Chapter 20

Ranée rolled in a little after midnight and grinned when she saw me on the couch with my phone. “Date is going that well, huh? Tell Jack I said hi.”

“It’s not Jack.”

She stopped in the process of pulling off a boot. They were tall and black and definitely not for riding horses. “You’re cheating on him already?”

“It’s not cheating.”

“How could you?” she demanded. But she’d been standing on one leg, half-crouched, and now she toppled over.

“That’s what happens to people who get on their high horse,” I said.

She grunted and pulled her boot off the rest of the way. “You’re a cold woman.”

“Am not. And you were totally right about me being commitment-phobic. But not anymore. I’m ready for a relationship.”

“Yay, Jack!”

“Not with Jack.”

The boot sailed toward me and landed near my feet.

“What do you mean not with Jack? Of course with Jack.”

“No. Don’t get me wrong, he’s awesome. But also far away. So.” I waved my phone at her. “I’m on Flash Match. I already have a coffee date and a lunch date set up for next week.”

“Flash Match? What? No. Don’t swipe right. Don’t even swipe left. Here, just let me swipe that right out of your hand.” She climbed to her feet and hobbled over in her single boot to grab for my cell.

I held it out of her reach. “Bad Ranée. No-no.”

She plopped on the carpet in front of me and worked at her other boot. “Why are you going on other dates?”

“I made real choices. I picked profiles for guys I could really go for. I’m going to start putting the same effort into these dates that I’ve put into hanging out with Jack. He’s great, but he’s made me realize that I want the real thing, not someone I can keep at an emotional distance because he’s at a physical distance.”

She dropped her head to her knees and groaned. “Why are you getting this so wrong?”

“I feel good about this.” I stood and stepped over her. “Night-night.”

“You can’t sleep with a guilty conscience.”

“Good thing I don’t have one.” I laughed as her other boot thumped behind me in the hall.

Nothing made me feel better than having a goal to work toward, and I went to sleep with the next phase of my plan running through my head.

Tuesday morning I threw my new black heels into my gym bag before I headed into the office. I’d wear them to my coffee date with a programmer named Jeff. I’d dressed in a conservative top and slacks, but the shoes would keep things interesting.

Mid-morning I slid them on and sent a picture of my feet propped on my desk to Ranée captioned, “Good choice?”

Really good.

I’ll tell you how it goes, I typed.

I got back a puke emoji. I hope it sucks.

I laughed and grabbed my handbag, then let Hailey know I’d be out for a while.

It turned out to be a short while. Because Jeff turned out to be short. Really short. Even shorter when I had on four-inch heels. He’d opened with, “You lied about your height.” Well, one of us had, or my heels wouldn’t have mattered. The conversation hadn’t improved, and when Ranée texted ten minutes in to demand, “WELL?” I said it was a work emergency and bailed.

I texted her on the way back to the office. Fail. I don’t care if you’re short. I care if you lie about being short.

Her reply was succinct:

That about covered it.

Jack and I had still been texting every day, but he hadn’t mentioned another date. I wasn’t sure what to think about that. It was good, probably. Better to spend that time on real dates. But I wondered if he hadn’t asked because he was waiting for me to make the next move. Or maybe I’d said something during our Scrabble date that made him want to step back.

That was all fine. Good, even. It was one less conversation to have. But when his name flashed on my phone after dinner, my heart did the corniest possible stutter step. It happened every time he texted. I was a walking Hallmark movie character.

I plucked my shirt away from my chest and stared down at my heart. “Knock it off.”

“Do I even want to know?” Ranée asked, walking into the kitchen.

“No. Going riding?” She’d been at the stables almost every day.

“Volunteering. Gotta balance my karma after getting up to no good all weekend.”

“Please don’t give me any details. I don’t think I’m woman enough for it. My hot date was playing Scrabble, remember?”

“But it was a hot date, wasn’t it?”

My phone buzzed again. Another text from Jack. “Yeah. It was. But I’m lining up other ones. Got lunch with an architect soon.”

She shook her head as she dug through the fruit bowl.

I opened the text and blinked at it. “Ranée? How did Jack get this picture?”

She froze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The fact that she hadn’t even turned around to see what I meant told me she knew exactly what I was talking about. It was the “Good choice?” picture I’d sent her of my shoes before the coffee date, only Jack had Photoshopped an ankle bracelet of Scrabble tiles onto it. The tiles spelled, “Great choice.”

I got up and set it on top of the fruit bowl in front of her. She studied it, then moved it to the counter and plucked out an apple.

“You don’t have anything to say for yourself?” I asked.

She took a loud bite of her apple.

“What am I supposed to think about this? Is it supposed to be charming? Or stalkerish?”

Her eyes widened and she spit her mouthful of apple in the sink. “Not stalkerish. I sent it to him to motivate him. I said you were going on a date, and he should Photoshop it so you would know he didn’t care. It was supposed to make him care enough to tell you not to go.”

I groaned. “We’ve reached an uncomfortable level of weirdness.”

She winced. “I know. That’s my fault. But that’s on me again, not him. I swear I’ll stay out of it.” And then she slunk out of the door.

Now I had to figure out what I was supposed to say to Jack. It wasn’t any of his business whether I was going on other dates, but if I didn’t answer it would turn into an awkward text silence. Yet it bugged me that he was so chill about me going on another date. It felt like a dig.

I made no sense. I knew it. But I also knew what I wanted to say back.

Thanks!

There. Boundaries enforced.