Page 39 of The Wrong Date Deal

Piper squeezed her arm. “I think you might be overthinking it.”

“I would never.”

“Well, you’d be the first. I feel like everyone new overthinks it at some point.”

August studied her as they walked. “It’s hard to imagine you overthinking it. You just strode right in and had the conversation flowing without a problem.”

Piper laughed. “With you, sure. But it’s not always like that. Right before I met you, I had that date with the woman who barely said two words. And I’ve been ghosted plenty of times.”

“Yeah. Yikes.”

“It’s just how these things go.”

“But ghosted from the first message?”

It dawned on Piper what had happened and she remembered how rough those first few disappointments had felt. They weren’t something you grew to enjoy, but they were something you sort of got used to when you’d been on the dating scene long enough.

She bumped lightly into August. “Yes. I have been ghosted from an opening line.”

“Oh.” She shook her head. “It just feels… harsh. Like, I’d have understood if you ghosted the kiwi guy, but I didn’t say anything like that. I tried to say something based on their interests, and they’d just indicated they were interested, so to just… disappear?”

Piper gave her a sympathetic look. “I know it sucks, sorry.”

“It’s fine. I know these things happen. Like, maybe you aren’t feeling the chemistry from the first message, maybe you’ve already found someone else, maybe you were online during a low moment of needing to get out there and then you ate, slept, and felt a lot better… It’s a million things.”

“But that doesn’t mean it’s not hard.”

She breathed a laugh. “Yeah, a bit.”

“I’m sorry it’s rough. I wish I could tell you it gets better.”

“It’s okay. Meilíng has been asking questions and, because she hit the jackpot the first time, I feel like I’m… bad at this. And then that’s just mortifying to admit.”

“I promise you’re not bad at it. And you’re definitely a catch. You’ll find your person and it will all come easily. Then, all of this will feel like a distant, unnecessary memory.”

August frowned slightly, looking at Piper and turning them down another side street she couldn’t possibly know would lead them close to Piper’s apartment. “Do you think so?”

“Definitely.”

She raised her eyebrows. “But, you’ve been doing this for a minute and if it’s not working foryou, what hope do the rest of us have?”

Piper laughed, flattered by the implication. “I’m notoriously picky. Don’t worry about your chances by looking at my… checkered past.”

August laughed. “I doubt it’s that checkered. And I don’t think being picky is bad.”

Piper shrugged and stifled a smile as August took another turn, getting them closer again to Piper’s home. “The way I see it, Meilíng got lucky finding a good one on the first try. Most of us have to spin the wheel a few times to find that match, but it’s out there, you know? It’s worth the effort because when you find it, and you know you’ve both been looking for each other, you get that amazing moment of… knowing you were both already putting the work in. Then you put the effort in together.”

“You’re much more of a romantic than you let on, you know?”

Piper laughed. “I don’t know if I’m really hiding it.”

“Maybe not completely, but you definitely play the whole online dating thing cool, and then you’re out here with that beautiful philosophy on life?”

Piper pulled her arm back and waved August off. “It’s not a philosophy and I doubt it’s all that beautiful.”

Deep down, however, she did think it was beautiful. Or, she hoped it was—and would be. She wanted that love the songs were written about. She wanted to experience that moment of meeting someone and knowing something life-changing was happening.

August shook her head. “It’s definitely both.”

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