“Yeah, I couldn’t wait, so we met up on Wednesday for drinks. I guess she’d already made plans with her friend for tonight, though, and she didn’t want to cancel.”

I opened my mouth to back out of the whole thing when Sean spoke again.

“You gotta come. This girl, she’s so hot,” he said. I could practically hear him smile through the phone.

“And you haven’t sealed the deal yet.”

“I never kiss and tell,” he lied. “But no. I like her and she’s not the type. Wants to hang out for a while first.”

“Hang out or date?” I asked, switching the phone to Bluetooth so I could drive. “Because there’s a difference.”

“There is?” he asked.

“You’re kidding, right?” I flipped on my blinker and headed toward the front gate of the fort. Living in town instead of on base had a lot of advantages, but the biggest disadvantage was that it took me twenty minutes to get home every day. I knew it could be worse, but I hated spending any time driving around. We had only a certain number of minutes on Earth, and I didn’t want to waste them.

“Yeah, man, I’m kidding,” Sean said. “We’re dating. I’m taking her out, not inviting her over for China Buffet takeout and zombie killing on the Xbox.”

“Killing zombies sounds like the perfect date to me, but it probably wouldn’t go over well with most women.”

“Meet us at six, all right?” Sean said, ignoring my comment. “And shower, yeah? You smelled like ass today.”

“I forgot fucking deodorant,” I replied. It was one of the hazards of sleeping through my alarm.

“Right,” he said. “Shower. Six o’clock at the sushi and steak place.” He hung up before I could reply.

“Shit,” I muttered, dropping my head back against the headrest. It looked like I was going out tonight after all.

By the time I got home it was closing in on five thirty. I stripped as I walked toward my bathroom, but carried the discarded clothes with me to the hamper and tossed them in. I’d realized not long after I’d moved out of my parents’ house that if I didn’t clean up my crap, I’d be living in a shithole.

After a quick shower and shave, I slapped on some deodorant and dressed in jeans and a button-down shirt. The place I was meeting Sean and the ladies wasn’t fancy. A T-shirt would have worked fine, but I rarely had the chance to dress nice, and women liked when you put in some effort. I laughed as I glanced in the mirror to make sure I looked presentable. My twin brother, Abraham, would have given me so much grief if he’d known I’d put in this much effort for a blind date.