“Pfft.” He shut the menu and locked his gaze with hers. “This isn’t a pity date. This is an assessment date. How am I supposed to do my job as wingman properly unless I know your first-date strengths and weaknesses? I should have done that right back at the beginning. I mean, maybe there are things you’re doing wrong. It’s important to know what you bring to the table in anything you do and, as a”—he straightened his shirt—“man.” He waggled his eyebrows and lowered his voice so it came out all deep and macho, and Della laughed. “I can give you a unique insight into the kinds of things we like and don’t like.”

Tucker was full of shit and just messing around, clearly trying to lighten the mood—but what he was suggesting actually made sense. It wasn’t like she had practice or experience on her side. She’d been with one guy, and they’d never really dated.

“Okay.”

He nodded. “Good. Now—” He reached for the menu again. “What do you want to eat?”

They ordered—pasta for her, steak for him—and Della went ahead and also ordered a cocktail. If she had to sit opposite Tucker at a small table, their knees (thanks to the length of his thighs) practically touching underneath while they fake dated, then she was going to need something a little stronger than white wine.

“Okay,” Tucker said after the waitress left. “First piece of assessment. Chitchat. What’s your small-talk game like?”

“Um, good…I think?”

She’d been isolated from pretty much everyone during her marriage and had kept mostly to herself for the first couple of years after she’d moved to Credence, but since starting work at the old folks’ home a year ago and meeting Molly and Marley over the summer, she’d stretched her conversational muscles.

“Alrighty then. Lay it on me.”

She blinked. “What…just start talking?”

“Yeah, pretend I’m a real first date. What’s your opening line?”

Pretending Tucker was a real date was like pretending she’d won the lottery. He’d made it perfectly clear that they’d never have that kind of relationship, so putting herself in that headspace was bizarre. She might as well be sitting opposite Idris Elba.

“So…Tucker…” Suddenly this felt like a real test. “Where are you from?”

“Predictable.” He tsked. “But I can run with it. I’m from a little town way out in Eastern Colorado, not far from the Kansas border, called Credence. You probably haven’t heard of it.”

“Actually, I have,” Della confirmed, forcing herself to smile, to relax and stop being so damn stiff and predictable in case she failed this bogus assessment. “I hear the bar there is very good. The Lumberjack?”

“Best bar in town. Best bartender in all Colorado, too.”

Della laughed. “Wow. The whole state? That a fact?”

“Yes ma’am.”