“Sorry,” I shrugged playfully. “Girl code. Selfie stuff is serious. That information is top secret.”
Ripley let out a long sigh, and shook his head. “Whatever.”
A wave crashed outside, louder than the others. I saw Colson tense up for a moment, then relax. We’d been painstakingly careful not to be followed, on the way back from town. But he wasn’t taking any chances.
“And what about you?” I asked him.
He included me in his scan for a moment, just long enough to shrug.
“I haven’t dated much lately,” he murmured.
“Alright then, what about not-so-lately?”
Colson uncrossed his arms for a moment, and placed them on his hips. When he looked up at the ceiling, I could see the wheels in his head actually turning.
“Alright, there was this one girl who made me give her forty dollars on our first date.”
My eyes went wide as saucers. “Forty dollars! What the hell for?”
“I know what for,” Ripley grunted.
I waved him off, urging Colson to finish. “Insurance,” he eventually answered. “She told me she’d dated a lot of losers, but wanted to make sure I wasn’t wasting her time. If I was, she was keeping the money. If things went well, she’d give it back to me at the end of the date.”
“And did things go well?”
“Well enough,” he smirked. “I ended up making my forty dollars back.”
I couldn’t believe it. I shook my head.
“Why do guys even entertain stupid shit like that?”
“Because she was hot,” Ripley theorized, matter-of-factly.
We both turned to look at Colson. He nodded, sheepishly.
“He’s right. She was.”
I rolled my eyes dramatically. “Men.”
They shrugged, together. Guilty as charged.
“Alright,” I ceded. “I’ll give it to you; that was a weird first date. Not as weird as some of mine, but—”
“Oh come on,” Ripley prodded. “What could be weirder than putting down a deposit before your date even gets in your car?”
“Do you really want to know?”
Both men nodded in unison. Suddenly, I had their full attention.
“Look, you can’t win this one,” I smiled. “When it comes to dating, men are much weirder than women.”
“Or…” Ripley offered, adding a grin, “have you ever considered that maybe you’re just a magnet for weirdness?”
“Considering present company?” I paused, and wagged a finger at them both. “I suppose that’s always a possibility.”
“Alright then,” Ripley chuckled. “Let’s hear it.”
Steepling my fingers together like a good storyteller, I folded my legs into the couch and scanned my own personal database.
