Alex and Annie: A Bad Jokes Spinoff

Chapter 6 (Annie): It Might Be Fun

When Creighton had picked me up for dinner, he'd admired my little black dress the way he always admired things: profusely and poetically. It made me wonder about his sincerity when he was that over the top and effusive with his compliments, but, taking everything he said with a grain of salt, it was a little flattering, even if it was unbelievable. Knowing his reputation around the office, I didn't take Creighton seriously at all, and he knew it, too.

"We can have some fun," he'd told me when he asked me out to lunch. Fun was fine with me, and as long as his idea of fun wasn't more than mine at the moment, we were good. I wasn't going to take any man too seriously for the near future. Just have some fun until I could find a man LIKE Alex but not Alex because, you know...asshole.

So I'd been excited about this restaurant because it had great food, I'd heard, but when I walked in with Creighton and saw Alex, another man and three women...it was all I could do not to turn around and walk right back out. But then I decided I wasn't going to let him run me out of here. It wasn't a huge restaurant, but it was big enough that we didn't have to see each other. He could be at his table with three women and Creighton and I would be at our table.

"Hi, Annie," Alex said. "Creighton and I realized we were both coming here before heading to the club so we decided to join forces tonight and make it a party."

Make it a party? I wanted to make it a murder. Both Creighton and Alex, maybe have a twofer of a homicide deal.

"Well, isn't it just my lucky night?" I managed to say despite my clenched jaw.

The three women were staring at me, but before we could get around to introductions for Alex's three dates, Shelby walked in. Of course she did. But maybe the potential Mrs. Matthewson had some competition because the three women were all gorgeous.

"Sorry I'm late, Alex." She looked at the unknown blonde, brunette and redhead, and her look was frosty. "And who are you three?"

All three women immediately sized up Shelby and reached the correct assumption about her: bitch.

"We know who we are," the brunette said coolly. "But you clearly don't."

"I'm thinking three-star, possibly four," the redhead said.

"No way," the blonde chimed in. "Four-star headed straight down the track to five-star."

Alex looked down at the ground for a minute, biting back a smile.

"What are you talking about?" Shelby demanded.

I didn't care, but it was enough for me that the three of them had taken Shelby's measure and found that she fell short.

"Oh," the brunette said, "it's Alex's way of rating women. One to five stars."

At that, Shelby decided they weren't so bad and she actually preened. "And I'm a five star on his rating system? I can live with that."

"You may be in a category all your own soon," the blonde assured her with a smile.

Alex's smile.

And suddenly I knew who these three women were. He'd told me about his sister and his two cousins who gave him a lot of trouble growing up and into his present-day life -- the story about the cousin who pretended to be an escort and accused him of knocking her up despite a penicillin-resistant STD was legend around the office.

He'd also told me about his rating system for clingers -- the one to five stars they were talking about.

"I used to call them in for an assist when the clingers got to four or five stars," he'd told me one night.

"Should I expect them to show up here someday?" I'd asked teasingly, kissing his chest.

"No, Annie. Never," he'd answered me seriously. "You're nothing like those clingers. You're the perfect woman."

And, looking at that comment with the perspective of hindsight, that may have been the moment my heart sighed, then swooned and began falling for Alex. His comment had to mean something, right? But, as I'd discovered the hard way, we can be interpreters without even knowing the language and come up with a really bad translation.

"Your table is ready, Mr. Matthewson," the maître d' came up and said to Alex. The Matthewson-Buchanon family really was treated like royalty in this state. I'd experienced it every single time Alex and I went out to dinner. Alex ignored it, but it was amusing to watch people hurry to see to his comfort.

"Ready?" Alex asked me with that smile of his that turned women into five-star clingers.

I smiled back at him, nodded, and grabbed Creighton's arm.

Shelby grabbed Alex's arm, and his cousins noticed and smirked at each other. With that, the dinner I'd been dreading since walking into the restaurant suddenly seemed like it might be fun.

And oh, boy, was it.