by J. S. Cooper
“Whatever.” I made a face at her. “He’ll survive.” I felt a slight pang of guilt as I stared at her grinning face. Nate was my best guy friend and had been for the last three years. We’d met in college and really bonded at a party where I’d gotten drunk and spilled my whole life story to him, including all of my emotional woes and ever since that night we’d been close friends. Well, that’s technically not completely true, but close enough. The full story was a lot more embarrassing. Most probably because when we initially met I’d clung to him like a stage five clinger. He hadn’t known how to extricate himself from my constant texts and calls. I’d had a small crush on him when I’d first met him, but he’d made it quite clear to me that he wasn’t interested in a relationship with me. Though that hadn’t stopped him from hanging out and hooking up with me. I’d taken it to mean a lot more. I’d thought he’d changed his mind about wanting to be in a relationship and that perhaps he was realizing I was the love of his life as well. That hadn’t happened. He’d basically blown me off for another girl and I’d stopped talking to him. I’d been a little hurt at first, well, really emotionally destroyed, but moved on quickly from my initial heartache and rejection. And when I say moved on, I mean stopped talking to him and hating him. We’d reconnected three years ago and ever since then, he’d become one of my closest and bestest friends, though he tended to act like my big brother and father, whenever he felt that I was doing something that he didn’t agree with or approve of (which tended to be quite often).
“I know he’ll survive and you’ll survive, but I’d rather not come home tonight or tomorrow and have a phone call from you telling me that he found out and started lecturing you and treating you like a kid.”
“It’s not my fault he acts like my dad. He needs to get a life.”
“Or a girlfriend.” Anabel rolled her eyes. “I swear I don’t know how the two of you have been friends again for so long and not shagged again.” She gave me a peering look and I blushed.
“Ewww.” I made a face at her. “That would be gross.”
“Would it really?” Anable wiggled her eyebrows at me. “Let’s be real here, Janie. I know your history with Nate. I still remember how much you loved him in college and how you thought he was such a hottie. And this new guy looks a lot like Nate.”
“Nate’s all right. The new guy is better.” I shrugged as I thought about my best friend. He was tall, ruggedly handsome with dark blond hair and sparkling blue eyes. Most women would say he was the most gorgeous man they had ever met (including me back in the day), but now I just saw him as my best friend Nate. Annoyingly bossy, super sarcastic and completely oblivious to my feelings most of the time.
“You should tell him about the online stuff though and this new guy. You know he doesn’t like to be the last person to know anything in your life.” Anabel stared at me. “I don’t know how you can stand such a controlling friend in your life.” I could tell from her tone that she was about to start going off on Nate again. Anabel had never really liked him and she didn’t understand our current friendship. To her, it was weird and unnatural that we’d made up after he’d treated me so poorly and broken my heart. And she thought he was a jerk.
“Nothing has even happened yet.” I sighed as I ignored her controlling comment. “There’s really nothing to tell him,” I said to convince her and myself that I didn’t need to tell him anything.
“Okay. Don’t say I didn’t warn you when he loses his shit and gets all upset at you.” She shrugged. “Anyway, I should get going. Thanks for letting me stay over these last few days. My landlord says that the paint fumes have finally died down in my apartment.”
“Oh no worries, girl. You’re welcome anytime. I’ll miss having you here.” I gave her a quick hug. “And as for Nate, there’s nothing for him to get upset about,” I muttered. “And he’s kinda seeing some new girl that he met on the train a few weeks ago,” I said. “I’ve barely heard a word from him all week.”
“He met someone on the train?” Anabel looked surprised and shook her head. “I thought he’d be single forever.”
“Yup.” I laughed. “Who would have thunk it?”
“Have you met her?” Anabel asked me, her voice curious as she stared at me nonchalantly. “Is this a serious relationship or just another pretty notch on his bedpost?”
“Nope, haven’t met her yet. Though he says he wants us all to go to brunch on Sunday or something,” I said as I thought for a moment. “I hope she’s nice. Her name is Kylie or something like that.”
