ONE
Jen
I peel off my scrubs and drop them into the laundry hamper, switching on the water in the shower and turning up the heat to scalding. I suck in a breath as I step under the spray a moment later and let it out on a sigh. It was a long shift in the emergency room and Annie, the charge nurse on duty today, has a reputation as a hard ass for a reason.
Don’t get me wrong, I like working a shift when Annie is on duty. She suffers no fools and I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with fools, so I can appreciate that. But a shift worked under Annie’s supervision is a shift where no time is wasted.
I scrub off the last of my day, shave my legs, my armpits, my pussy. Then I hurry out, wrapping my hair up in a towel and snatching my phone from the counter to check for messages.
Nothing.
Huh. It’s only twenty minutes until I’m supposed to meet my date, and we haven’t confirmed which of the three bars near my flat we’ll meet at. He was going to let me know when he was on his way so I could meet him outside and we could pick one.
Maybe he’s running late like I am. I relax a little, not feeling so bad about the fact I stayed back half an hour talking to the old griffin who transferred to Cardiology two days ago but hasn’t had a visit from her family since she was brought in.
It’s always hard to say no to the lonely ones.
I yank my brush through my knots at the same time as I slide open my closet door and rifle through until I find the short black dress that’s become my uniform for first dates recently. Before this year it had been so long since I went on a first date I almost forgot how to do them, but now I feel like a pro.
Still no messages by the time I’ve dressed and returned to the bathroom. Undeterred, I blow dry my hair, flipping out the edges of my long bangs and curling them up into rollers while I do my makeup. Smoky eyes, a little blush on my cheeks, and a bright red shade of lipstick. Ready for whatever the night brings. I sure it hope it brings a little action. It’s been a little while since I graduated anyone from date to an invite home. Guys on the apps are all just the same cookie-cutter versions of disappointing. Like cardboard cutouts of my manchild ex-boyfriend, Adam.
Except none of them give me butterflies the way he did.
With a sigh, I push Adam’s far-too-handsome-to-be-reasonable-given-his-shitty-personality face out of my mind, take out the rollers and give my hair a final spritz with hairspray.
Ready.
I pick up my phone from the bathroom counter. Still no messages.
Frowning, I open the message chain with Frank, my date, just to check if I accidentally missed something. No.
Absently I scroll back through a few days’ worth of flirting and a few naughty pics; then pause on the late-night confession he made that he’s always kinda wanted to try butt stuff. On him.
I smile.
That’s what made me agree to go out with him if I’m honest. I’m a little tired of all the alpha guys who want to do the jack rabbit for two minutes and pretend they rocked my world.
Frank seems different.
Biting my lip, I snap a mirror selfie and send it off.
Jen: Ready. Can’t wait to see u xx
I catch a glimpse of three dots, and then they disappear and there’s nothing.
Oh shit. Not another one. Another ghost who talks big but is too scared to put his money where his mouth is.
I’m so sick of idiot men using me as their fantasy only to bail when it’s crunch time.
I roll my eyes. I’m about to lock my screen and call it a night when my phone buzzes in my hand. Maybe not such a write-off after all. I lift it to my ear without checking the caller ID, sure it will be Frank. “Hi.”
The voice on the other end of the line is not Frank’s. Not that I know what Frank sounds like. But I sure know this voice. This voice makes my neck and my ears heat with anger and my hands curl into fists.
I’m just about to hang up when Adam says, “Jen, please don’t hang up, OK? I didn’t know who else to call.”
Taking a deep breath in and letting it out nice and slow, I tell myself not to get mad. I don’t want to break out into a sweat andruin my makeup. “Why are you calling?” I spit through clenched teeth. “I told you never to call me again.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.”
