Page 11 of Her Football Star Ex

A girl liked to keep some things a mystery, you know?

Maybe I’m not cut out for this online dating thing.

I mean, sure, anyone who saw me in real life would be able to see that I’d finally lost the little pooch I’d had from my pregnancies. But I was more than just a number on the scale, wasn’t I?

I looked at the screen again.

I was also a woman in desperate need of a date.

And based on the way I’d teared up tonight, I needed to find someone fast so I could stop feeling sad over the things I missed about Vincent. So, I typed in the number and scrolled down to the next item on the list.

Hobbies.

Did watching Korean Dramas in my pajamas while I ate Pad Thai with chopsticks count? That was the activity I’d looked most forward to last weekend, anyway.

The only other thing I did these days when Jaxon wasn’t home was work. And counting work as a hobby probably wasn’t going to make me look good. Most guys on this website probably weren’t looking for a workaholic or a lazy Netflix binger.

I need to come up with something cool-sounding. Something that would make me appear like I actually had a life.

I used to enjoy hiking and going on vacations back when Vincent and I were together. Even if I didn’t make time for those things these days, I could still count them, right?

Deciding that was probably as good as I was going to come up with at this time of night, I put them in. I could update my profile later if this version of me wasn’t interesting enough to guys.

I filled in a few more things and then uploaded one of the photos I’d taken right before Vincent startled me and another he’d taken of me when we were in Mexico two years ago.

Using a photo your ex had taken on a couple’s vacation probably wasn’t the best idea, but it was one of the best photos I had of myself. I was glowing in that photo—bursting with happiness since I’d just found out that morning that we were expecting baby number two after trying for two years to get pregnant.

I studied the photo when it finished uploading onto my screen. I really had been on top of the world that day. Everything in my life was going just the way I’d wanted. I had an amazing husband, a wonderful son, a thriving career, a beautiful home. And finding that the infertility treatment had finally worked had been the icing on top of the cake.

I sighed and ran my fingers over the image on my screen. That girl had no idea that her happiness would be so short-lived.

My heart hurt in my chest as I remembered the heartbreaking miscarriage that followed two months later, and then the death of her marriage six months after.

But even though this past year had been a nightmare, I had made it through. The doctor may have said that I probably wouldn’t be able to have any more children after that pregnancy had failed, but I was still alive. And while I hadn’t been on a date in over a year, I hoped that at least was about to change.

With the magic of the Internet and a shiny new profile, I’d find my next dream guy soon. He had to be out there somewhere, just waiting for me to get the nerve to sign up for online dating.

So with my heart racing only a little, I scanned my profile once more. And after making sure all the words in the “About Me” section were spelled correctly, I hit publish.

Hopefully I’d have a new man to show off to everyone in no time.

* * *

“What are you looking at?”Kira asked when she came into my office the next morning, a cup of coffee in each hand.

I held up my phone for her to see. “I signed up for online dating last night and am just checking to see if I matched with anyone.”

“Oooh, that sounds fun.” She came to my desk, handed me my coffee, and then took the seat across from me.

“We’ll see how fun it is soon.” I took a sip of my coffee—the Oreo creamer she’d put in making it just sweet enough for my sugar tooth. “It’s been about ten hours since I signed up so it’s likely no one even saw my profile yet.”

“I doubt that.” She snickered. “You have no idea how many hours a day some guys spend on those apps.”

“I guess I’ll see.”

With my heart in my throat I clicked on the dating app and waited to see what it had for me this morning.

When I saw the notifications icons on the top right hand corner, it told me I had matched with eight of the guys whose profiles I’d liked before going to bed,andI had three messages waiting for me to read.

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