She looked out toward the highway in the distance, then turned back to me. “You don’t need to feel bad for me. My life isn’t miserable, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”
Damn. I really couldn’t win with her. She twisted every compliment I tried to give.
“I wasn’t insinuating that your life is miserable, Aspyn. Just acknowledging that you have a lot on your plate and you shouldn’t feel guilty for anything that happened today.” I sighed. “What do you do for fun?”
She bit her bottom lip, seeming to struggle to come up with an answer. “I…”
“That wasn’t a trick question, you know.”
“I just…have to think about it.”
“You have to think about it, or you can’t remember the last time you let loose?” I shook my head. “Fuck, you’re really wound up tight, aren’t you?”
“Keep your impressions of me to yourself. You don’t need to be concerned with how much fun I have.”
“All work and no play is no way to live.”
She blew out a frustrated breath. “Okay, then I have a proposition for you. Why don’t you come over tonight and help Kiki with her homework while I go out on the town?”
“I would totally do that, if you’d let me.”
The funny thing, I was dead serious.
She shook her head. “I was just making a point. I would never let you do that.”
“If you trusted me, you would.”
“That’s right. I don’t trust you.”
Ouch. I nodded. “It’s okay. I’d probably end up dead by water gun before I made it out of there.” “I don’t trust you.” Jeez. Tell me how you really feel, Aspyn. I’d made light of things, but what she said bummed me out.
She cracked a smile. “That’s probably true about the water gun.”
That comment felt like a small victory.
“Well, see you later,” she said.
I hadn’t been ready to end this conversation, but she was clearly eager to be rid of me. Yet again.
“Have a good night,” I said. “See you next Tuesday.”
She was about to open her car door but paused. “Was that a hidden cunt joke?”
“What?”
“C-U-N-T? See you next Tuesday?”
“For the love of God, Aspyn. Give me one shred of credit.”
She laughed as she got in her car.
I stood there and watched as she drove off.
Damn, she was a hard nut to crack.
? ? ?
That night, I felt restless. My days here in Meadowbrook were nothing like my life in Seattle. Back there, I had a large social network, meeting friends a few times a week for drinks after work. I also went on at least one date a week. But I hadn’t gone out with a woman here since arriving a month ago. Aside from visits to Nonno, I worked all day, then did pretty much nothing unless Eric was around. But he had a girlfriend who took up a good chunk of his time, so he wasn’t always available when I felt like hanging out.
Stuck in my dad’s house and bored, I decided to reactivate the dating app I’d used out in Seattle. I just reconfigured the preferred settings to New Jersey. Over the next half hour, I swiped left to reject almost every profile shown to me. I was a picky sonofabitch—I had no problem admitting that. If she didn’t completely rock my world in the looks department and have an interesting write-up on top of that, it was an automatic no. But the pattern of rejections tonight came to an abrupt end when I stopped on one particular profile. It took several seconds before I even believed what I was seeing. Staring back at me, smiling, was none other than Aspyn Dumont.
Well, what do you know? She’s not a complete hermit after all.
This was an Easter egg of epic proportions.
I gleefully perused her photos, feeling like I was getting away with murder. In one, she wore heavy makeup and a fancy dress, a far cry from Goofy scrubs. In another image, she wore a black halter top and looked to be out at a bar, based on the hanging drink glasses in the background. My eyes fixated on her cleavage, which I knew she wouldn’t be caught dead willingly showing me. God, she had amazing tits. Perhaps I should tell her that and wait to get my ass handed to me. Look at that smile. No resting bitch face to be found in any of these photos.
When I looked down at the description in her profile, though, I cringed. It was filled with dating app clichés and might as well have been automatically generated by a robot.
Looking for someone with a heart as big as his sense of humor. I enjoy long walks on the bike path and nights in by the fire. Dishonest people need not apply.
Yawn. Come on, Aspyn. You can do better than that.
This generic mumbo jumbo didn’t even begin to represent the spitfire she actually was. Passionate, loyal, a little nuts. I supposed putting the word crazy in her bio wouldn’t have been good, but at least it wasn’t generic.
I kept staring at the photo of her in the black halter top. Her smile in that one seemed particularly genuine compared to the others. It wasn’t a selfie. And that made me wonder who was on the other end of that camera. It was nice to see her looking happy, and I honestly couldn’t take my eyes off her. The right thing to do would have been to swipe left to reject her as an option—but that would have been no fun at all.
No. Instead, I swiped right. In any case, I knew if Aspyn ever spotted me on here, she’d swipe left to reject me faster than she could blink.
Aspyn
My old high school friend Jasmine lived in the beautiful town of New Hope, Pennsylvania, right near the Delaware River. Her house was close to the center of town, with lots of eclectic shops and restaurants nearby. It was about an hour’s drive, and I almost always came out to visit her. Jasmine’s husband, Cole, traveled a lot, and she never seemed to be able to find a sitter.
I’d called her two days ago when I got home from work after the second outing with Troy to tell her I’d like to come see her and the baby this weekend. One of the reasons for my trip was to tell her about the situation with Troy—her ex.
When I arrived, Jasmine had just put Hannah, her daughter, down for a nap. Holding a bottle of wine and two glasses, she plopped down on her mustard yellow, velour sofa. She’d always had unique style. There was a neon No Vacancy sign in the middle of the living room and modern artwork adorning the walls. The shoes she’d worn on her wedding day—Stuart Weitzman encrusted with Swarovski crystals—were proudly displayed in an illuminated glass case in the corner.
The wine glasses clanked as she placed them on the rustic coffee table, along with the bottle. “So, you mentioned you had something interesting to tell me?”
I rubbed my hands together. “Yeah, actually. But maybe you should pour us some wine first.”
I’m definitely going to need it for this.
Jasmine poured us each a glass of rosé, and I began telling her the story—how the grandson of one of our seniors broke the old man out of the facility. I felt it was important to give her the background first before dropping the bomb.
“So, ready for the clincher?” I finally asked.
She leaned in. “What is it?”
“Turns out, the guy I’m chaperoning is…Troy Serrano.”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“Yup. How’s that for bad luck?”
She put her glass down. “You’re absolutely kidding me.”