Page 117 of The Last Good Man

Eventually, she tucks it in her hand.

“Emotionally, you’re past that stage. I think,”shesays.

“What makes you say that?”

“You seem invested in, um… something. You have certain expectations. Or maybe you’ve lost your patience. For the‘getting to know people’stage, you should be more detached, not so tense and frazzled. I’m not so sure this is working for you anymore.”

“As if it ever was.”

She purses her lips.

“That’s a valid observation. But you seemed more determined to make it work. What changed?”

A few moments pass as my eyes trail down without focusing on anythinginparticular.

I lean forward, grab a butterscotch candy from the glass bowl, and spend some time unwrapping it and popping it into my mouth.

“I thought about our last conversation. The high-quality men versus high-value men.”

“And?”

I bring my eyes to her.

“None of the men I know are high-quality men.”

She lifts an eyebrow at me, waiting.

“So I need to try something different. Majorly different. But… I’ve become impatient and worried that this might never work and I might never find that man. And even if I find him, it might not be what you think. If that’s the case, I need to know soon because I don’t want to waste my time.”

She searches my eyes before slumping back in her seat.

“So you’d like to quit then?”

I know what she’s doing.She knows I’m not a quitter.

“I find this dating game silly,” I argue. "I don’t understand it and can’t grasp these men.”

“You can’t?”

A glint of curiosity flickers through her eyes.

“What?”

“You weren’t that critical of them last week. What happened in the meantime?”

Oops.

She’s pointing out again something’s happened.

And something did happen, and I wasn’t even aware of it as I unknowingly compared these men to Jax London.

Jax, who’s not even part of this group for obvious reasons.

But now Aretha peers at me with more scrutiny in her eyes than ever, demanding an explanation.

“Nothing happened.”

But somehow, I need to include Jax in the conversion, although I can’t say who he is and for sure can’t make him a hero.

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