“So? I kind of like older guys. At least they know what they’re doing in bed most of the time.”
“I wouldn’t know.” Juliet hadn’t dated since high school. She had been too shy and withdrawn to make many friends, and the dating landscape outside of school intimidated her. More than anything, it seemed more effort than it was worth.
Kendall, on the other hand, filled her life with one-off sexual encounters and brief relationships that burned hot and then were snuffed out without remark. It seemed to work for Kendall – but Juliet couldn’t imagine it. She longed for something more intimate and understanding.
The blonde girl grabbed a stack of DVDs and began breezily replacing them in the racks. “You should give it a try, girl. Date a customer. Suck his dick in the back room. Make a terrible decision. It’s a rite of youthful passage.”
“Hard pass, Kendall.” Counting the money, Juliet plucked a piece of stiff paper from the bills. “Holy shit.”
“What?”
“The long-haired guy who was in here? The one wearing the Killhammer tee shirt?”
“I don’t know what that is,” Kendall declared.
“It’s a horror franchise. He left me a card. Like, a business card. But it just has his email and his Dategrind address on it.” She laughed. “This is utterly ridiculous.”
Kendall slotted the last disc in place and sauntered back to the front counter. “That guy’s in love with you, Juliet. He’s in here every day you’re in here. I see him checking out your ass in the security mirror.”
“You do not.
“Swear. And he’s into horror movies, like you are. Don’t you watch horror movies with your dad every Thursday night?”
Juliet smiled at the thought of it. She reminded herself to take the copy of obscure 70s horror masterpiece The Seventh Sacrifice out from under the safe where she’d stashed it so no one would rent it. She’d been looking forward to seeing it with her dad for months.
“Yeah. But that’s different. I’m not into that torture-and-gore Killhammer shit.”
“Oh, fuck,” Kendall groaned, rolling her eyes. “Who gives a shit. Juliet, lower your standards a little. Get on Dategrind, DM this guy, and go out with him. You could really hit it off.”
Juliet twisted the little card between her fingers, watching it bend. A smile crept across her face.
“I’ll think about it,” she said.
***
Juliet lived by herself in an apartment in Sunshine Row, a dreary and optimistically named complex on the west side of Donner Bay. It was a forty-minute drive beyond the smog-choked expanse of industrial parks, and put a lot of miles on her beleaguered Dodge Neon, but Sunshine Row was the only place she could afford to live without a roommate.
On the up side, her late-night drive meant phone calls with her dad.
Juliet’s parents had divorced when she was only fifteen – a consequence, her mother said, of irreconcilable differences. That was how her Maria Goodwin talked. Mom was a lawyer, one of the most in-demand in Donner Bay. Her ex-husband, Juliet’s father, was a contractor, but had been out of work for months.
Their familial relationship had always been strained. By the time Juliet entered her teen years, her mom and dad were already mostly estranged, and the close relationship they’d once shared had disintegrated with a kind of glacial slowness. Mom moved on quickly, remarrying a fellow partner at her law firm soon after.