12 Steps to Mr. Right

by Cindi Madsen

  Despite our cheery exchange of greetings and compliments on fashion—I’d also gone with a summer dress, and paired it with my blue platform heels—my blood pressure rose a few notches when Ruby pushed record on her phone and poised her pen above her notebook.

  Which was silly. Being recorded didn’t change how well I knew my program. Still, I took a swig of my sweet tea for good measure.

  No need to be nervous. The program works—I have proof, not just with Annabeth and William, but from several successful love stories that came about because of women following my Twelve Steps to Mr. Right program. I clung to that thought like a lifeline, reminding myself that the publicity from the article would only allow me to help more women, and that was my top priority.

  “So,” Ruby said, “why don’t you introduce yourself and tell me a little about how your program works?”

  I went through the regular stuff. Told her that it involved rewiring the way women think about dating. About changing patterns and taking control.

  “And it all started with your blog?” Ruby asked.

  I nodded. “I didn’t expect what I wrote to resonate with so many women. Once I learned that it’d helped others who had similar dating experiences, I knew I’d found my calling.”

  “In your very first post, you talk about how you fell for a player who slept with you and then acted like you didn’t exist. You said…” She lifted a paper and read, “‘I thought I was the exception, but he slept with me and moved on without a second thought. While I was heartbroken, he was on campus talking to other girls, probably even sleeping with them. Thinking I was different from all the others was stupid and delusional, and it’s a mistake I’ll never make again.’”

  My lungs deflated. Of course I knew that was my first post, in a distant, detached, I’d-come-so-far-since-then way. But I hadn’t thought about everything I’d written in a long time.

  What had I been thinking just yesterday? Had I really told myself Linc and I were the exception to the rule? That things had changed? Not two minutes ago, I’d reminded myself my program worked, and both things couldn’t be true.

  I shuttered my emotions and shoved them down as deep as I could. “Aren’t we going to talk about Annabeth and Mayor Caldwell?”

  “We’ll get there, but I want to dig a little deeper first. Talk more about the type of guys you used to date, and how you developed the program. Then we’ll get into how you helped Annabeth.”

  Crap. Digging deep is going to unearth everything. I shifted in my seat, cold sweat pricking my skin, every inch of me icy yet too hot.

  “My main reason for choosing this career path was so that I could empower women and prevent as many heartbreaks as possible.” I gave a brief overview of how I went about achieving that goal, from becoming a certified dating coach to the months spent researching how to tell relationship-minded guys from the hookup guys. “From there, I created my twelve-step program, and—”

  “Back up, though.” Ruby leaned in as though we were old friends who often shared secrets back and forth. Was it really only a few minutes ago I thought of this as a nice, casual interview that’d be good for business? “Who was this guy who started it all? The one you blogged about? I want to know more about him.”

  I could name the guy who cheated on me. He was part of why I started my blog, after all. But the first post didn’t talk about him. Nope, that honor went to Lincoln Wells, because he was the one I was in love with my entire freshman year.

  “Oh, he’s just the same type of guy we’ve all fallen for. Good looking, not into commitment or labels.” The sweet tea turned sour in my stomach. “We often delude ourselves that this type of guy will change for us, but they don’t.”

  A giant lump formed in my throat. Why did I write that post, and why did I have to remember all this when I was enjoying my delusion? And why was she digging so freaking deep?

  This is going to run in the paper. What if people put together who he is? Then they’d find out I was dating the very guy I preached against, and my credibility would be destroyed. Not to mention Linc got the paper every single day. If he found out I was so madly in love with him back then, I’d die twice.

  Once he discovers the full extent of my feelings and how long they’ve been in place, I bet he’ll sprint away from me as fast as he can. No amount of playing it cool could fix that, not that I’ve been excelling in that area anyway.

  Ruby set the paper with my damning first blog post on the table. “I’ll admit that as I read this, I thought, I’ve dated this guy.”

  She’s dated Linc?

