Page 116 of Pity Party

“You might meet the one …” I sound more hopeful for his chances than I am for my own.

“You do it first, and if you meet Mr. Wonderful, I might give it a shot.”

It’s weird, but neither one of us is seeing anyone and yet neither one of us is bringing up the topic of us dating again. That ship has clearly sailed for both of us, and I’m happy about that.

We chat for a few more minutes before Tim says, “I’m off to have a nice long evening at home by myself.”

“Call me if you want to chat,” I tell him, even though it's clear he’s not feeling very social.

After grabbing my groceries, I go home and pop a frozen pizza in the oven. While I wait for it to cook, I pick up my laptop and sit down on the couch. I have forty messages on the Catch.com website and ten new likes on my profile. Ten likes suggests I might have ten messages, so the number is oddly off.

I investigate and find out that thirty-one messages are from the same account: BrokenHeartedforYou. Just what I need, a stalker. I’m about to delete them all, when I click on the profile page to see what kind of psycho I’m dealing with. The picture makes my mouth drop open in surprise. It’s Jamie.

Under hobbies, he wrote: Raising my daughter and pining after a beautiful red-headed shop owner.

Holy what?I keep reading.

Under what he wants in a partner, he says:

I’m looking for a woman named Melissa who will forgive me, tease me, and kiss me like I’m the only man in the world for her.

What’s happening here?Jamie started a Catch profile with the sole intention of catchingme? I spend the next hour eating pizza and reading all his messages. He pours out his heart and soul and tells me everything about what he’s feeling.

I wonder what’s the best way to respond to him. I could send a reply to one of his messages on Catch, I could text him, or I could call him. I decide that none of those options are good enough. Instead, I change into my prettiest dress, and I drive over to his house.

When he opens his door, he looks shocked to see me. “Melissa?”

I push into his entryway and demand, “Why didn’t you just call? I’ve been furious with you and now I find you’ve been messaging me through Catch.com?”

“You just now got my messages? I thought you were ignoring me.”

“Why would I do that? I’ve been desperate to talk to you.”

“I’ve been desperate to talk toyou,” he says. “I have so much to say.”

I take a step toward him. “We can talk later. Right now, I’m here to kiss you like you’re the only man in the world for me.”

He looks surprised before taking me in his arms. He brushes his mouth across my ear. “I thought I’d messed things up beyond repair. I thought you didn’t want anything more to do with me.”

“In the future, if you have something to say to me, you need to just say it,” I tell him before pressing my mouth against his. I kiss him with every bit of pent-up angst and passion inside me. I kiss him like I’m trying to attach myself to his tonsils. I kiss him like he’s the only man I ever want to kiss again.

When I finally take a break, I ask, “So are you going to invite me in or what?”

He steps aside and smiles. “Want to come in? Sammy’s at a sleepover.”

And that’s all the invitation I need. While I don’t yet know everything about Jamie, I know he’s a great guy. He just needs to persuade me that he’s my guy. I’m not going to rest until I’m one hundred percent sure.

CHAPTERFORTY-FOUR

JAMIE

I was positive that Catch.com was the most romantic way to let Melissa know how much I wanted to be in a relationship with her. I even asked Sammy what to do, on the guise of creating a marketing campaign. Little did I realize, Melissa had stopped looking for her perfect man.

While we’re cuddled up on the swing on the deck, I tell her, “I was starting to sweat bullets after two days had passed and I didn’t hear from you.”

“You couldn’t have seriously thought that I could concentrate on a social life after Chicago.”

Wrapping both arms around her, I say, “Looks like Beth finally did me a favor, huh? All that drama distracted you.”

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