1
Grace
“We are lowering our expectations.Lowering. Them.Very low.”
I rubbed the bridge of my nose under my glasses. My date was late.
Figures.
I should have been home working on the three thousand wedding photo edits requested by my latest bridezilla, yet here I was, in a generic hipster bar, waiting on some guy named Chris to bless me with his presence.
Grace:I’m leaving if he’s not here in thirty seconds.
Ivy:Don’t give up! He could be your Prince Charming!
Elsie:Not if he’s late.
Grace:Thank you!!!
Sophie:Remember, we’re lowering our expectations! You are almost thirty, and you haven’t been on a date in three years. Clock is ticking!
Grace:I don’t think this is going to work for me.
Ivy:He just needs to be able to get it up. This is you dipping a toe back in the dating and sex pool.
Brea:She needs to dive in headfirst!
Sophie:Technically, the guy really needs to do that.
Grace:I’m having second thoughts about allowing a stranger’s mouth down there.
Amy:But sex is nice!
Brea:Very nice!
Sexwouldbe nice. I would give Chris two more minutes, but then I really needed to do some work.
As a photographer for the weddings of Manhattan’s rich and entitled, I had attended record numbers of magical, high-society weddings. Even though some—okay, many of the brides—could be full-blown bridezillas, I still loved going to weddings, engagement parties, and bridal showers. I loved the fairy tale, hearing about how the happy couple met and capturing the moment when they whispered, “I do.” Part of the fun was living vicariously through the couple’s romance, but lately I’d been wanting one of my own.
I had fantasized about the perfect guy watching me from across the room of a super-posh bar. He would catch my eye and saunter over—crisp suit, French cuffs, no indoor sunglasses, two specialty cocktails in hand—sit down next to me, and say something witty.
Lowering our expectations.
Instead there was Chris. He was the least douchey of the men I had met on the dating app I had downloaded. I had my choice of Chris, the guy who wanted to smell my feet, or one of the three hundred bots that had messaged me asking for iTunes gift cards or plane tickets to bring their grandmother’s hairdresser’s sick daughter to America.
I checked the time on my phone. The two minutes were up.
Chris was not going to show. In fact, I would bet my DSLR camera that he’d never had any intention of coming.
I tried to signal to the server to pay for my drink. But instead of a waiter bringing me the check, toward my table walked a spaced-out-looking guy in a raggedy sweater, scruffy boots, and—I cringed—sunglasses.
Yeah, that is not going to work for me.
I shrank down in my seat.
“Grace Fulton?” the guy asked. Deep voice, messy hair—he was effortless in that way handsome men often were.
At least his nails are clean.
