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So, yeah: I assumed the worst when I was meeting Bella the other night at the cliffs with a mystery box, since all signs pointed to it containing something fucked up.

Then I got there and found her waiting in a gorgeous dress, hair done, looking like I’d never seen her before.

And it occurred to me that maybe she wasn’t fucking with me at all.

Maybe she actually wanted me.

I mean, I doubt it. All of that probably was her trying to fuck with me. But on the very remote chance that my stabby little nemesis actually had it in her head that she wanted to get closer to me, hell, even get to know me better?

Well, that's a terrible fucking idea. For her.

So naturally, rather than examine any of that like a psychologically well-adjusted adult, I behaved like enough of an asshole to make her hate me again.

Problem solved, right?

Wrong. Apparently, nobody bothered to inform my dick.

Hence…Vivienne.

Now, I might be using Vivienne to try and take my mind off Princess Psychopants, she of the perfect tits and toxic yet annoyingly infectious personality. But I’m not going to be sleeping with Vivienne, despite her plunging neckline, coy looks, and oh-so-subtle hand on my thigh the whole drive here.

Not because I’m too nice.

Please.

I kill people for a hobby. I’m not exactly burdened by an overdeveloped conscience.

No, the reason I already know I won’t be putting my dick in or anywhere near my date this evening became abundantly obvious the second she opened the passenger door and got into my car.

She’s beautiful. She’s interested. She wants me.

And all three of those are boring the shit out of me.

Apparently my brain has developed a taste for five-foot-nothing homicidal gremlins who look at me like they’re mentally calculating the force required to shove me into oncoming traffic.

Bella doesn’t flirt with me. She doesn’t put her hand on my thigh or drag her finger up my arm while I’m trying to drive.

She challenges me. Antagonizes me. She gets under my skin and is delighted when she finds out there are nerves there she can poke at.

She’s the first person I’ve met in a long fucking time who feels less like prey and more like a worthy sparring partner.

And somewhere along the way my dick has started confusing that with foreplay, which is incredibly irritating.

Because now, sitting beside a gorgeous blonde who clearly wants to skip dinner and swallow my cock instead, it feels less like opportunity and more like settling.

I don’t settle.

I also don’t really listen to Vivienne as she talks about…well, God only knows. At one point, I literally can’t keep listening to her, so I tell her I have an important call to take “for the family business” and excuse myself. I spend the next ten minutes in the alcove leading to the restrooms, grinning at the latest batch of horrified comments on the video of a dead sewer rat burning to a crisp on the third rail of the 42nd Street subway station that I posted last night.

829,000 horrified impressions and counting, baby.

Eventually, I see our food arriving. I pocket the phone and head back to set a new world record for eating a porterhouse steak so I can wrap this up.

“…anyway, that’s how Megan and I ended up on such bad terms,” Vivienne says unprompted when I sit.

Great. We’re picking up right where we left off.

I’m debating if Vivienne could be convinced not to come to the hospital with me if I were to stab my fork into my own thigh right now when a black storm suddenly rolls across our table with the cold wind of an open tomb.