“I just want to be prepared,” she said, very matter-of-fact. “There was a guy from my internship last summer that I thought might make a strong candidate—”
“Girl,” June interrupted. “Do you ask them for their credit scores, too?”
“—but I didn’t like the way he treated service workers.”
The three of us exchanged a look, one that saidfair enough.There was a special place in hell for the Karens and Kyles who were rude to service workers, right next to the people tossing their condoms in the ocean.
“There’s no rush,” I told her. “You’re talking to three unmarried women in their thirties.”
“Excuse me,” Kaylani protested, holding up the heavy rock weighing down her finger. “Ryan did, in fact, put a ring on it.”
“Take it from me, the right one is worth the wait.”
Her nose scrunched up. “Are you talking about my brother?”
“Well—”
“Because we’re very close, but I would prefer not to hear about his sexual prowess.”
“I promise,” I said around a giggle. “I won’t go into those kinds of details. All I’m trying to say is that I’ve made a lot of mistakes when it comes to dating—”
“We all have,” June amended.
“—and if I could do it all again, I might have stepped outside of my comfort zone a little sooner.”
Bella furrowed her brows. “But shouldn’t the right person be willing to step intomycomfort zone?”
Huh. Just when I thought I might have figured out all of life’s unanswered questions.
“Yes,” Kaylani answered. “But you have to be willing to do the same.”
“And,” I said, holding up a forkful of noodles. “You have to get out and find them first.”
“Are you familiar with a Venn diagram?” June asked, seemingly out of the blue. I wasn’t sure where she was going with this. Nonetheless, I found myself nodding along, even though the question had clearly been posed to Bella. “Two overlapping circles meant to show the relationship between sets of items, or in this case, people.”
She illustrated her point with two round crackers.
“They each have their own interests, personalities, etcetera. One person’s comfort zone might extend miles beyond the other. But where the crackers overlap—”
She paused to spread an even layer of goat cheese over one of the crackers, just enough so that the face of the other stuck to it. “—those are their values, their hopes and dreams, the things they love to do together.That’swhat keeps them together. That’stheircomfort zone.”
“The goat cheese?” Bella asked.
“Yes.”
June’s strange albeit delicious analogy put my relationship with Jared into focus. At first glance, Jared and I were two opposing forces—two circles—that had next to nothing in common. But our shared love of community, our passion for books, the importance of our friends and family—the goat cheese, if you will—that was what brought us together.
He matched my freak . . . in more ways than one.
“I guess that makes sense,” Bella mused.
“Trust me,” I told her, resting my hand on top of hers. “You’ve got plenty of time to find Mr. Right. Or Mr. Right Now because there’s no shame in that either. My advice is to focus on finding yourself first. That’s the relationship that really matters."
I gave myself a mental pat on the back when the corners of Bella’s lips twitched upwards.
For the next couple of hours, we watched the Roasters trounce the Nashville Neon. I squirmed in my seat when the camerasflashed a close-up of Jared’s boyish grin after Roman’s homerun at the bottom of the eighth. I was still getting used to the beard, and the delicious burn it left on my body. He pitched a solid seven innings, giving up only one run and two walks, so he had to be feeling good. I snorted when he and Roman did some juvenile handshake that ended with them bumping hips like they were at a senior center dance.
“My brother is one of the good ones,” Bella said, leaning closer so only I could hear her.
