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I nod. “Yeah, he’s friendly. His name’s Guillermo.”

Bas bends down and starts to scratch Guillermo’s ears. The dog whines again happily, thumping his tail and wiggling himself closer to his new best friend while painstakingly observing the rule to keep all four feet on the ground when greeting people. As soon as he’s close enough, Guillermo faints into Bas’s arms like a Victorian heroine and Bas laughs, rubbing his belly and cooing at him.

“You need to get a few more and name them Nandor, Nadja, and Lazlo.”

I sit up straighter, my nerves melting away momentarily. “I can’t believe you’d leave out Colin Robbinson like that,” I scoff with a grin.

“Oh no, those are your dogs, you need a cat named Colin Robbinson. One of those bald cats.”

“A sphynx,” I supply, and Bas nods.

“So, are you and Guillermo just out enjoying the weather?” He’s sitting all the way down on the ground now and letting the fifty-pound pit bull crawl fully into his arms like a baby, whining and still swinging his weapon of a tail wildly.

“I’m meeting someone too.” I can’t believe I forgot for a second that I’m here waiting for a date. I sit up straighter and look around again, trying to spot any single dudes who look lost.

“Your boyfriend?” he guesses, his smile wavering.

A fresh wave of embarrassment washes over me when I remember the last time Jake stopped by the taco truck with me and acted like a jealous asshole when Bas was his usual friendly self.

“No, we broke up.” I shake my head. “I let my best friend set me up on this stupid blind date.”

Both of Bas’s dark, bushy eyebrows jump up and his hands go still on Guillermo’s belly.

“You’re meeting a blind date here? Likerighthere?” He waves at the bench I’m sitting on.

“Um… yeah.” I twist around to look at the bench. Is there something wrong with it that makes it a weird place to meet a date?

“Is your date named Tony?”

“Yeah, why?” I frown, and Bas laughs again.

It’s a different kind of laugh than I’ve heard from him before though. Almost… relieved? Excited? Giddy even?

“Funny story…” His grin widens and he cards his fingers through his curls again. “My brother, Tony, sent me here to let his date know that he’s too sick to come out tonight.”

Heat creeps up the back of my neck and my stomach drops.

“He didn’t even have to meet me to know he didn’t like me.” I have no right to feel so slighted considering I brought my dog with me as a way to get out of this if we didn’t immediately hit it off, but it stings anyway. And having the guy I’ve been pathetically crushing on for months be the one to tell me I’ve been rejected is just adding an extra side of embarrassment to the rejection.

“No, it’s not like that. I swear.” Bas rushes to explain. “He was doing a full-onExorcistwhen I left, spewing pea soup all over the walls and shit.”

I snort. “Liar.”

He holds his hands up and mimes drawing an X across his chest. “That’s a mild exaggeration, but I swear on my taco truck that he’s sick.”

I sigh and slump back. “Alright. Well, thanks for letting me know.”

Sensing my shift in mood, Guillermo climbs out of Bas’s lap and comes over to put his head on my thigh, his whole body still wiggling with every wag of his tail. I scratch the top of his head and wait for Bas to get up and leave. He stays seated though, his eyes on me. I wish he would go ahead and leave so I can get on with feeling like a loser. He cocks his head one way, then the other, reminding me a lot of my dog when he’s trying to work out something complicated.

After a few seconds, a look of determination comes over his face and he sits up a little straighter.

“Would you… can you wait here just a minute while I make a call?” he asks.

It’s not like I have anything else going on, I guess, so I shrug.

“Sure.”

Another wide smile breaks out over his face, and for a second, I wish that somehow,hewas my blind date.