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Chapter One
“Welp.” Val slurps up the last of her lemon-drop martini. “The three of us are now single, without any hope.” My blonde friend’s face is blotchy from crying, and she hiccups from too many tears and too much alcohol.
Val and Abby are my best friends, and we’ve gotten together for a girls’ night to cheer up Val, who just broke up with her boyfriend. Val dumping Daryl was no great loss, if you ask me, but Val falls in love easily, no matter how many times her heart gets broken.
The crushed velvet of the old Victorian couch we’re occupying is soft on my bare arms as I sit back and cross my legs to bounce my new yellow bee-print muck boot. If any of my city friends could see me, they’d gasp in horror over my choice of footwear. But one retires stilettos after getting them submerged in mud too many times.
“Remind me why we thought moving to a remote peninsula on the coast of Maine was a good idea?” I ask. “Because the men here are just the same as they are in Boston. There just aren’t as many of them.”
“Becky!” Val calls out as she raises her empty martini glass.
When the waitress comes to us, I say, “Another sav blanc, please.”
Abby nods. “I’ll take another, and could we also get water?”
“Oh no,” Val declares with a slight slur. “I’m getting good and drunk, and you can’t stop me.”
I scoot closer to Val and put my arm around her. “You know I won’t stop you, but let’s try to keep you on an even keel instead of off the pier, okay?”
She sighs and leans her head on my shoulder. About a year ago, the three of us decided to leave city life behind for a romantic-movie lifestyle in a small town where we… they could find our… their forever guys. We headed up to Maine on a road trip along Route 1, and when we stopped in Howling Point, we thought we’d struck gold. The quaint town center with cute tourist shops, a general store, a coffee shop, and even a beach—it all called to us. It helped that there was a group of sexy fishermen at the bar of the restaurant where we had lunch. We didn’t know they were taken.
A month later, I was working remotely while Val and Abby got jobs on the Point, and we managed to find housing, although we didn’t end up roommates as we’d planned. There’s an unusual abundance of studio apartments over the garages in this town.
“Well,” says Abby, “We haven’t tried everything yet. Kevin—” Abby stops, her cheeks reddening at the mention of her current crush, who also happens to be her new boss, Mayor Kevin Black. She was recently appointed head of Howling Point relations by said boss. She swallows and straightens her shoulders. “Mayor Black hired me to help get more people to move to Howling Point.”
“How long is that going to take?” I sigh as I think about my dry spell. “I’m about ready to kill from sexual frustration. There isn’t a guy in this town who’s single.”
Val chuckles. “Harold is.”
Harold is an eighty-one-year-old man who runs the hardware department of the general store and flirts with every female, no matter their age.
“Charlie,” Abby says to me. Her purse thuds in her lap when she hoists it from the floor. She begins to dig in it. “There’s always other means.”
I cut Abby off the moment I see the purple end of a sex toy, my pulse quickening in annoyance at the suggestion of using a dildo. “It’s not the same, and you know it.”
“Abby!” Val giggles. “You carry that around? For what? A quickie in the restroom?”
“No. I—” She shakes her head. “Long story, but I was hiding it from my landlord.”
I chuckle. “We’ll ask again after your second martini.”
Abby grins. “Deal.”
“It’s true, you know.” Val’s eyes glisten as she lowers her voice to a whisper. “Being touched is so important.”
I whisk a tissue out of the box Abby brought along and plunked down on our coffee table when we sat down. “I know, sweetie. Cry it out.” But while I’m sympathetic to Val’s pain, I wonder if we are fools to hope we’ll find a lifelong relationship with a man in this town.
Not that I want one. I stave off loneliness with my girlfriends, which is why I followed them to Howling Point. As for men? In my experience, they’re not worth the trouble. They disappoint you just when you’ve fallen hard, the way Val has.
I’ve decided it’s best to focus on the physical aspects of casual dating and to take it one day at a time. But even with that attitude, it isn’t easy finding a man in a small town where it feels like everyone already knows each other.
I turn my attention to Abby, sighing as I contemplate the toy she’s hiding in her purse. “Now would be a good time for you to share what’s going to make a bunch of men move to Howling Point, because Val’s not the only one who needs some good news.”
Abby takes a deep breath, her eyes twinkling with excitement. “I’m really not supposed to tell you this, and it is still in the development phase, but it’s too good not to share with you guys.” She clasps her hands as her voice gets higher. “We’re going to launch a small-town dating app! It’s called Life Shift.”
Val and I frown at each other.
Abby sighs dramatically. “Don’t be such pessimists. I’m focusing on the very reason we moved here. We’ll be highlighting the stress-free life of Howling Point and how easy it would be to find a partner and raise a family in such a safe place.”