“That will be interesting.” Anabel was thoughtful for a moment. “Okay, I really have to get ready and head out or I’m going to be late for work.”
“All righty then.” I nodded at her. “Have fun.”
“Oh yeah. I’m going to have oodles of fun. Don’t forget to text me if you hear from any more hotties.”
“I will.” I grinned at her. “Trust me. I’ll be screenshotting all the way.” I walked her to the front door and then headed back to my room, trying not to think about Nate. A curdle of something akin to jealousy shot through me as I thought about Kylie. I bet she was blond and cute. I didn’t want to think about it. I had no right to feel jealous, but there was still a part of me that had an inkling of feelings left for Nate. I just had to keep pretending that they didn’t exist. I couldn’t imagine my life without him in it anymore. And I already knew how he felt about being in a relationship. At least with me. I wasn’t going to take it personally. I couldn’t. He was just my friend and I was okay with that.
“I AM A PIG,” I SAID to myself as I bit into a slice of gooey cheese pizza and grabbed some fries. “Such a pig.” I stuffed the fries into my mouth and let the contentment of a billion grams of fat satiate my soul as I sat back on the couch and watched TV. I stared at the screen full of beautiful people and sighed as I realized that I was never going to have the perfect body if I spent my afternoons and nights eating takeaway food and watching junk reality TV.
“Cody, you’re an idiot,” I shouted at the TV as I watched the Big Brother contestant saying something snarky to another guy in the house with him. “There’s no way you’re going to be in the house next week,” I muttered, almost gleefully as he got into a full-on argument with another contestant in the house. I took another bite of pizza and sank back into the cushions feeling content. “Sparky, stop it.” I glared as my terrier mix dog tried to slither onto my lap and take a bite of the pizza in my hand. Sparky looked up at my face with big brown doeful eyes and I shook my head at him. “No, Sparky, you’re not getting any of my pizza.” I took another bite and started chewing loudly. Sparky gave me a look of disgust and then jumped off the couch and walked over to the rug. He dropped down onto his belly, sighed and then farted. “Sparky,” I shouted at him as a smelly waft drifted over to me. He gave me a side look as if to say, this is what you get for being greedy and then dropped his head back onto the ground, wallowing in his sadness of not having been able to steal any of the pizza. I was about to call him over and spoil him, even though I knew I shouldn’t when the vibrating in my pocket distracted me.
The beeping of my phone made me jump excitedly and I grabbed the phone and entered my password as quickly as my fingers could type it in. I was almost giddy to see that I had a notification from the online dating app. I eagerly opened the message and my heart skipped a beat when I realized the message was from the cute guy I’d matched with earlier. Well, hello hottie, I thought as I opened the message with a huge grin on my face.
Hi there, pretty lady, nice to match with you. I see that you’re into books and movies? So am I. What are your favorites? Hope to hear from you soon. Dylan.
My heart swooned as I reread his message. “Dylan,” I said his name out loud and grinned. “Nice to meet you, hot stuff.” I reread his message yet again and stared at his photo. His eyes seemed to be gazing into my soul, even through the phone. His smile seemed so genuine and kind and I could feel butterflies in my stomach as I stared at his image.
I grinned to myself as I thought about my response and started typing.
Hi Dylan, very nice to match with you as well. I love movies and books. I think my favorite book is ... I paused as I thought about my favorite book. Did I really want to admit to him that my favorite book was a romance novel? Nah. I chewed on my lower lip for a second before continuing. My favorite book is Crime and Punishment. I typed, feeling only slightly guilty about the lie. Have you read it? I continued. I also love most movies, though I would say my favorite is Fight Club. I just love Brad Pitt. That was also another semi-lie. My favorite movie was The Notebook, but I could tell him that later; once we got to know each other better. I’m new to online dating and so I’m not exactly sure how this works. Would you be interested in meeting up sometime? Janie I typed that quickly and reread what I’d written. Was I coming off too eager? This was only my first message to him. Should I wait for the conversation to progress? What if someone else got to him and set up a meeting before I did? I didn’t want to miss out on Dylan and his sexy body because some other girl met him first. I pressed send on the message before I could change my mind. I started groaning about ten seconds after I’d hit the button. Ugh! Why had I asked him to meet? I sounded desperate. I knew that. I threw my phone on the couch and picked up a pillow and buried my face in it and screamed. I’d most probably blown my shot with Dylan by being way too forward. I sighed as I thought about my text. I looked up and saw Sparky on the couch next to me, munching down on the half-eaten pizza slice that I’d left on the plate next to me.
