Page 30 of For You & No One Else (Say Everything 3)

“Thanks for this. Really. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.” She leaned back and massaged her throbbing temples. “Now I know why you usually avoided talking to me. Apparently, I bring nothing but drama to your doorstep.”

He didn’t look her way, but he gave a little headshake. “This drama was broughttoyou, not by you. You didn’t invite this. Ryan has posted here before, multiple times. Maybe he gets off on getting attention for all his bad dates. I’m glad you left before he could get you into his car.”

“God, me too.” She shuddered and rubbed her arms, chasing away the goose bumps that had formed. “I’m going to take your advice, you know.”

Beckham’s hands kept moving, a musician at his instrument. “Yeah? Which advice is that?”

“Getting off the dating apps, trying it analog,” she said, twisting the simple gold band she wore on her right ring finger, her mom’s wedding ring.

His fingers paused and his gaze went her way again. “Really?”

“Yeah, that’s part of my plan to turn this whole incident around.” She continued twisting the ring, his focused attention making her self-conscious. “I’m going to write about what happened last night and then document an analog dating experiment. I may blog about it along the way and then put it all together in a book. Like one of those ‘Year Without Whatever’ books. Maybe it might help other people.”

He turned his attention back to the screen, his shoulders hunching. “Right.”

The heavy dose of judgment in that one little word had her fingers curling into a fist. “What?”

“Whatwhat?” he asked innocently.

“Let’s not pretend that wasn’t laced with sarcasm,” she said with a derisive sniff. “I’m taking your advice. What’s your issue?”

He stopped typing and exhaled loudly. “Nothing. It just sounds like a…performance.”

She bristled. “A performance.”

He spun his chair toward her and shrugged. “Look, you do what you need to do. Like I said last night, it’s not my business. But if you really want to do something for real, don’t you think it will be influenced by knowing you have to write it about it for public consumption afterward? That there will be an element of performance to it?” He flicked his hand in the air like he was trying to grab onto a thought. “It’s like that thing when research subjects know they’re being watched. It changes their behavior. What’s that called?”

She frowned and pulled the random fact from her grad school years. “The Hawthorne effect.”

He pointed at her. “Yes. That. Like you’ll almost want the date to go badly because it will give you better material. You could sabotage it without knowing it. And what guy is going to want to go on a date knowing the woman is going to blog about him or whatever afterward? I definitely wouldn’t.” He tipped his head toward the computer screen. “Think about how you feel right now, with this dumbass publicly airing what happened on your date last night. Would you want to do that to someone else?”

“I wouldn’t be posting drunken videos,” she said with a huff. “And I would keep things anonymous.”

“But those guys will know who you are and could easily find out you have an online thing going, so they’ll know who you’re talking about,” he said. “Plus, when you’re on the date, you’ll be thinking about how you’re going to portray it. You won’t be in the moment. You’ll be thinking about who you’re going to tell about it and what they’ll think instead of just… experiencing it all,feelingit all.”

The way he’d saidfeeling it allhad her swallowing hard.

“That’s why secret relationships turn people on so much—and get people in so much trouble,” he said with a shrug. “The privacy of it all feels…intense. And hot. You’re in on a secret together. No one else gets a peek.”

She grimaced. “Secret relationships land a lot of people in my office with divorce papers. Secrets eat people up from the inside out.”

He made a dismissive noise. “I’m not advocating for people cheating on each other or anything. I’m just saying that the more people and opinions you bring into something, especially in the beginning, the less…visceral it’s going to feel. The less real it will be. It becomes a show. It becomes thoseLook how fantastic our vacation is!photos on Facebook. When in reality, people are often spending more time worrying about how to get the best picture to post than, you know, actually experiencing the vacation. And you know they’re not posting all the bad or boring parts of the vacation. Same goes for posting about relationships.” He shook his head. “If you put your whole life on the internet for public opinion, what part is left for just you—and whoever you’re with?”

She pressed her lips together. “Maybe people just want to share their happiness.”

“Or show off,” he said. “Have you ever considered that maybe your dates aren’t working out because you’re choosing people who would ‘appear’ right in your curated world instead of people who actually intrigue you?” He cocked his head to the side. “The financial planner with the boat dating the successful therapist would look pretty great on Insta.”

She huffed, indignant. “I’m not after some guy’s money or status.”

“I believe you.”

She crossed her arms and gave him her cop-interrogation face.

He lifted his hands. “Ido. Honestly. But I also think there may be part of you that’s casting for a role instead of just…being in the world and being open to whoever sparks something in you—curiosity, interest, pants feelings.”

She snorted. “Pants feelings?”

“Of course. Those are just as valid as other types of feelings.” His lips tipped up at one corner, a playful look in his eyes. “You’re familiar with them, I believe. You did ask to lick my tattoos last night.”

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