“Well?” Bryn asks, lifting her brows.
I shrug. “Hot Rod’s pretty chill. We’ve been talking pretty much every day.”
She beams as if I just announced my engagement.
“It means good things for the app that we get along as well as we do, but who knows if I’d actually like him in person.”
Except…there’s a spark with him. Our conversations dip beneath the surface sometimes, sometimes going perilously deep. That’s not something I’m used to with the men I date. I like it more than I thought I might, and I’ve spent plenty of time imagining what Hot Rod’s like in person.
Is it a sign I’m a masochist that I imagine him as a tall man with dark, tousled hair and puppy dog eyes, or do I just have a physical type?
“You will,” she says.
“Are you that confident in the app?”
Bryn gives me a wry look. “It’s forcing you to talk to the guy for a month before jumping into bed with him. That’s what I’m really counting on.”
“Hey,” I say, swatting her arm. “What’s wrong with doing some early product testing?”
“This is pushing me way past my comfort zone,” Rowan says with a groan, pushing his chair back on his legs like he might leap up and leave.
I snort. “Like it didn’t push me past my comfort zone when you brought that woman home last night? I mean, for fuck’s sake, you have a bedroom.”
He has the grace to blush. “I thought you were asleep. You shouldn’t have come out with a baseball bat, anyway. If you thought there was an intruder, you should have gone to my room and let me handle it.”
“In this particular situation, it wouldnothave been effective. You already had your hands full.” I waggle my eyebrows up and down, and he groans louder, which only makes me snicker.
Bryn lifts her hand for a high five, and I happily slap it.
“You swore. You have to put more money in the swear jar,” Rowan says sullenly.
“Totally worth it,” I say. “What is it with men telling me to be non-confrontational, anyway? How sexist is that? I’m a grown woman who’s more than capable of defending myself.”
He scowls. “What if it’s against a man who’s much more powerful than you?”
“The glories of pepper spray and self-defense training. Besides, I wouldn’tintentionallygo up against someone more powerful than me. I very cautiously entered the living room last night. If I bellowed, ‘Dear God’ when I got an eyeful, who could blame me? If it had been a huge, burly guy trying to steal our third-rate television, I would have 100% tiptoed back to my room and called the proper authorities.”
“I don’t like it,” he repeats.
“Trust me, bud,” I say, lifting my teacup in a toast. “I definitely didn’t like it either.”
Bryn’s giving us the indulgent look of an older sister letting the little kids duke it out. Even though she’s only a few minutes older than me, she’s always taken her big sister role very seriously.
“Get it all out now,” she says. “Rory’s parents are sort of traditional, and something tells me they wouldn’t enjoy hearing about Rowan’s conquests over turkey.”
Thanksgiving’s still a few weeks away, but Bryn’s the planning sort, which is only part of the reason that she and Rory are hosting. I mean, Rowan and I have by far the shittier house, for one thing, and we aren’t the kind of people to serve appetizers or whatever fancy people call them. Rory and Bryn also invited Ivy, who declined because she’s spending Thanksgiving with her dad, and Willow and her fiancé, who would have come if they hadn’t already made plans to go see his parents.
It’ll be a small group, but Rory’s already convinced Bryn that they should get it catered so she doesn’t have to spend all day in a hot kitchen. He’s thoughtful like that. She’s been tired all the time since she got pregnant, and although she’s not the kind of person who’s accustomed to slowing down, she’s had to take a step back.
“Lame,” I say. “They’re missing out. Rowan put on quite a show. I half expected his lady friend to lift up one of those scoring cards.”
Rowan looks like he wants to throw something at me. Fair. Tina bustles up to our booth with a wide grin on her face. “Mayberrys! I have gossip for you. Scoot over, Rowan.” He does, seemingly unfazed by the order, and she sits next to him as if she’d always intended to meet us here, and this is not, in fact, the teashop she runs.
“So,” she says, leaning in, “did you guys know that your grandmother is looking for a co-host for her dating show?”
Bryn lets out a caustic laugh. “So, she’s already pissed off the producers, huh?”
The filming’s supposed to start in a few weeks, or so I’ve heard around town. People say this dumpster fire of a reality TV show will be aholiday-themeddumpster fire, which is like hanging holly on a pile of dog shit—not me, obviously, but the kind with red berries. Bringing on a co-host at this late hour is a big deal. I don’t deny that it pleases me to think how much this must distress my grandmother.