“Sparky,” I growled at him to tell him off, but his eyes didn’t even leave the slice of pizza. “Naughty,” I said half-heartedly, my mind still on Dylan. My heart froze just moments later as I heard my phone beeping again. I grabbed my phone quickly and stared at the screen. I had another notification from the dating app. I opened it quickly and squealed in excitement. Dylan had messaged me again! Yes! I hadn’t blown it yet.
Hi, Janie, nice to have a name to match the face. Welcome to the world of online dating. I’m glad to be one of the first guys you’ve connected with. I’d love to meet up with you. Do you have any plans for tonight?
I read his message and my heart stopped for a few seconds. He wanted to know if I had plans for tonight? What did that mean? Was that a good sign? It seemed like a good sign that he wanted to meet me earlier rather than later? But we hadn’t really even exchanged any messages. He didn’t even really know anything about me. Why would he be this eager to meet me? Granted I was also eager to meet him, but only because he looked super-hot. Did my photos look super-hot to him? Somehow, I doubted it. I glanced at his message again and thought for a few seconds before responding. I wasn’t sure what to do. I wasn’t the sort of person who would meet a guy right away, but maybe I just needed to completely change who I was. My previous way of dating hadn’t gone well for me. I sighed as I thought about what to do. I grabbed my phone and logged onto Facebook to distract myself for a few minutes. The first thing that showed up on my newsfeed was a photo of Nate and some pretty blonde on a beach together from the previous weekend. No wonder he hadn’t really been in contact recently. He’d been too busy with his new girl. I dismissed the small bout of jealousy that popped into my body as I stared at the photo. He was my friend now. One of my best friends. I was happy for him. He deserved to meet the right girl. I closed the app down quickly before I thought about it too much.
“Screw it. I’m going to go,” I muttered to myself as I brought up the dating app again quickly. If Nate was going to occupy his time dating. I, too, could do the same thing.
Hey Dylan, I actually don’t have any plans for tonight. What were you thinking? I hit send before I could stop myself, though a part of me was thinking that I should talk to Anabel first and get her feedback. I was pretty confident that she would say I wasn’t acting cool enough. Ding went my phone as another message came through quickly.
May I suggest we meet up for a drink and go from there? 8:00? Dylan’s beaming face stared at me from the top of his message and I knew I wasn’t going to say no. All that I could think about in my mind was, what am I going to wear? And will he try to kiss me? I groaned out loud and it was only when Sparky started licking the side of my face that I jumped off of the couch and headed toward the shower. Today was the beginning of a new era in my life. I was going to grab life and love by the horns and do everything differently. Maybe now would be the time that I would finally hit a homerun and get everything right.
