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Chapter 1
Harper Flynn had been on a shit-ton of bad dates in her quest to find love, but this one might very well take the cake. Her first clue should have been the green suspenders. It wasn’t even St Patrick’s Day. It was the third week of May. Normally she could look beyond a fashion faux pas, if it weren’t for the buffalo sauce chilling on the side of his mouth, or that he’d been talking about his ex for the last twenty-two minutes and counting.
Harper pushed the lone cherry tomato around her plate, wishing she liked the red balls of ick, so she could drown out her date’s incessant talking with her chewing. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough money in the world to make her put that in her mouth.
“And she took my dog. What kind of heartless monster do you have to be to take a man’s best friend from him?”
“Did you try talking to her?” Harper asked. The date had already taken a nosedive off a cliff. If the guy needed a therapist for the next hour, it wasn’t like she had anything better to do.
“I did. But she didn’t want to hear anything I had to say. Just because she paid the adoption fees. Like just because she has money that makes her better than me.”
Shit. That meant she was probably paying for her own dinner tonight. Thank heavens she already paid her portion of the rent this month, or she’d be cutting it close.
“I just…” His lip quivered. “Miss her so much.”
Oh God, he was crying. Harper shifted uncomfortably in her chair, pulling down the skirt she wasted thirty bucks on, and took a deep breath. “Your ex?”
“No, screw her. I’m talking about Sheila, my baby.” He took out his phone, scrolled for a second, then turned the screen to Harper. A drooling bulldog stared back at her. “She was the best.” He scrolled to another picture. This one of Sheila wearing a sombrero. And he kept scrolling.
After the nine hundredth picture, Harper smiled and excused herself to the bathroom. She hurried away from the table and breathed a sigh of relief when the door closed behind her. She plopped her bag on the sink and stared at her reflection in the mirror. “You need to stop saying yes to every guy who asks you out.”
“Bad date?” A blonde came out of the stall and went to the sink next to Harper.
“Bad doesn’t even begin to describe it.”
The woman squirted soap in her hand and turned the water on. Her head tilted toward the far right. “There’s always the window.”
Harper never had to resort to climbing out a window to escape a bad date, but there was a first time for everything. She looked down at her skirt. Not exactly ideal, but it’s not like she was in heels. Being five eight, she avoided giving herself the extra height and always opted for a comfortable pair of flats.
If she didn’t mind possibly giving a show to some unsuspecting bathroom patron, she could totally haul her ass out the window.
“Tempting,” Harper said.
“Whatever you decide, good luck.”
“Thanks.” Harper watched the woman leave and was halfway to the window when she came to a halt. “Really, you’re going to resort to this?” she said to herself. She slipped her phone out of her bag and dialed the one person who always had her back.
Milo, her roommate and best friend since sixth grade, answered on the second ring.
“Aren’t you on a date?” he asked.
“Yes, and I need you to call me in five and pretend it’s an emergency.”
He laughed. Loud. “Another winner, huh? Let me guess, mouth chewer and his parents still pay his bills.”
“Milo.”
“No, not that. Okay, what about…oh I got it! In between jobs and is thinking about following his dream of owning an alpaca farm.”
“Are you done?”
“At least tell me if I’m hot?”
“Just call me in five minutes.” She hung up the phone, made sure the ringer was on full volume, and shoved it into her bag. Not even bothering to check her makeup in the mirror—what was the point—she headed back to her date.
He sat up when she approached, and at least he acknowledged her. He put his phone down and held a half empty glass of liquor that he did not have when she’d left for the bathroom.
“I started to wonder if you fell in,” he said, and her eyes widened before cautiously taking her seat.
