazes found me as I re-entered the pool room, which had essentially become a waiting room. Almost immediately, the gazes zipped away again.

  The burly guy from the bar was leaned up against the wall on the opposite side of the opening.

  “Do you know if the…Dick—the non-magical guy—left?” I whispered.

  “Dick can be used in a couple ways with that guy. How the hell did you find him? He was a real gem.”

  “Clearly I am too gullible when it comes to online dating.”

  “Ah. Yeah, that explains it. Online dating can be a nightmare, I hear. The undesirables can hide their little peccadilloes until they get you in person.” The burly guy stepped sideways, to the very edge of the doorframe, before curving around and looking through. “All clear.” He gave me a thumbs-up. “Guess I don’t need to go borrow a shovel from my neighbor.”

  I grinned as I sighed. This town did like to joke about unmarked graves.

  “Cool.” I looked around the room. No one moved. “What’s everyone waiting for, then? Does Austin need a cooling-off period or something?”