Page 13 of Dating Mr. Right A Collection
“He’s in town for a few more days,” she adds, and my heart balloons back up.
But still, with all my willpower, I resist asking to see him. He’s leaving, so it’s pointless. “That’s great. I’m seriously behind. I need to go.”
I grab my tablet and phone and skedaddle out of her place. But being next door is too close, too claustrophobic, and there are too many online men occupying too much real estate in my brain.
I text my best friend, Piper, and ask if she can finagle a late-night meeting.
* * *
By the fifth hole, I’ve caught Piper up on all my online dating escapades.
“This is fabulous news,” Piper declares as she swings her golf club. She’s a whiz at miniature golf, and I wish I could become one by osmosis.
“And why is this such a fabulous development?” I position my purple golf ball on the tee, the bright lights illuminating the course even at this late hour.
“So many of my clients these days are meeting online.” Piper is something of a wedding planner, so she knows the intricacies of how couples meet and bind in holy matrimony. “Many of the online matches get engaged and married sooner, and often they seem to get along better. That’s what those of us in the wedding biz call a hole in one.”
I look up from the ball, club in hand. “What percentage of your clients have met online?”
She screws up the corner of her lips and glances toward the sky. Piper lives in New York, but she’s in town prepping for a wedding she’s working on. “Well, since you are sort of obsessed with numbers and statistics, I’ll say seventy-six percent. But it’s also entirely possible I might have pulled that number out of thin air.”
“Well, why don’t you pull it out of un-thin air? Why don’t you tell me how many people really meet online?”
She pats my shoulder then gestures to the tee. “Take your turn first.”
I whack the ball, watching as it rolls underneath a swinging pirate ship, landing miserably far from the hole. “You’re trying to get me to mess up.”
“You do an excellent job of that on your own, which is why I love playing with you.”
“Someday you’ll meet someone who’s amazing at mini golf, and it will be unbearably difficult for you to actually have to compete,” I tease.
“But that day hasn’t come yet.”
We walk along the green to the balls and Piper taps hers lightly, sending it to the hole, then answers my question. “Easily more than half of the weddings I do are for couples who met online. It’s the most popular way people meet these days.”
I hit the purple ball, and it mocks me by zipping close to the hole then doglegging away. Evil orb. “My grams thinks online dating will lead me to Jack the Ripper’s door.”
“Maybe it’ll lead to Jack Rip-off-your-clothes-and-bang-you-against-a-door.”
I wiggle my eyebrows. “A girl can dream.”
With the club in her hand, she presses her palms together. “A girl can pray.”
For a second, I wonder if LuckySuit is a bang-you-against-the-door kind of guy. Then I wonder where that thought came from.
Oh yeah, chatting with him.
With the guy who lives in New York, so it’s pointless.
Piper flicks her chestnut hair off her shoulder. “So, tell me about these guys that you’ve been meeting online. I’m dying to hear.”
As I tap, tap, tap to five strokes on a par two, I tell her about LuckySuit and what went down tonight. “His real name is Cameron.”
“What’s his last name, so we can online stalk him and see if he’s Hemsworthy.”
My shoulders sag. “I didn’t get it.”
“Ask your grams.”
I shake my head. “I can’t.”
“Why?”
“It’d be like admitting she was right.”
“Oh, well, you can’t do that.”
“But there’s this other guy . . .”
Her eyes pop wide in avid interest, and I update her on my conversation with ThinkingMan.
“When are you going to meet him?” she asks as we stroll to the next hole.
The possibility makes my skin spark with both nerves and excitement. “Should I meet him?”
“You should meet him and you should meet Cameron.”
“But Cameron doesn’t even live here.”
She shrugs happily. “It can’t hurt. Just tell your grams you want to meet her friend. It’s not admitting defeat. It’s opening yourself up to possibility.”
Funny, how earlier I was juggling one possibility. Now there are two. And both are appealing.
Especially when I find a message from one the next morning.
8
Cameron
My phone rings while I’m jogging along the beach as the pink light of dawn stretches across the sky.
“Hey, Jeanne,” I say. “What’s shaking?”
“Not the earth, thank heavens.”
“Indeed, that’s a good thing. By the way, did you hear about last night? And how I chatted with your granddaughter?”
“Only a little. Seems my Kristen deleted the conversation the two of you had, but I’m not a spy. I’m simply a little old lady who wants her granddaughter to have a nice date with a nice man.”