  “Again and again—I kept thinking it was the guy’s fault, and while they deserve plenty of the blame, I realized that I do go for the same type of guy, despite how many times I’ve been hurt by them.”

  Man, I was cracking. Of course she meant it in a metaphorical way.

  “I’ve even fallen for that ‘I’ve been wanting this for so long’ line before, too,” Ruby continued. “Those charming players are seriously the worst.”

  Wanting this for so long. It ran over and over in my head, the full impact of it just out of reach.

  Then it hit me. The déjà vu sensation I experienced when Linc said that to me last night. It’d been so many years, and so much had happened, that I’d somehow forgotten about it.

  “Miss Gamble?”

  I forced my attention to Ruby. The urge to call all males manipulative liars was strong—it took every ounce of my strength to pull out the person I needed to be instead. “The trick is reading through the words. I always say, ‘If the words don’t add up, it’s usually because truth wasn’t added to the equation.’ I teach women to see through the pretty words and compliments—basically what he’s saying versus his actions—so they avoid falling for the wrong guy, because there are good guys out there.”

  “Do you know what happened to him?” Ruby asked, tapping the page on the table. “Do you know if he got what he deserved? Isn’t that every woman’s dream? To find out that while you’ve become wildly successful, he’s alone. Maybe bald and fat.”

  He’s definitely not bald or fat. “In my workshop, I like to focus on the positives. Every relationship teaches us something, even if it’s what we don’t want. If we don’t learn from them, that’s where we get into trouble.”

  Crap, crap, crap. I’m a hypocrite and a fraud. And I’m about to make my same mistakes with the same guy who gave me so many issues in the first place.

  “Well, I think it’s awesome you took that heartbreak and turned it into a good cause.” Ruby crossed one leg over the other. “Let’s talk about the day you met Annabeth…”

  And on she went, and I nodded and answered all of her questions, but she’d struck a nerve and I felt flayed, the past and the present meeting and splitting me open.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  When I arrived home from my interview, I saw that Linc had texted.

  Linc: Between baseball camp, my shifts at Azure (I picked up a few extra to keep Tony happy), and working on the article about our NASCAR experience, I’m going to be crazy busy this week. But I’ll catch you later.

  “Catch you later? Really?” I shrieked to my empty living room. Such a simple phrase that brought back so much crap from the past.

  Linc hadn’t even read whatever Ruby chose to write up about my past and how much of it involved him, and his commitment issues were already flaring. Ambiguous text with an even more ambiguous timeline, disengaging before I read too much into it. Both classic commitment-phobe moves.

  The fact that I’d fallen for his charms and smooth lines again hit me and flung the floodgates wide open, adding self-loathing and every doubt I’d ever had about him swirling in with the maelstrom of emotions.

  I’d thought I was the exception again. Even after everything I knew. What was that fool me twice, shame on me saying?

  I grabbed my laptop, flopped on the couch, and flung my computer open with such force that the screen went back as far as it could. I pulled up my blog
and clicked on the archived posts, going back to that very first one. After the trouble it caused at the interview and the many issues it’d brought to the surface, I considered deleting it.

  The thought of watching it disappear sent satisfaction through my veins. Delete it, delete Linc. It could be like he never existed.

  A sharp pain lanced my heart. Okay, so the scars he left me with would remain, and I’d miss his friendship, but I couldn’t be around him without wanting more. Linc was like my kryptonite, all my dating know-how powerless in his presence.

  My finger hovered over the delete button, twitching at the desire to make it all go away.

  But I knew it wouldn’t change the past or present, and this post symbolized the first step into my career, even though I hadn’t realized it at the time. It was the building block for my whole program, and without it, who was I?

  That question echoed through my brain. Who was I? Did I even know these days? I’d felt off for so long, and then Linc came around, and I’d felt…well, I’d felt. But I forgot about the pain that came after guys like him. It was that faulty old school brain wiring that evolution hadn’t fixed.

