It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that trying to find a decent guy to date in New York City is a damn near impossibility. Especially if you are—as my ex-boyfriend so charmingly put it—a grade-A, Type-A control freak with a stick up her ass. You would think that a poet would be a little more sensitive when it came to the feelings of others, but if I learned anything about Greg in the two years that we were together, it was that his feelings were the only ones that mattered.

Of course, Greg was the last person I wanted to be thinking about as I sat in a crowded bar waiting for my latest Tinder date to show up. But the whole situation was less than ideal. Because the last thing I wanted to do was sit in a crowded bar waiting for my latest Tinder date to show up.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. This wasn’t part of the plan. Greg and I were perfect together—or so I had thought. I supported his writing, and he supported . . . well, he supported the fact I supported him. It was a mature, stable relationship. We were going to move in together. Then he’d propose. Then we’d get married. That’s the way it was supposed to be.

Until he found someone else. Someone who was “fun,” as he had put it, who knew how to have a good time. Someone who was spontaneous and exciting and took risks. Someone who—surprise!—wasn’t me.

So I was single again. And I hated it.

“Please don’t tell me you’re already writing this new guy off.” My best friend Mia appeared out of the crowd, pulling me out of my thoughts.

She slid a martini across the table at me before taking a seat, her tiny leather mini-skirt showing off her gorgeous legs to the whole bar.

“He hasn’t arrived yet,” I told her, self-conscious about my own skirt, which was several inches longer than Mia’s. It had felt cute in my apartment, but now seemed dowdy and prudish. Not exactly the look I was going for. Especially on a blind date.

“You’re going to give this one a chance, though, right?” Mia begged me.

I sipped my martini so I didn’t have to answer. In the six months that I had been single, every date I had gone on had turned out to be one horrible experience after another. There was the guy who went to the bathroom in the middle of the date to send me a dick pic. The guy who tried to get me to ask the waitress if she’d be interested in a threesome. And who could forget the guy who brought his mother with him. However, she hadn’t approved of me, so I didn’t even have to turn down the offer of a second date. It was hard to say which of those experiences had been more demoralizing.

And yet, I couldn’t help hoping that each new guy would be different. Because despite everything, I still wanted to fall in love. I still wanted to find “the one.” And I was hopeful that he was out there. He was just proving to be elusive as hell.

“He looked cute in his pictures,” Mia tried again.

It was true. This evening’s date, Jason, looked very impressive on paper. Tall, cute, and successful, he worked on Wall Street, and was from upstate New York. According to his profile he was an avid reader who liked to go hiking on the weekends, and loved curling up in front of a fireplace with The New Yorker and a vodka martini. He could be exactly what I was looking for. And I really, really hoped that he would be. Because I was ready for him. So very ready to never have to go on another bad date again.

I sipped my own vodka martini and tried to be open-minded. “I want to like him,” I told Mia. “I always want to like them.”

“I know, sweetie,” she said, patting my hand. “But you do have very high standards.”

“I do not!” I argued, though I had heard this before.

“Your three strikes rule is ridiculous,” she told me, downing her drink.

“It works!” I said.

“Yeah, it works to keep you single,” Mia snorted.

I winced. My system worked. I might not have gotten a second date—or even laid—since instituting it, but I hadn’t gotten my heart broken either. And even though Greg hadn’t hurt me enough to break my heart, he had bruised it a bit. Something that I might have avoided if I had been using my three strikes rule when we started dating.

Strike One: He wrote poems about other girls. He had told me that it was just his creative mind, that it didn’t mean anything, but after a while, I realized he never wrote any poems about me.

Strike Two: He hated my job. OK, sure, I hated my job sometimes too, but not for the same reasons that he did. I hated the people I worked for—a bunch of start-up bros who liked to hashtag their emails—but I loved what I did for them. Finance was a boys’ club and I had been dealing with grade-school sexism since I first started out, but put me in front of numbers and I was happy. Greg never got it. He thought my work was boring and couldn’t understand why I didn’t do something else.

Strike Three: He never paid for anything. He was happy to shit on my job from morning until night, but he had no complaints when I spent my paycheck on him. Which I did, over and over again. He was always without his wallet, making a point over how a real artist traded in talent, not cash.

Three strikes and he should have been out. But I was young and stupid and crazy about him. I thought that love could fix anything so I ignored those red flags. I wasn’t going to ignore them anymore. Even if it made dating harder.

And I wasn’t giving up on love either. No way, no how.

Of course, comments from the peanut gallery didn’t help matters. It wasn’t just Mia, but my sister, Paige, had been commenting on it as well. Which was especially annoying given the fact that Paige was dating a super-hot, super-nice guy named Dash. And the last thing any single person wanted was to be getting unsolicited romantic advice from her YOUNGER sister, especially after said sister had snagged a former Formula One driver and former reality dating show star.

I didn’t envy the unwelcomed publicity and paparazzi that had been following Paige and Dash around ever since he confessed his love for her on national television, but it was hard to continue to wade into the cesspool that was New York dating when it seemed like all the decent guys were taken.

