Page 71 of New Girl in the City
“Handsome enough that I’m reconsidering if I’m ready to be hurt again,” she replied. That had me up and moving out of my seat in a hurry.
“Show me.”
She turned the phone around and I gave it an assessing look. Claudia was not kidding. The man on the screen was of the caliber that a woman might reconsider more than a few assumptions she had thought sure in her life. He was smiling at the camera and it was a good smile. It was a real one. This smile reached his eyes and you could tell that he had been caught in the moment with a candid shot. Blond hair fell forward into green eyes that would make you wax poetic, and he had a set of shoulders that looked just right for cuddling. He had big arms and a broad chest. I was very into the girth the man had overall.
He looked big and cuddly, and again, that smile was just blindingly good. I looked at his name, Jamie S. That was a good name, too.
“That man has a smile that’ll make a woman lose her mind,” I said.
“I was more interested in the fact that he is sobig,” Claudia said, turning the phone back around to look at him. “But his smile is great. I like that he isn't all six packs with no body fat, because your girl likes a little meat on a man’s bones.”
“So why aren’t you getting on the app again?”
“Because I’m not ready and it’s not smart.”
“Yeah, I guess…” I murmured but I did like the spark of interest I saw in Claudia’s brown eyes. She was into this man and that was a first step in being ready to date again.
“Hmmm, he’s 29,” she said, still looking down at my phone and I perked up.
This was great. We could work with this.
“Where does he live?” I asked, feigning interest in my nails. I didn’t want her to see that I was excited by this on the chance that she would back off, so I played it cool.
She was silent for a second before she looked up at me with a faint blush on her cheeks. “Colorado,” she said quietly.
Oh hell yes.
“And you’re moving there in a month so, I mean….” I held up my hands in a ‘just saying’ gesture which had her rolling her eyes at me.
“Colorado is a big state,” she returned and then sighed, swiping away from the photo. “And how am I supposed to find him, even if I did get on this thing? Hi, you hit on one of my best friends, how’s it going?”
“I mean, why not?”
She made a face and shook her head. “Nah, it’s alright. I need to concentrate on work and the move, and just enjoy how adorable you and Liam are. And that you’re meeting his sister tomorrow, which is just so great,” she said, continuing her journey through the dating app. “Besides this is great. This is enough. I still have over 100 notifications to look through, so let me get back to that or we will be here all night. I really want to go for sushi now that we’re done.”
I didn’t have a lot of time left with Claudia, a woman that had become very dear to me. I got up to move towards the desk where I had a stash of menus in the top drawer for just such an occasion. Nothing better than a girlfriend hangout and social media cruise There was nothing on my agenda but hanging out with Claudia, lots of sushi and man ogling and I was looking forward to every last minute of it.
