Page 18 of Dating Mr. Right A Collection
She sighs heavily. “Yes, I remember discussing all that with LuckySuit. But I don’t understand how you’re you too. How you’re the other guy as well.”
I laugh, confused as a tangled mess of wires. “Me neither. Well, correction. I do understand how I’m me. But I don’t understand who you’ve been talking to.”
Her face is a portrait of frustration. “It’s you on the dating site. I’ve been talking to you.”
I shake my head, slow and easy. “I’m not on any online dating sites.”
She blinks, whispering in a hush, “You’re not?”
“I thought about trying it out. I got online the other night. I came this close to setting up a profile. But I didn’t pull the trigger. I was even telling my business partner, Lulu, the other day that I’d been considering it.”
“You really didn’t go through with it?”
I shake my head. “No. I poked around, but in the end, I didn’t do it. She even offered to set up my profile. But it never felt right.”
Kristen drags a hand through her hair. “You knew about the stargazing and astronomy and asking questions though.”
“Well, yeah.” I’m about to add that Jeanne told me all those details, when Kristen cuts in.
“But it was your picture. You look just like your picture.”
“My picture?” A laugh bursts from my throat. A strange what the hell laugh. “Someone is pretending to be me? This I need to see.” I wiggle my fingers, the sign to show me the goods.
She grabs her phone, clicks on a few screens, then shoves it at me.
And there I am indeed.
Looking good.
Looking like I did on Sunday morning.
At the car auction.
The weirdness is unweirded. The confusion is de-confused. I take a deep breath. “I believe we’ve been catfished.”
“Ya think?”
I can barely rein in a smile. “We’ve been pranked, Kristen.” A laugh rumbles deep in my belly, moves up my chest, and spills out. I laugh harder than I’ve laughed in a long time. I can barely speak, and I grab her arm as if I’ll topple over.
She chuckles lightly too, as if she can’t quite fight it off. “Are you okay . . . whoever you are?”
I straighten, wipe the remnants of laughter away, and look her in the eye. “I’m Cameron, like I said. And it seems Jeanne was playing me, since she’s the real Camera-er.”
She stares at me with those wide green eyes, waiting for all the puzzle pieces to slide together. “What do you mean?”
“That picture of me on ThinkingMan’s profile? Jeanne took it on Sunday. At the car auction.”
Her expression transforms from perplexed, to shocked, to a new sort of awe. “Are you kidding me?”
I grab her phone, make the photo bigger, and show her where Jeanne was standing on Sunday. “There. She was right next to me. And she snapped a sneaky selfie like this.” I wrap my arm around Kristen’s shoulders, like Jeanne had hers around me, and mime snapping a shot.
Then I snap the photo for real. “There.”
I linger for a second. Because she smells delicious. Like mangoes and pineapples. Like a tropical treat at a popsicle stand, and I would like to take a little lick of her neck. Add in a nibble on her earlobe. A kiss of her jawline.
Then, I’d kiss her lips, soft at first, then hard and properly. The kind of kiss that makes a woman swoon. That makes her melt. That’s the only way a woman should ever be kissed.
But we’re trying to sort out a catfishing case, so I drop my arm.
She lets out a gust of breath that tells me maybe she liked my arm around her too.
Then she laughs, full throttle, in a way that shakes her whole body to the bones. And it’s incredibly sexy to watch a woman laugh so unabashedly. So shamelessly.
When she stops, she’s smiling, and it’s somehow brighter, richer, fuller than before.
And I still like her.
Even though I’m not sure how many conversations she’s had with me, or someone else.
I show her the picture. “See? She just snipped herself out.”
Kristen shakes her head in appreciation. “She is such a sneaky bird.”
I smile. “And I thought I was clever with doctored birth certificates.”
“A few days ago, I made her think I was going to send a formal breakup letter to the last guy she set me up with. I had her going on Saturday night, believing me.”
I lift a brow. “Maybe she was trying to pull a fast one on you in retaliation?”
“Oh, she definitely wins the prank wars on this one. She’s been pretending to be you and chatting with me.” She shakes a fist. “I’m going to wring that dirty bird’s neck when I see her again.”
A knot of disappointment tightens inside me. I was hoping Kristen would be on the same page. That she was enjoying our date as much as I was. But it seems she’s not sure who she’s enjoyed spending time with.
