Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 87181 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87181 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
“Really?!” I blurted out. “That’s what it took to get my first authentic smile from you? You had to hear that I was a romance author failing at love?”
“You gotta admit…it’s kind of funny.” He shrugged his left shoulder and chuckled. Yes. That’s right. He laughed! The nerve of this man. And the nerve of his laugh sending an odd sensation of warmth throughout my whole system. Smiling and laughing looked good on him—even if it was at my expense.
I huffed and crossed my arms. “You have a dark, dark sense of humor.”
“I have a dark soul, so I had to make sure the humor matched.” He stepped to the side of his apartment and nodded. “All right. Come in and pull up your dating apps. I’ll check your profile to see what you’re doing wrong.”
I walked into his apartment, and he shut the door behind me. To my surprise, the single bachelor lived like a married man. Everything was organized and looked like it’d come out of a Pottery Barn ad flyer. The artwork on his walls was colorful and bright, as was the furniture around the open space. His dining room table was vibrant orange with yellow chairs, and his living room couch was green velvet. All in all, his home was the opposite of his gray persona.
“I let Mano choose the furniture when he moved in with me,” he mentioned, probably picking up on my stunned expression. “He has a thing for color.”
“That makes sense. I was going to say this seems the opposite of you.”
“Yeah, well.” He gestured toward the couch and nodded once. “Sit.”
I sat.
He sat on the coffee table across from me, rolled up the sleeves of his long-sleeve white shirt, and held his hand out toward me. “Phone.”
I opened the first dating app and placed it in his grip. He took it, sat back, and began examining the page. His eyes narrowed as his nose did this cute scrunchy thing while he appeared in deep thought. As he strolled through the page, my eyes fell on his biceps that flexed on their own when he flipped his finger up and down on my profile page. Kai was a great-looking man. He was the type I went for, too—emotionally unavailable and uninterested in me. What could I say? I had a type.
“There’s no way in hell I’d ever swipe on you,” he concluded.
My toxic trait was thinking that it was a challenge of sorts.
“What?! Why not?” I hammered. “That’s a solid profile.”
“It’s awful. First, the bio reads like a cry for help. You’re pretty begging men to date you.”
“Yeah. So?”
“Holly.” He cleared his throat and began reading my profile. “‘I’m looking for my soul mate. My lover. My friend. I want the yin to my yang so we can go on crazy adventures together—Apple picking in the fall, beaches in the summer. I want a well-educated man who’s emotionally invested in his mental health and soul journey. A bonus if you like Pilates. A double bonus if you don’t go by initials.’ You’re joking with this, right?”
“What? Pilates is great for your core muscles and—”
“Holly.”
I cringed. “Too much?”
“We passed up too much and went straight to hell. It’s coming off as desperate and weird. This dating app is not a ‘build a fake boyfriend’ app. Because that man doesn’t exist.”
“Yes, he does! I’m sure of it. I’m sure there are plenty of men like that out there.”
“I bet you want a man to build a snowman with you, make snow angels, and drink hot cocoa by a fireplace, too.”
I swooned and nodded quickly. “Yes! Yes! All of that.”
“That’s your main issue,” he warned. “You’re living in a fictional world expecting men to behave like they do in your books.”
“It’s not fictional. Men out there would be into that stuff with me.”
“How many have you met so far?”
Well…touché, Kai.
“Is it Pilates?” I asked, rubbing at the back of my neck.
“Oh, it’s Pilates. And every single other thing you wrote. What the hell is this initial thing?”
“You know.” I waved my hands in the air. “The initial thing.”
He blankly stared my way. “You repeating the words doesn’t bring clarity.”
“You know how people have their full names? But they go by DJ, PJ, or MJ—my brother’s dating an MJ, and ew—yeah. I hate that.”
“Is this some kind of weird Holly thing?”
“You don’t think it’s weird? Like, your name is David, and you choose to go by DJ? Forever?! What are you, a five-year-old? Grow up.”
“You can’t be serious right now.”
“Right hand to the universe, I will never date an initial guy.”
“What if he’s your soul mate?”
I gasped as my hands flew to my chest. “My soul mate would never do that.”
“Yeah, but based on your messages on the app right now”—he scrolled through them—“you’ll date a Marty?”
“What’s wrong with Marty?”