Maybe Jason would be different. He had to be. I wanted him to be.

“Oh. My. God.” Mia grabbed my arm, her polka-dot manicure digging into my skin. “Look who it is.”

I turned around and saw a tall, dark, and handsome guy sitting at the bar, surrounded by gorgeous women.

“It’s Jax Hawthorne,” Mia said in a stage whisper. “And he’s even better looking in person.”

Jax Hawthorne was the hottest movie star around, known in Hollywood for his talent, his sexy British accent, and his way with the ladies. The latter of which seemed to be in full force tonight. I could still remember him at twelve years old, all gawky limbs and knobby knees, but even so, I couldn’t deny that he had grown up to be one hell of a sexy guy.

Sexy, spoiled rotten, and a magnet for trouble—if the gossip columns were to be believed. It was a shame; he’d seemed so sweet when we were kids, but his reputation was pretty much a bad-boy man-whore these days, and I was witnessing it firsthand tonight.

I turned away.

“Isn’t he beautiful?” Mia was still staring, her chin propped up on her hands like a star-struck teenager with her first crush.

“I guess,” I said.

Mia blinked at me. “You guess?” she asked. “OK, now I know your standards are too high, if you can’t even admit the mere presence of a guy like Jax Hawthorne gets your heart pumping.”

“I know him,” I said, before quickly correcting myself. “I mean, I knew him. I doubt he would remember me.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Mia dragged her stool around the table until she was right in front of me. “You need to tell me everything and you need to tell me now.”

“It’s not that interesting,” I told her.

She slapped her hand on the table. “You are officially the worst friend ever,” she told me. “You met Jax Hawthorne and it was BORING?”

I laughed. Mia continued to stare at me, her gaze intense and unwavering and I knew I wasn’t going to get out of this bar without telling her the story.

“It’s no big deal. We were kids,” I said. “I was ten, and he was twelve. It was over winter break when we were living at the Jersey Shore, and my mom was cleaning houses to make ends meet.”

It wasn’t a part of my life I liked talking about much—when my family was struggling, when we sometimes had to sleep in our car, when my parents were catering to wealthier families just to keep us fed. Jax’s family had been one of those families. His parents had been like all the other rich couples that we came in contact with—cold and superior. Never gave anyone in our tax bracket the time of day.

Jax wasn’t like that. He was a lonely kid, totally neglected by his constantly warring, always on the edge of divorce parents. I always thought that the fact that Jax’s parents decided to vacation at the beach during the winter said exactly what needed to be said about them. It seemed like their whole marriage was all about punishing each other, and in turn, punishing Jax for daring to exist. He was by himself a lot. And since there weren’t a lot of kids our age at the beach during the winter, we found ourselves spending a lot of time together.

“Was he a hunk even then?” Mia wanted to know.

“Not exactly,” I smiled, remembering how gangly he had been at that age. “He was in the middle of a growth spurt,” I told her.

“I bet he was adorable,” Mia sighed.

He had been. Despite the too-long limbs and gap-toothed smile, Jax’d had a charm to him, even then. The old ladies on the shore had absolutely adored him, and I had no doubt that if it had been the summer, and the beaches had been full of cute teenage girls, I might have seen firsthand the swagger he showed on screen.

But it had just been the two of us, and we had connected over home lives we weren’t especially proud of. For me, it was my parents’ struggles with money, for him, it was a cold, uncaring household where only the paid help seemed to pay attention to him. Even though there was just as much snow on the beach as there was sand, we spent most of our time out on the pier, neither of us wanting to go home.

But I wasn’t going to tell his private family history to Mia, who—God bless her, was the biggest blabbermouth in town. And also a blogger with thousands of readers. “We hung out, that’s all, doing kid stuff,” I told her instead. “You know, arcade games and air hockey. He was very sweet,” I confessed to Mia. “But that was one winter, a long time ago. I doubt he remembers me.”

“I love you, sweetie.” Mia patted my hand. “But that was a very boring, disappointing story.”

I raised my glass. “I do my best.”

What I didn’t tell Mia was that the two of us had made a promise to each other that winter. That if we weren’t married by the time I was twenty-five, then we’d marry each other. It had seemed a lifetime away—we’d be old by then—but here I was, still single. I didn’t tell Mia because there was no possible way that Jax remembered that promise. Or me.

Mia’s phone buzzed and she sighed when she looked at the screen. “I need to go back to work,” she said.

I looked at my watch. It was past ten. “Really? Now?”

She nodded. “Apparently some celebrity got caught stumbling out of a nightclub without panties and they need someone to make a listicle of all the times that’s happened.”

Mia worked for a celebrity gossip website, which she loved and hated in equal measure. She had a journalism degree and loved interviewing interesting people, but most of the time she was stuck writing posts about who was seen hooking up with whom, or which baby animal each of the Kardashians looked like. She kept saying it was a stepping stone to something else, but she had been there for several years and there had been no stepping. In any direction.

