Page 79 of Off the Wall

Jason takes a beat, scratches his chin. “Well, that’s good to know.” His eyes flash with amusement. “Because I have some news.”

Me

Cullen. Dude. I hope that baby of yours comes out of the womb loving plane rides, because her Uncle Cash is moving to LA. I think you’re gonna need to fly my niece out once a month. Okay? Okay.

Me

Scratch that. We’ll set up a weekly Zoom meeting, because I don’t want to miss even a little bit of that munchkin growing up.

Me

On second thought, let’s do daily FaceTimes. My niece will need to recognize my ugly mug and my dumb voice so when you DO visit, she’s not scared of me.

Me

Final thought: I’m going to send you a voice message to play to Lauren’s belly starting tonight. That’s not too much to ask, right? I’ll pay for her college. Anyway. Call me.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Nori

Spring Into Love Campaign

Post-Date Assessment

(CONFIDENTIAL)

Name:Warren

Date and location:Axe-throwing at Sir Axe-A-Lot.

Best adjectives to describe the date:Greasy (him). Stabby (me).

Memorable moment:Trying to handle an axe after eating mutton with bare hands.

Overall score out of 10:0. Sorry, Warren. It’s not me. It’s absolutely you.

* The rest of the night’s events are redacted. Jemma Lane has the full report.

*This profile has been removed from the Swipe Rite app. He is no longer part of the campaign.

Name:Kenneth

Date and location:Grape Crushing at Springfields Vineyard.

Best adjectives to describe the date:Purple (him). Purple (me).

Memorable moment:Hosing our feet off afterward. Honestly, the grapes felt SO gross between my toes.

Overall score out of 10:5. Off topic, but Kenneth goes by Kenny, which he didn’t tell me until the end of the date, so I felt bad for calling him Kenneth all day. But he was perfectly nice.

Name:Julian

Date and location:Pottery throwing at Kil-N-Me Softly.

Best adjectives to describe the date:Overly neat (him). Overly messy (me).

Memorable moment:My bowl looked like an ashtray, and my date wore gloves

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