GRADY
I don’t know, will it just be you, or your whole harem?
Where I go, they go.
No, it’s just me.
You know you can always stay here. But you’ll need to abide by my open-door policy, no girls in the bedroom.
CHAPTER 5
POPPY
Fedora and a neck beard?Swipe left.
I watch as the Crush profile of the last eligible bachelor disappears from my screen, never to be seen again.
God willing.
At this rate I’ll be single for the rest of my life, let alone married to someone in three months.
A heaviness settles within me as I consider the improbability of ever making this happen. The only thing that makes me more ill at ease than imagining my aunt’s pride and joy get auctioned off, is the thought of dating.
I haven’t exactly been one to put myself out there. My life is fine the way it is. In fact, it’s better if I’m alone. My arthritis diagnosis only complicated my life. I’ve curated it exactly so I can avoid a flare, and so I have everything I need in case it happens. I’ve seen no sense in disrupting my system.
Until now.
The irony is not lost on me that I’m stuck in this predicamentafter years of my aunt trying to encourage me to find a boyfriend.Live a little,she’d say, as if living a little isn’t infinitely harder with a chronic illness.
The problem is, I don’t even know where to start.
Wren convinced me to download the app after our conversation a couple weeks ago. She said it might be a good opportunity for me to get out there and experience the dating world, regardless of the outcome. I agreed, figuring that it would be as good a start as any, but as I’ve quickly found out, there are a whole lot of frogs on there, not a lot of princes.
So far, Crush has garnered me two dates, both of which ended terribly. It turns out, when you’ve never dated, going on dates is awkward, cringey, and overall terrifying.
By thirty years old, everyone expects you to know what to do. How to flirt, when to laugh, how to bat your eyelashes just right. How to lean in for a kiss at the end. That’s the part that gets my heart racing, my stomach churning.
At least I knew enough to leave “almost-thirty-year-old-virgin” out of my bio.
The next profile comes up on my screen. The guy is kissing a woman on the cheek. She looks like she could be his mother.Swipe left.
The one after that looks okay. He’s cute. Nice smile,greatjawline. Describes himself as analpha male.
All these guys seem like a terrible match for me. Immediateno’s.I’m not even beingthatpicky. I might be willing to settle for fine, if I wasn’t looking for my husband.
I sigh, and set my phone down on the counter, and return to putting away the metal milk jugs I just finishedsanitizing. The café is dark and quiet, after a long day of customers bustling in and out.
I love it like this.
It’s like the building itself is content, peaceful like a cat curling up in front of a fireplace at the end of the day. I love it even more at this time of year, all decorated with the paper snowflakes I lovingly cut out hanging from the ceiling and the Christmas tree I set up in the window.
The last of the jugs are tucked away beneath the bar on the shelf below the espresso machine when I hear a faint tap at the door. I look up to see Wren and Hudson, the shape of them aglow from the streetlamp outside. Wren is bouncing on the balls of her feet to keep warm, snow drifting down in flurries around them. She cups her hands over her mouth to breathe into them, and it forms a cloud around her face.
I hurry over to the door to let them in out of the cold.
“Are you ready to go?” Wren asks as she brushes large chunky flakes off her crimson wool coat.
“Yeah, I just have to grab my coat and my gift from the back,” I call over my shoulder as I stride toward my office to collect my things.
