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Marisa
Catherine Cole was one of my closest friends. She was actually one of my only friends outside law enforcement who I trusted with every ounce of my being.
I met her when she moved to California several years back. We’d been the typical cordial neighbor types who said hello when we saw one another in the hall. Then one night, I saw her at a bar near our place, and we’d become instantaneous friends over lemon drop martinis.
Tonight was another martini night. She handed me a glass of our favored cocktail and said, “Okay, look. What’s with your sourpussy face?”
I chuckled and told her about my latestmanstake, aka “mistake” from last night. “So, as you can see, I’m having zero luck with men lately.”
She tossed her long brown hair over her shoulder and smacked her lips. “Sounded like you gotluckylast night,” she said.
“That was just a random hookup. Sex is sex. And that’s not what I’m talking about.” I groaned out in frustration and annoyance. Not at my friend, but men. “Anyway. Zero, and I mean ZER-O luck.” I lifted my shoulders and let them fall, then threw my hands up in the air.
Catherine cocked her head to the side. “Maybe it’s because you push them away.”
“’Cause they’re not the right one. So why bother? Why waste my time? Or theirs?”
“Okay. I get that.” Call it cop’s instinct. Call it women’s intuition. But something in her tone told me she was holding back her truly honest opinion.
“What?”
“What?” she feigned innocence.
“Don’t play coy. What aren’t you saying?”
“Just . . . now, don’t shoot the messenger, okay?”
I flipped my hand over for her to continue.
“It seems like you’re maybe doing this on purpose.”
“Doing what?”
“Purposefully choosing guys who you know aren’t the right one. Who you know won’t work out.”
“Huh,” I grunted at the thought, taking her words into consideration. Maybe I was subconsciously choosing thewrongguys. But not purposefully. Not really. At least notallthe time.
Sometimes I did choose a guy for the night. But it wasn’t like they weren’t aware of what I was doing. Most of these guys were “repeat offenders,” as I lovingly referred to them. Not to their face, of course. They knew I didn’t want anything serious, that they were “just for fun.” They knew what the deal was right from the get-go.
I couldn’t help the way my mind worked, and I didn’t mind the way I was.
Maybe Catherine was right, though. Seeing as though I didn’t have any of those guys now—they’d all moved on, of course. They were all in relationships with other people now. And I was still alone. But that wasn’t what irked me. I didn’t want any of them. They weren’t relationship material. At least not for me. I knew what I wanted.
My life, my job, and my training were par for the course when it came to my mindset and how I worked. I needed a man who understood that. I needed a man who got me for who I was. I needed a man who accepted it all and didn’t balk at what I did and the kind of woman I was.
My job was hectic, demanding, and my first love. And let’s face it, it wasn’t something many men could deal with. I was pretty much an alpha female. I couldn’t help it. Nor did I want to. And most men couldn’t handle the fact that I liked to have control—in all situations. That included outside andinsidethe bedroom. Many of my friends, and in fact, most of the women I knew, were the typical subservient woman. And that was okay for them.
“Are you sure you’re not being too picky?” Catherine asked and brought me back to our conversation.
“I most certainly am not.” I didn’t intend to sound as defensive as I did.
She gave a questioning look.
“I’m not.”
“Okay.” The single word that came out of her mouth might have indicated she agreed with me, but the tone of that one word most certainly implied that she didn’t believe me in the slightest.
The only way to get her to understand where I was coming from was to give her a glimpse into what I’d been dealing with the last two years. “There was the guy who collected snow globes, the one who asked me to clear his outstanding parking tickets, and the one who looked like a garden gnome.”
