Shy Girl Takes a Shot

This pickup line was actually delivered—or fumbled—by a shy young woman named Gina, who works as a secretary for a local law office, to a guy who is also a bit shy. I imagine if Gracie had been at the Dancing Pony on the night in question she’d have taken matters into hand and called it a service to young love…and the universe at large.

Alex works for the Texas Department of Transportation, also known as TxDOT, so you can imagine that he doesn’t get practice making small talk with pretty women on the job.

It started out simple enough. Gina and Alex kept making eye contact with each other from opposite ends of the bar. Alex would catch her watching him, and turn beet red from his forehead and his ears all the way down to his neck. Then she’d look up to find him watching her, and she’d get clumsy and knock her purse onto the floor or knock my stack of cocktail napkins into the bar sink. Neither one of them had the nerve to go over to the other and open a conversation. It was nearly painful to watch.

Granted, on most occasions a lady need only make eye contact and smile, but Alex needed a little stronger push.

Finally, Gina got up, grabbed her purse, and started to walk past Alex and by “accident” spilled her beer and drenched Alex’s shirtfront.

Gina gasped said, “Oh! I’m so sorry! That was really clumsy of me!” She grabbed half the fresh stack of my bar napkins and began blotting his shirt front, dropping most of them on the floor until they were standing there surrounded by a mound of cocktail napkins, and she was patting his chest with a handful of damp, shredded napkin and leaving bits and pieces of paper all over his shirtfront. Meanwhile he’s just standing there grinning like a tongue-tied fool because she’s actually touching him.

One of the other bar patrons nudged Alex and whispered something to him. He finally snapped out of it, and said, “You could’ve dumped a keg on me, pretty lady, and I wouldn’t have minded, as long as I get the next dance.”

Gina looked so relieved, and she accidentally whacked that helpful bar patron in the head as she passed her purse to me to put behind the bar. She grabbed Alex’s hand, stumbling on her own two feet once as they headed for the dance floor.

One of the bartenders looked at me and said, “She shoots, she scores!”

The execution doesn’t have to be graceful or suave but it’s important to take a shot at what you want.

Looking forward to serving you another slice of life from the Dancing Pony soon!

Cheers, y’all!

Note from Heather: I hope you enjoyed the first in a series of pickup line stories as written by Ethan Grant. It started out as a brainstorming session with my street team one night. I was looking for the perfect pickup line to use in a scene set in the Dancing Pony in the book I was currently writing. I’d asked the Divine Divas to tell me about the worst and best pickup lines they’d ever heard or fallen victim to. Ethan Grant was still new to Facebook (no, it’s not me 😀 ) and he piped up with one of the gazillion pickup lines he’d heard while working at the Dancing Pony.

The Divine Divas, still a little twitter-pated that Ethan Grant was actually on Facebook and a member of their private FB group, were thoroughly entertained by his stories and over time, it grew into a weekly thing. Some of those pickup lines became the basis for scenes or actual books. That was back in 2013, and all those great pickup line stories just languished in the ever growing group feed.

Ethan and I talked about it and thought my readers might enjoy some of those stories here on the blog. So, with the help of my excellent personal assistant, Lily Castle, we found all of them and dusted them off for their own special editions of the Divine Tease. We collaborated–with Ethan revising and me editing–to bring them to you in a new and improved version.

All content is copyrighted ©Heather Rainier 2015