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March
“Which lucky man will be the one to help Avery get over another jackass?” My best friend Wren craned her neck, searching the crowded bar. She paused to inspect each male in the room, studying them with eyes so dark they were almost black. She assessed them, one by one, like she was at work at Boston’s most prestigious auction house, and they were pieces of art she’d been tasked with appraising.
“Please, let’s make this more awkward.” I took a sip of my beer and studied the surface of the round high-top table, where two wineglasses and one brown bottle sat between us. Wren and Jana were Chardonnay girls, but I’d take a Bud Light over wine any day. Luckily, they didn’t hold it against me any more than they did my lack of interest in makeup or nail polish.
“No blonds,” Jana chirped, encouraging Wren’s endeavor instead of helping me stop the madness. “I vetoallthe blonds.”
Because Joe the jerk was a blond. I picked at the corner of the blue label and forced the anger that had started to simmer inside me to cool. Not even a month ago, I found out my boyfriend was an utter ass. Atfirst, I was sad, sure, but now I kept circling back to pissed off. At myself, at him, at my dad’s career choice. All of it.
This afternoon, my best friends decided it was time I moved on, so they’d dragged me to this bar to enact their half-cocked plan. I wasn’t on board. Although Wren and Jana were my people, they were insane. In the best ways most of the time, butother times, they were just crazy.
I tended to attract that. Big personalities liked the calm that was my typical mood. I’d known Wren since she moved to Boston in middle school, which meant I’d spent most of our high school years keeping us out of the trouble she found.
I met Jana on my first day at the Boston Zoo. She was in the advertising and marketing department. She loved coming up with the next amazing idea, but sometimes she forgot her ideas depended on the animals’ cooperation. Which usually led her to begging for my help. Within weeks of meeting her, she became the marshmallow fluff to the peanut butter and jelly sandwich Wren and I had long ago become. In reality,theywere probably the jelly, the fluff,andthe peanut butter.Iwas the boring white bread.
“Redheads are out.” Wren sipped her wine, still scanning for a non-blond, non-ginger that she deemed worthy.
“But gingers are freaky. Why are we banning them?” Jana brushed a hand through her strawberry-blond curls, pushing them off her face. Peering over her shoulder, she pointed a long pink nail at an auburn-haired guy with a ponytail at a high-top two tables over. “I like that guy for her.”
I slunk back in my seat, hoping he didn’t notice her pointing right at him.
“No. She needs a tall, dark, and handsome.”
As I’d predicted, their too-loud voices attracted the man’s attention, and he turned our way.
“Sorry. Girls’ night,” she mouthed before turning back to us. “She’s always going for blonds or gingers. And they all suck.”
I wouldn’t saythatwas what I’d done wrong over the years.
“I think?—”
“No.” Wren cut me off with a shake of her head, sending her brownbangs floating around her face. “You don’t get a say. Your picker is broken.”
“Picker?” Jana asked.
At the same time, I scoffed. “Broken.”
Jana gave me the side-eye and pursed her bright red lips. “You suck at picking out good guys. We can all agree on that.” She patted my hand, her watch clicking against my silver charm bracelet. “I just don’t think I’d call it a picker.”
So I’d had a few bad boyfriends. Okay, maybe more than a few. That didn’t mean some rando in this bar would fix the issue.
I rolled my eyes and slumped farther onto my stool. “I very much doubt you’ll find the perfect guy by pointing one out in a crowded bar and sending me home to sleep with him.”
“No attachment,” Wren corrected. Her dark eyes cut into me harshly. “So don’t spend the night. Sleeping,cuddling? That shit will cause you to catch feelings.” She scrunched her nose and shuddered.
I let out a long sigh in response, and Jana rolled her eyes at me.
Why was the idea of feeling something for the guy they wanted me to sleep with so appalling?
I didn’t get a chance to ask before they went on.
“Plus, we’re not looking for perfect. Hot but a complete self-centered asshole would work. We don’t want you to reallylikehim.” Jana tapped the wooden table with her nails.
“Right. You just need a man to break the loser spell.” Wren glanced around again, chin lifted high. “Like that guy.” She pointed at two men standing at a ledge not far from our table.
Okay, yeah, the guy with black hair was hot in an Adrian Grenier kind of way. But he was definitely younger than I was. Maybe twenty-three? And way too smiley. God, didn’t it hurt his cheeks to smile that big?
The guy he was with had more of an edge. His strong jaw was clenched tight and dusted with a five-o’clock shadow. His deep brown eyes were narrowed when they met mine, and I fought the shiver that tried to race down my spine. As he took me in, they softened, along with his expression, and he slid his teeth over his full bottom lip, like maybe he was interested. But then his focus shifted a fraction, to whereWren was still pointing at him, and a veil fell over his face. In an instant, his glare was back.