“Text me as soon as the date’s over,” she told me, gathering her purse. “And I hope for both our sakes that I don’t get a text until tomorrow morning.”

I smacked her arm. “You know I don’t do that kind of thing.”

“Have fun?” she teased. “Yeah, I know, but a best friend can hope.” She downed the rest of her drink, wiggled her fingers at me, and then disappeared into the crowd, leaving me alone to wait for my date.

He was late. Unfortunately, that was Strike One. I drummed my fingers on the table, trying my best not to look over at Jax who was still entertaining a bevy of blondes at the bar. I self-consciously fingered the red curls that my sister Paige and I shared, wondering if Jax would remember me if I went over and said hello.

Not that I was going to do that.

Instead, I sipped my martini and watched as he leaned in towards one of the girls who was gathered around him. She was wearing a sparkly black body-con dress that looked incredible on her. He whispered something in her ear, his fingers toying with a lock of her hair, while she giggled and moved in closer. I felt a twinge of jealousy. She made it look so easy.

I looked down at my less-than-incredible body, most of it hidden by the knee length skirt and drapey top I was wearing. It was what I had worn to work, only minus the jacket I usually wore and with a pair of heels instead of my usual flats. I looked down at my feet, admiring my shoes, the only dramatic part of my look. They were covered in blue sequins and whenever I wore them, I felt a little like an alternative version of Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.

I loved pretty shoes. The rest of my closet might be full of boring, basic looks, but I had a collection of gorgeous, overpriced heels that I wore whenever I had the chance. Unfortunately, none of the guys I had been going out with had even noticed my shoes. They seemed more interested in trying to look down my shirt or up my skirt.

“Penny?” a male voice had me spinning around on my stool.

“Jason?”

He was just as good looking as his picture, standing there in a charcoal suit with the top button undone. I smiled and stood. Only to find that he had lied on his profile.

He wasn’t over six feet like he had said. In fact, he barely topped five seven. Which wouldn’t have been a problem, except I was five eight in flats. And I was wearing three inch heels.

“Um, hi,” I managed, trying to get over the surprise and awkwardness of towering over him. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” he said, taking the stool across from me.

Once we were both seated things felt a little less uncomfortable. And unfortunately, the fact that he had lied on his profile meant that he was getting a second strike. It wasn’t that I had anything against short guys, it was just that most short guys seemed to have a problem with tall girls.

Jason seemed to be one of those guys.

“I didn’t know you’d be so tall,” he said, his lip curling up a little in what might have been disgust.

“My height is on my profile,” I said pointedly.

“Yeah, but everyone lies about that,” he retorted.

“Mmhmm.” I took a long drink of my martini.

“What are you drinking?” he asked, waving down a waiter.

“Vodka martini,” I said, and his eyes lit up.

“My favorite,” he said. “Two more,” he told the waiter before turning back to me. “Do you want another one?”

I stared at him, confused.

“Just bring us four more,” he said to the waiter. “Looks like I have some catching up to do.”

He winked at me and gave me a smile that could only be described as predatory.

“So . . .” He leaned forward onto his elbows. “I really liked your profile.”

I willed myself to relax. “Thank you,” I said.

There was a moment of silence.

“That’s it?” he asked. “You’re not going to compliment my profile?”

“Um, I liked your profile as well,” I told him, feeling put on the spot. “Especially the part about reading The New Yorker in front of the fireplace. Do you have a fireplace?”

He snorted. “Fuck no, but that was a good line, wasn’t it?”

Thankfully the waiter returned before I had a chance to respond.

“Cheers.” Jason raised his glass.

I did the same.

“To new friends.” He clinked his glass against mine. “And hopefully lovers, as well.”

I choked on my drink.

He didn’t seem to notice.

“You’re a little shy, aren’t you?” he asked, apparently ignoring my discomfort.

“I guess,” I said, knowing that this date was over. He had sailed through his three strikes and was moving onto his sixth or seventh. I took a long drink of my martini.

“I like shy girls,” he told me, reaching across the table for my hand.

I tried to pull it away, but he had an iron clad grip on it.

“You know why I like shy girls?” he asked.

I really, really didn’t want to know.

“Because it’s the shy ones that are the freakiest in the bedroom,” he told me with a leer.

“Please let go of me,” I said.

“Oh, come on.” Jason pouted. “I’m just having a little fun. Don’t you like to have fun?”

“Let go of me.” My voice was firm, my other hand wrapped around my half-full martini glass.

“You should ask nicely,” he said.

Instead, I poured my martini over his head.

“You bitch!” He jumped back from the table, knocking his stool over and spraying nearby guests with the vodka that was staining his suit.

I got to my feet, grabbing my purse, but before I could make an exit, Jason had grabbed my arm. Hard.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he hissed.

“I believe the lady asked you to let her go,” a familiar voice said.

I turned, and found Jax Hawthorne standing right behind me.