Chapter Two
Dylan
Janie. Janie. Janie. I said her name in my head as I got ready for my date. She looked hot in her photos. Really hot. Hotter in the profile pics than the ones Nate had given me. And she was new to online dating so that meant she wouldn’t be jaded. Which was perfect. I hated going on the dates with the jaded ones. It made it so much harder to convince them that I was a good guy. They were just too much work. I wish I could tell women to stop comparing every man they’d ever dated to the new guys they met. It was such a turn-off. I didn’t care about what some dickhead had done to a woman in the past. I wanted to say that every time a girl brought up an ex. I sighed as I got ready for my date. I hoped Janie wasn’t like that or crazy. It’s not like I was going to be bringing up my exes on every first date. Or how I’d gotten my heart broken in high school. Or how I’d decided that I was never going to let that happen to me again. Love was for fools. Who needed the aching hollowness, the depression, the pain? It wasn’t worth it. I just wanted to have fun. That’s what life was about. And it seemed like Janie was down for that. I mean she had to be if she was up for meeting on the same day we’d exchanged a message. I grinned at the prospect of the night. Janie. Janie. Janie. This was going to be fun. I loved meeting new women. There was something exciting in the chase. In the anticipation of our first night together. I felt slightly guilty about the fact that I was already imagining her in the sack. I’m sure that’s not what Nate had been planning, or thinking but what did he care? He was the one that had told me to contact her. I hadn’t wanted to at first as he’d made her sound really boring, but she seemed far from boring to me now. It was a good sign that she’d been willing to meet me right away. That meant that her photos were most probably legit; unlike some of the ladies I’d met. But they were in the past.
Beep. Beep. I sighed as I looked down at my phone. Angela was texting me again. That girl really couldn’t get the hint. Where are you? Want to hang out tonight? I rolled my eyes as I read her message. Busy tonight, sorry. I responded promptly. She needed to get the hint already. What time will you be free? She responded just as quickly. You can come over tonight whenever you’re free, if you want. I looked at the screen and sighed. She really didn’t get it. Not at all. I put the phone back in my pocket. I wasn’t going to engage with her again. No point. I went to my room to finish getting ready and then I grabbed my keys and headed toward the door. This was going to be a good night. Maybe Janie wouldn’t be crazy and clingy like most women had turned out to be from the app. I just didn’t get it. It’s not like I wasn’t honest in my profile, I did say I was fun loving and not looking for anything serious. It’s not like I was on there pretending I was wanting something more than that. It wasn’t my fault if women wanted to think there was more going on. Hopefully, Janie and I would be on the same page. For a moment, my confidence slipped as I thought back to the past and other women. Not one of them had gotten it yet. Beep beep went the phone in my pocket again. I groaned out loud as it beeped incessantly. I knew it was going to be Angela. With another question. Trying her hardest not to be as clingy and annoying as she was. I knew she just didn’t get how her behavior was a huge turnoff. But I was over it. She’d been good for a few nights, but she was expecting way too much from our dalliance. I wasn’t interested in a relationship and that wasn’t about to change. As soon as girls started to want more was my signal to move on. Even if they were offering up sex. It no longer became fun when I could see the love in their eyes and the questions on
the tip of their tongue.
THE BAR WAS PRETTY crowded when I arrived and I could see that Patsy, one of the bartenders I’d had a fling with a year or so ago, was working. I put on my best smile and headed over to the bar to flirt a little bit so that she didn’t get upset with me. Patsy was a flirt and enjoyed attention, but she wasn’t crazy. I knew that if I bought her a drink and chatted her up a little bit before Janie got there, she wouldn’t try and sabotage my date. I knew that I could just have chosen another bar for the date, but this was my favorite. I felt comfortable here and well, it was also around the corner from my condo and that meant easy and fast access to a bed at the end of the night, if the girl was willing. And they were usually willing. Hopefully Janie would make the end of my night a pleasurable one.
“Hey, Dylan, nice to see you.” Patsy headed straight toward me with a huge smile on her face. “What can I get you?”
“Besides you?” I winked at her and she threw her head back and laughed, the twinkle in her eye telling me that I could have her right now if I wanted her.
“Besides me, bad boy.” She flicked her hair back and leaned forward on the bar, flashing me the tops of her perky boobs.
“Well, I don’t know.” I pretended to pout. “What could I want, besides you?” I winked at her and licked my lips slowly.
“I don’t know.” She giggled. “Maybe ten more women?” She cocked her head to the side and raised an eyebrow at me. “Or have you decided you want to commit now?”
“Haha, you know that will never happen.” I leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. “Me, settle down?” I pretended to throw up as I pulled away from her.
“Oh Dylan.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes.