Chapter One
Christy wanted to shake Heather, hard. They were best friends and always had been, and Christy would not have changed that for the world, but sometimes Heather really got under her skin.
For one thing, Heather had no idea how gorgeous she was. That was not all her fault. Her parents had been hard on her and always told her she was smart, and that was better than pretty, which had just made Heather think she was not pretty. Her lousy ex hadn’t helped that low self-esteem either.
Christy, on the other hand, had always had the opposite problem. Everyone told her she was pretty, but nobody had seemed to care that she was smart. She’d had to tell herself every day, for years, that she was smart, and prove it too, not just to herself but to everyone else she came into contact with.
Men always thought she was dumb, which is why nothing had ever worked out for her in the love department. But who needed love when they had a perfectly awesome loft-style condo in the heart of the city’s trendiest section, a job that paid her an obscene amount of money, and there were dating apps that let her fit as much, or little, sex as she wanted into her busy life?
Sex she could have without worrying about making plans for a relationship, or how hectic her workload and life were. No strings attached, no wedding rings, no complications.
If there was anything Christy hated in her life, it was a complication.
She’d grown up in a house where complicated wasn’t just a word; it was a constant. She was always on edge, always worried, always trying to see what was going to come flying at her next.
She was smart, and she was careful, and the last thing she wanted was love or commitment. Unlike Heather, who was all about the love. Christy sucked in an irritated breath. “Look, just swipe one way or the other.”
Ugh. Did Heather even know what swipe meant? Christy doubted it. Heather wasn’t a dating app kind of girl, really, and she never would have been sitting there in such a dilemma if Christy hadn’t put up a profile for her. Christy’s irritation vanished as she studied her friend’s face. Heather had had a series of blind dates so awful they made the worst of Christy’s app dates look incredible.
Christy asked, “What if he’s a serial killer?”
Heather peered down at the screen of Christy’s phone. Her heart beat a little faster. The guy whose profile was up was hot, hot, hot. Like panty-melting hot. Blow your clothes off before you even get to a bed hot. If he was really the guy in the pic, that was. Lots of guys heisted model’s photos from stock photo sites and used them on the dating apps, and the guy might actually turn out to be fat, bald, and about six inches shorter than his profile declared him to be. It happened. More than she would have liked to admit—not that she was about to say so to Christy, who was already nervous enough to bolt like a freshly released rabbit.
But if that was really him in that picture? Wow. Christy had just hit dating app gold! Why hadn’t she seen him on there before? He wanted coffee and to talk. Which was probably why. Coffee and chatter led to complications.
She would think about that later and laugh, but right then she was busy trying to calm down her bestie, whom she truly cared for. Heather had been the one real constant in her life. Christy said, “Then I’ll taser his ass and get you out. I’ll go along. It’s coffee. I’ll skulk into the shop behind you by like thirty seconds, take a seat at a nearby table, and keep the mace and taser at the ready.”
For the first time in a long time, a real smile cropped up on Heather's mouth. “I think you’re serious.”
“I am.” She was. “It will be fine, I promise. Look, if he’s really heinous, just throw the coffee in his face and run, and I’ll be right behind you.”
She actually recoiled. “What? I can’t do that! I might scald him!”
Christy groaned inwardly. One day Heather really might get herself slaughtered by a serial killer on one of the horrible blind dates she kept letting people set her up on because she was just so…so polite! “Okay. Then I’ll use my weaponry. Come on, get dressed.”
Heather got off the sofa and headed for her closet. Christy glanced back down at the hot guy on the screen. Some women had all the luck!