  Sometimes you had to take evolution into your own hands. I thought I had, but obviously, I needed a harsh reminder.

  My trembling finger caused the cursor to jump and miss the link the first time. The second click pulled it up, though, and then there it was. My very first blog post. My feelings poured out on the screen, so fresh and raw, that as I read the words, residual sorrow pinged through me.

  I’d told myself the memory of what happened would keep me from crossing lines with Linc, but it hadn’t been strong enough. So instead of skirting around the past and declaring I’d learned enough to shove away the baggage, I dove in, closing my eyes and going back in time several years.

  Ivy and Linc’s roommate, Kyle, had gone to a bar down the street, Linc was still out surfing, and I’d stayed back to call my family so they wouldn’t send a search party.

  My breath caught as Linc stepped through the sliding glass patio door, his hair wet, his torso bare. My phone slipped from my hand and fell to the floor. I scrambled to pick it up and tried to redirect the attention away from my reaction to wet-and-half-naked Linc. “Um, everyone else is at the bar down on the boardwalk. I was about to go join them. You want me to wait for you?”

  “Sure. Let me grab a shower and throw on some clothes.”

  As I waited, I picked up my worn copy of Jane Eyre. Since I never got to read for fun anymore, I’d been re-reading my favorite classic while lounging on the beach. A few minutes later, Linc came out dressed in a snug blue shirt that showed off the muscles in his chest and made his eyes stand out even more. He grabbed the bottles of vodka and Peach Schnapps and a couple of red cups off the top of the fridge. He stuck the cups between his teeth, reached inside the fridge, and pulled out the cranberry juice, and then walked over and dumped everything onto the coffee table.

  “Drinking before we go drink?” I asked.

  “Actually,” Linc said as he plopped down on the couch next to me, “with baseball and everything else that’s been going on, I feel like we haven’t had the chance to hang out in forever. What do you say we skip the bar scene and drink here?”

  I flashed him a smile. “Free booze does happen to be my favorite kind of booze.” Technically, we all pitched in when we arrived, but “the booze we already paid for” didn’t have quite the same ring to it.

  As I unstacked the cups, my hand trembled a bit. Just Linc and me. It had been a while since we’d been alone, and the thought sent my pulse thrumming.

  “Ever had a woo woo?” he asked.

  “I don’t even know what that is.”

  Linc poured a healthy dose of vodka, a couple glugs of peach schnapps, and topped it off with cranberry juice. We tapped our cups together, muttered “cheers,” and tipped them back.

  “Woo,” I said, shuddering as the alcohol and tart cranberry warmed my throat and chest.

  “Thus the name,” he said with a smile, and I laughed.

  Conversation flowed, mostly light topics, like the waves he’d caught, the carefree vibe at the beach, and how we only had to suffer through one more month of school.

  After we filled our cups with round two, Linc said, “I’m sorry that prick you were dating hurt you, Savannah.” Ivy was the one who’d spilled the beans about my boyfriend cheating on me on the three-and-a-half-hour drive to the beach—Linc mentioned he thought my boyfriend was coming with us, and Ivy called my ex every name in the book as she explained why he wasn’t. “But I can’t say that I’m sorry you’re not with him anymore.”

  I froze with my cup halfway to my mouth. “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  I waited to see if he’d say more, but he tapped his cup to mine and tipped back his drink. I did the same, downing half the glass in a few large gulps. My head and body at the pleasantly fuzzy point, I relaxed back into the couch.

  Linc placed his hand on my knee and brushed his thumb across the top. A dart of heat shot up my leg and my heart thudded in my chest. I turned my face toward his.

  “Savannah…” He leaned closer.

  “Lincoln.” I think I leaned in a few inches, but it might’ve been him again. All I knew was it’s finally happening ran through my head on an endless loop.

  “Have I ever told you how sexy you are?”

  I made an attempt at swallowing, but my throat didn’t seem to be working anymore.

  His hand inched up my thigh and little zips of electricity skidded across my skin. “That red bikini you wore earlier today… I couldn’t stop staring at you, and it’s all I could think about all day.”

  I’d bought it in hopes that he’d notice, and my stomach did a little celebratory dance that it worked.

  He moved his hand up another inch, his skin warming mine, and then that one eyebrow arched in a silent question.

  Was he seriously asking if I wanted this? I barely refrained from saying, “I’ve wanted this from the first moment we met.” Instead I twisted my body toward his, until our mouths were mere inches away, and nodded.

  He crushed his lips to mine. Every nerve ending jolted into action, and I parted my lips. He swept his tongue inside, a light brush and then it was gone, a delicious teasing that left me anticipating the next taste. He gripped my hips and pulled me on top of him, my thighs on either side of his legs. I wrapped my arms around his neck, sunk onto his lap, and took charge of the kiss. I bit lightly at his bottom lip and he groaned and gripped my hips tighter, his fingers digging into my skin.

  I rolled my hips, eliciting another groan, which only added fuel to the desire blazing through me. He cupped my neck and took back control, stroking my tongue with his until the world spun out of focus.

  “I’ve wanted this for so long,” he said, his voice deliciously deep and husky as he kissed his way down my neck.

  I released a shaky breath. “Me, too.”

  His hand slipped under my shirt, and when his fingertips brushed the bottom of my bra, goose bumps swept across my skin.

  He captured my lips again and one kiss blurred into the next. Then he stood, taking me with him. I wrapped my legs around his waist and he walked us to the room he was staying in. As soon as the door closed, he pushed me against it. I slid down him, gasping at the feel of his hard body against me. My shirt hit the floor a few seconds later, and I made quick work of his, basking in the predatory way he looked at me and then yanked me back to him, until we were skin to skin.

  He laid me down on the bed, kissed his way down my stomach, and slowly slipped off my shorts. I tugged down his jeans, and then we lost the last few articles of clothing, until there was nothing left…

  Then came waking up alone. The “Catch you later” note that punched a hole in my chest and turned what I’d thought had been a dream come true into a nightmare I desperately wanted to wake up from.

  He literally fled two days early to avoid having to be around me. Our night together
meant so much to me, and for him it was more about convenience. I’d been there. That was it.

  My heart turned into an organ that bled pain and misery with every pump. For weeks that went on, and just when I thought I might be healing, I’d see him on campus. Almost always with girls, which only made it hurt that much more.

  When we had our inevitable run-in, he could hardly look at me. So when he muttered, “About that night at the beach house…” I gave him his out and said to pretend it never happened, just so we’d have a tiny shot at ending things on good terms.

  But it wasn’t good terms, not for me. Because I’d realized that I wasn’t the exception, and there wasn’t any grand explanation for how he’d treated me. I’d been played, not a second thought to our friendship.

  Which meant that we hadn’t been friends. That we hadn’t been anything.

  …

  Back in the present, I pressed my hand over my aching heart and blinked back the tears the exhumed memories brought on.

  The words in my post blurred and then sharpened as I regained control of my emotions—well, I stopped the tears from spilling over anyway.

  Of course I hadn’t gone into detail about the sex in my post. Just that I’d hooked up with a player type, and that while I’d thought it meant we were on the same page, he’d clearly just been in it for a night of sex.

  When I later analyzed everything, I realized that Linc had called me sexy. Not pretty or beautiful. He said he’d wanted “this” for a long time. I thought he meant a relationship. Again, he’d meant sex.

  The fact that he’d used almost the same wording yesterday only made me feel that much stupider for ever falling for it in the first place, much less the second time around.

  I’m not setting myself up for failure again, and I’m not going to be a hypocrite. Women depend on me, and I don’t have time to have a broken heart, especially one that could’ve been perfectly preventable.

  Cracks formed in my heart, the ache deepening in a way that made it clear it was too late for prevention.

  But I’d be damned if I let myself fall apart all over again.