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Chrissy tilted her head to the side as she laughed. It was clear she thought he was joking. He wasn’t.
"The girls told me that you were; my mom told me that you were; Keaton told me that you were, but I didn’t believe it."
She blinked up at him, and he could see confusion swimming in her blue eyes. She opened her mouth to speak but then closed it again as if she were unsure of what to say.
Since he never had a problem knowing what to say, he continued, "I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t believe that you actually existed. Not you specifically, but someone who deserved to be with Ford. I hoped he’d end up with someone nice, someone who treated him well, someone who was good enough for him and would be good to him, but I just didn’t think there was another person on this earth that would actuallydeserveand be worthy of him, and I’ve been all over this world."
"Um, thank…you…" she stammered.
He could see that she was a little overwhelmed by what he said, so he gave her a second to process it. He lifted his head, and his gaze scanned the crowd until it stopped up short and his eyes locked on his dream woman. Literally. He’d dreamed of the woman he was seeing.
It was like out of a movie. The crowds parted. Time stood still. No one and nothing else existed.
The most beautiful creature to ever exist was standing beside the dessert table in a silky purple dress that hugged dangerous curves. Her hair was swept down around her shoulders in soft waves. Her large, almond-shaped eyes were hypnotizing and breathtaking, rivaled only by her full, luscious lips.
His heart was pounding so hard that he thought it might come right out of his chest as he looked back down at Chrissy. "I just have one question."
Chrissy’s eyes widened, and he could see that she was worried that he was going to grill her. He wasn’t.
"Who is that?" Knox tilted his chin.
Chrissy looked over her shoulder, and a wide smile split across her face.
"That is Laura Lopez. She’s amazing."
"Yes. She is," Knox co-signed.
He was so mesmerized by the vision in purple that he didn’t even notice his brother was beside him until he heard his grumpy voice announce, "I’m cutting in."
Knox gladly dropped his arms and moved out of the way, heading straight toward the angel in the purple dress. He had a purpose. He had blinders on. He had a new mission. Laura Lopez.
* * *
The champagne went down smoothly as Laura tipped the slim glass back and finished every last drop.
"I’m thinking of getting off the apps," Kennedy stated flatly.
Laura nearly choked on her drink of bubbly at her friend’s declaration. She lowered her glass and stared at her in disbelief. "Are you serious?"
"I’ve done the app thing for years, and nothing has come of it." Kennedy placed her hand on her chest. "Part of that is my fault; I refuse to do long distance, so the only people in my dating pool are within a sixty-mile radius. The pool has shrunk from Olympic to kiddie at this point."
Kennedy and Laura had been avid dating app users for their entire friendship. Swapping horror stories had been the first thing they’d bonded over. Laura wasn’t sure what she’d do without her partner-in-crime to commiserate with her in the Wild Wild West of online dating.
"I’ve decided that I’m done wasting my time in text conversations that don’t go anywhere, and if they do, they only lead to scary, awkward, or at best lukewarm dates that are only slightly more enjoyable than getting acupuncture on a sunburn." Kennedy got out the run-on sentence in one breath.
Laura couldn’t argue with her friend’s logic. Not one of the thousands of matches that Laura had made on the three apps she’d used had ever led to anything real.
"I’m going to try manifesting and speed dating," Kennedy said resolutely.
Laura chuckled, thinking her friend must be joking.
"I’m serious."
"Oh." Laura stopped laughing and considered apologizing, which was something she rarely did. It had been a point of contention in her childhood and both of her marriages.
Luckily, Kennedy was also allergic to saying the two words that seemed so easy for others to spit out, so it hadn’t been an issue in their friendship.
Laura wasn’t sure where her aversion to apologizing had stemmed from. Maybe it was because she’d been forced by her mother to do it all the time as a child. No matter what the situation was, her mother’s answer was, "Say you’re sorry." Laura had been forced to apologize thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of times to her sisters and cousins and never once actually meant it.
