Jeremiah would know. He came from a large, loud Lebanese family.
“I don’t want a guilt baby,” I scoffed. “It’s just I put so much time into building the professional side of my life, I forgot about the personal side. I want a hot husband who rubs my feet on the couch and knows that I put hot sauce on my pizza. I want to complain about spending Saturday mornings at soccer games and bake three dozen cupcakes at midnight because my self-centered preteen forgot to tell me she volunteered me.”
“Do you have any baby daddy potentials?” Lina asked.
“Are you considering prioritizing a partner or a baby first?” asked the ever-practical Naomi at the same time.
I took a contemplative sip of my margarita. “Ideally? A partner. But do I really have time to meet someone, force them to fall in love with me, and then get knocked up before my eggs turn to tiny balls of dust? Then again, if I start with kids, I might limit the dating pool and miss out on my perfect husband. On the other hand, if a guy is turned off by kids, then he wouldn’t be the kind of husband I want.”
My mental gymnastics were exhausting.
Things would be so much simpler if I walked out the door and met the perfect guy tomorrow. But in reality, if I walked out the door, the only man I was going to run into was a surly one in a suit. The man I loved to hate.
“Okay, that was a lot,” Lina said. “Let’s take it one step at a time. Are you on any dating apps?”
“No.”
“Seriously?” Stef asked. He and Jeremiah shared a baffled couple glance.
“How do you meet men?” Jeremiah asked.
“I don’t know. Organically?” I hedged.
“Well, organic doesn’t get the job done in this day and age,” Lina announced.
“I’d like to point out that you met your fiancé by arriving in town and kissing his brother.” I turned to Naomi and Stef. “And you two met your respective men by walking into a coffee shop and a barber shop.”
Stef tipped his glass at me. “Then you can start walking into every establishment and kissing every human with a penis in a fifty-mile radius, or you can download an app and build a kick-ass dating profile.”
I groaned.
“Is there anyone in town you’d consider dating?” Naomi asked, pen poised over paper.
“Where did you get that notebook?” I asked.
“She carries it in a thigh holster,” Stef quipped.
I scraped my hands over my face. “I can’t even think of a single man in this town that I’d be willing to sleep with. Anyone close to my age, I’ve known since kindergarten. No offense, Jeremiah.”
He winked. “I get it. It’s hard to be attracted to a guy once you’ve seen him pick his nose and wipe it on his construction paper Thanksgiving turkey.”
“What about Suit Daddy?” Stef asked.
I opened my fingers over my eyes to glare at him. “Not in this lifetime.”
“Give me three good reasons why,” he challenged.
I dropped my hands. “He’s unbelievably rude. He’s selfish. He’s so stubborn and controlling that everything has to be done his way or he loses his damn mind. He’s got the whole rich and powerful thing going, which means he’s absolutely corrupt. He’s involved in politics. And not in the ‘I want to make a difference in the world’ way. But in the ‘I want other rich, powerful jackasses to owe me favors’ way. He can’t connect with other human beings because he’s a soulless robot out to make the biggest pile of money for himself so he can hoard it all like some kind of goblin king.”
My audience was blinking at me.
“Anything else?” Lina asked, trying her best to hide her amusement.
“Yeah. That stupid coat is worth more than my Jeep,” I said, pointing at the coat closet. “I googled it.”
There was another long stretch of silence. “So we’ll put Lucian in the no column then,” Naomi said before writing something down in her notebook.
“Fine. I’ll download a dating app,” I acquiesced.
“That’s my girl. I’ll be your ‘swipe right’ expert,” Stef volunteered.
“I’ll be your ‘swipe right’ straight consultant,” Lina said, hefting her margarita glass in my direction.
“I don’t want to make any assumptions. Is Mr. Right definitely a Mr.?” Stef asked me.
“As much as I would have zero qualms making out with Alicia Keys after she serenades me with a ballad, I can’t live without the dick.”
“Man with penis,” Naomi said out loud as she made another note. “What else are you looking for in a man?”
“Um, I guess he should be funny and kind and generous. And it would be nice if he was into gardening to help me keep up with the backyard. Obviously he should like kids…and books.” The cat pranced into the room. I patted the arm of my chair. Meow Meow shot me a look of derision and flounced out as if I’d insulted her. “And bad-tempered cats,” I added.
“Anything else?” Lina asked.
“Good in bed. Really good in bed,” I amended. “Oh, and I’m kind of into reading glasses.”
Stef sighed approvingly. “Hot nerds are so hot.”
“You’ll have beautiful little nerd babies,” Naomi predicted, hugging her notebook to her chest.
“I need more pizza.”
“I need another margarita,” Stef said.
“I’ll make a fresh batch and bring the pizza out here,” Jeremiah volunteered.
All four of us watched his excellent rear end as he exited the room.
“Really nice catch,” Lina said to Stef.
He sighed. “I know.”
“Okay. I think I want to talk about something Dad adjacent,” I announced.
“Hold on. Let’s set the mood,” Lina said before hitting me in the face with a throw blanket.
Naomi clicked the remote for the fireplace and then tiptoed around the room, lighting the candles I had scattered everywhere. Stef nudged a box of tissues toward me. Everyone sat back down and stared raptly at me.
“You know how we’ve been talking about starting some kind of community foundation with the proceeds of the sale of your house on Long Island?” I prompted Naomi.
She nodded, pen hovering over her notebook.
“Well, Dad left both Maeve and me a little money, and I was thinking about how I could use it. What if we created some kind of free legal aid initiative?”
Naomi’s eyes danced in the firelight. “I love it!”
“We could organize local attorneys to provide pro bono services. A lot of the bigger firms encourage their associates to do freebie work. They’d eat up the positive PR,” Lina pointed out.
Naomi and I shared a knowing grin.
“What?” Lina asked.
“You said ‘we,’” I said.
She grimaced. “Shut up. Don’t make me regret befriending you pains in the ass. Besides, my last bonus was embarrassingly huge. I guess I wouldn’t hate putting part of it toward a good cause.”
“Great. Now I’ll look like Scrooge McCheapskate if I don’t cough up some cash too,” Stef complained.
“We won’t judge you,” Naomi promised.
“Yes, we will,” I said.
“Fine. I’ll pony up. But I hope you know this means downsizing my real estate budget.”
“What real estate budget?” Lina demanded.
Stef shrugged and looked at his suede boots. “I maybe kind of am starting to possibly consider the idea of someday broaching the subject about moving in with Jeremiah.”
Naomi let out a high-pitched squeak and was immediately shushed by Stef.
He looked furtively over his shoulder in the direction of the blender sounds. “Zip it, Witty!”
“Sorry,” she whispered, eyes shining.
“I knew things were getting serious since you’re here all the damn time,” Lina pointed out.
“Well, they’re serious for me, but I don’t know how serious they are for my hot, bearded, barber boyfriend.”
“He’s crazy about you,” Naomi insisted, her voice still squeaky.