AllFreeNovel
Share Us
7
Grace
“He wassucha jerk!” I complained to Effie when I finally got her alone.
She put her hand on my arm. “I’m sorry Gracie… that guy, Bo—he shows up to these events sometimes and he’s always such a fucking wet blanket.”
“It wasn’t just that—he was making demands like… like heownedme.”
Her eyes flashed. “Demands?! What kind of demands?”
I could see a vicious revenge plot brewing behind her eyes.
“Notthosekind of demands. He just wanted… he wanted something I found.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Something you found?”
“It’s too much to explain,” I said with a wave of my hand. “What’s important was… he was mean to me. He made me feel small.”
“Oh, honey!” Effie said, wrapping me in a warm hug, “No one shouldevermake you feel small! I’ll crush him—”
“Don’t. I just don’t want to think about him anymore.”
She nodded, her perfect caramel waves shimmering in the sunlight. “That’s fair.”
“I want to go home,” I admitted, feeling a thick lump in my throat. “This was a mistake—it’s too soon to go out after—”
“Honey, it’s beenmonths,”Effie reminded me. “It’s time. It’sbeentime. You’ve got to suck it up and get back out there. Look at it like this: it’s just practice. And it’s unfortunate you had to talk to that douche canoe first thing. Bad luck. Bad timing. Just… all around bad. But there’s plenty of good guys here.”
I peeked to her left. The Monopoly man was talking to three spitting images of Victoria’s Secret models. I peeked to her right. An old man in a Hawaiian shirt was chatting up some Jessica Rabbit lookalike in a champagne-colored dress.
How could I compete with that? Why would I evenwantto compete with that? All the men grandstanding at this party looked like hideous old lechers.
Sawyer popped into my mind. He wasn’t hideous, particularly old, or lecherous, but Effie’s words echoed through my memory:
They get to the top of whatever power structure they’re in, then they get their pick of the women.
As I glanced around, I could see groups filtering through the space. There were only a few guys with women around them, and none of them were attractive.
Did that mean they were at the top of some invisible pyramid? If that was the way things worked with dating nowadays, I didn’t want anything to do with it.
Effie lifted her gaze over my shoulder, sipped her champagne, and murmured, “Hottie, six o’ clock.”
Panic fluttered through me. I’d have to be “on.”Fluff egos. Feign interest as they droned on.
As I turned, I loaded my mind with an entire clip of excuses to escape. But when I saw him, all my determined disinterest clattered on the ground like empty shells.
The guy—no,manstrutting toward me was not the type of guy that would ever cross a room for me. My eyes reflexively sized him up, absorbing the details like osmosis and comparing them to my private criteria.
Tall? Check; this dude was at least a head taller than me.
Nice haircut? Check; dark and curly on the top, shaved on the sides.
Dressed nice? Check; a high-end navy blue button-down fitted the V-shape of his torso—broad shoulders to slim waist.
Tailor-made.
I hated myself a little for having to reduce this guy to a set of checkboxes, but I couldn’t help it. I was looking for someone tailor-made forme.And how was I supposed to know what that was without comparing every guy I met to everything I wanted them to be?
