“Who says I’m settling?” I threw my hands up in disbelief. “None of you have met him.”
“We don’t need to,” Aidan said. “Your last five dates have all borne a scarily similar resemblance and the personality of a wet blanket. You keep selling yourself short, Grace. Can you blame us for being skeptical about this guy?”
“And when Aidan says ‘scarily similar resemblance,’ he means guys who are punching way above their weight dating you,” Chloe added.
“No, they weren’t. That’s such a shallow thing to say. It’s not all about looks, you know. I’m not exactly Angelina Jolie myself.”
Aidan made an irritated noise and reached for his mug of coffee. He took a drink rather than saying something that might upset me. Chloe, however, cursed and snapped, “I could kill your bloody mother.”
“Yes, well, get in line,” I muttered, taking a sip of my own coffee and avoiding eye contact with her. I did not want to have that particular conversation.
“My brother’s friend Joe saw your photo on my Facebook page. He said he thinks you’re beautiful.” Juno grinned at me.
I blushed and squirmed uncomfortably. “He did not.”
She laughed. “He did so. I asked Ally to bring him to Scotland next time he visits me.”
“Don’t be silly.” I huffed at the thought.
“Is this Joe hot?” Chloe asked.
“Oh yeah.”
“As much as I appreciate the compliment, I think I’ll still go on my date with Bryan, if that’s okay. I can compromise on a lot of things, but having an ocean between me and my boyfriend isn’t one of them.”
“How about a landing?” Chloe teased.
I wrinkled my nose at her wayward thoughts. “Logan MacLeod is the least likely candidate for boyfriendhood of any man in the entire world.”
She raised an eyebrow at me, and I flushed again when I realized I’d practically shouted it. “Famous last words.”
“No, not famous last words,” I insisted, feeling that immediate aggravation ignite in my very blood at the thought of my neighbor. “Logan MacLeod is uncouth, probably riddled with sexual diseases, and he’s not at all to my taste. And I am definitely not to his taste. You should see the women he sleeps with. They’re all sexy, tan, blond hair and big boobs. He thinks I have a stick up my arse because the hem of my skirt sits below my crotch and I do up the buttons over my cleavage.”
Chloe’s eyes were round as I ranted on. She turned to Aidan and Juno in seeming wonder. “I have to meet this man.”
“Why?” I snapped.
“Because he’s clearly got something intriguing about him if he can do this to you.” She gestured to me in a vague way.
“Do what?”
“This,” she insisted, repeating the vague gesturing.
I clenched my teeth together. “What is this?”
“I don’t know what it is. I just know it’s something.”
It had been suggested in the past by people who didn’t really know me at all well that as an editor who spent her days editing romantic fiction, I might have unrealistic expectations of men. Anyone who knew me – really knew me – knew that wasn’t true. Although I was actively looking for the man I wanted to spend my life with, I wasn’t looking for a fantasy man. I was looking for someone understanding, protective, and funny. I didn’t expect perfection. I just wanted to like the person I was dating, and I wanted him to be kind.
Bryan was neither funny nor kind.
“So the bitch took the fish, even though she never bought the fish,” Bryan finished, his nostrils flaring.
I blinked, wondering how my mentioning that my hake had been delicious had somehow gotten us onto the topic of his ex-girlfriend. Again. So far Bryan had turned all of our conversations on this abysmal date back to his last two ex-girlfriends.
He seemed to be a very angry little man.
Bored, I somehow found myself kicking the hornet’s nest. “But didn’t you say you won it at a fun fair for her?”
He scowled. “That’s not the point.”
“Surely a gift once given cannot be taken back?”
“Ugh, that’s such a fucking female thing to say.”
I stuck my hand up at the passing waiter. “Check, please.”
Exhausted from the terrible date, all I wanted was to get home and snuggle up to watch the latest episode of my favorite reality singing contest, which I’d recorded from the weekend.
I was hurrying up my stairwell when, to my horror, his door opened.