Page 63 of A Lucky Shot

Ah, an entrepreneur then lol

Date 13

Axe throwing

He took me axe throwing

Who still does that?

Lumberjack chic?

My back is killing me

Need a massage? I know how to use my hands

I swear to god…

Date 14

What twisted hybrid of spicy and daddy was this?

I’ll be your spicy daddy

Omg

Date 15

You sent me on a date with a gang member!

Drugs or bikes?

What does he ride?

NOT HELPFUL!

Halfway.Fifteen down, fifteen to go.

Fifteen nights given over to guys she didn’t know. Each some combination of boring, lame, or just not for her. The prospect of handing over fifteen more nights to fifteen more guys exhausted her.

And what had she learned so far? That there was no middle ground between dudes looking for a wife or a hookup? That she’d rather enjoy her friends or her own company than subject herself to an endless carousel of lacklustre dates that necessitated her plucking her eyebrows?

She didn’t need to put herself through fifteen more dates to learn that.

She’d been learning that lesson over and over since her boobs showed up at age sixteen and boys assumed her newly sprouted assets meant she’d put out. Or since the man who she thought she’d been casually seeing had assumed from her sweet face she was looking to become a fifties housewife and dumped her on the spot when he found out she wasn’t.

No, thank you.

Cass rooted through her purse to fish out her keys, leaning back against the elevator wall. Her back was on fire. Her feet ached. She knew better than to wear heels. The guy’s profile said he was six-foot-one, and after being dwarfed by Dawson on set for months, she didn’t feel like dealing with the wait, how short are you conversation that was bound to come up. Not like three-inch heels made her artificially achieved five-foot-four that much taller, but apparently she wasn’t thinking tonight. And now, with a blister forming, even the thought of walking three flights of stairs to her apartment was daunting.

Her platform loafers would have been a much better idea, but they didn’t go with the dress she’d wanted to wear. Why she wanted to dress up at all in the first place seemed like a distant memory.

Also, that guy was not six-foot-one. She’d put enough lifts in actors’ shoes over the years that she could tell five-ten from six-one at a glance, even if he was wearing combat boots. At least he hadn’t tried to lie to her about packing any other hidden inches anywhere else.

Now she had a sore back and sore feet for nothing. At least it wasn’t a replay of the awkward cheek mauling she’d endured three nights ago, when her date had thought there would be more tongue involved at the end of the evening.

She dropped her keys into their dish, right between her half-drunk cup of tea from the morning and the dirty dishes from her rushed dinner that night and eased her jacket down her bare arms before draping it over her couch. After a minute of fruitless rooting, she tipped her purse upside down and shook it, letting her phone, wallet, and everything else scatter over her kitchen table. She found her phone and sighed.

Dead, no surprise. She hadn’t charged it since yesterday, and the old thing sucked juice like crazy. A debrief with Libby would have to wait. She plugged it in beside her sewing machine, the pieces of a new design waiting to be sewn neatly folded beside her dress form.

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