Page 80 of Off the Wall

Overall Score out of 10:4. Julian was very handsome but there was zero spark. Like molding clay with a Ken doll.

Name:Tad

Date and location:Cooking Class with Chef Matteo at Aria, followed by dinner.

Best adjectives to describe the date:Thin (the pasta and Tad). Full (me).

Memorable moment:Scarfing an entire plate of fettuccini while my date picked at half an antipasto salad.

Overall Score out of 10:3. Would eat at Aria again. Won’t date Tad again.

Name:Stephen. With a PH.

Date and location:Paint night at Parkman Gallery

Best adjectives to describe the date: StePHen was positively emPHatic, about the spelling of his name. I thought he was being PHunny. He was not.

Memorable moment:The instructor had to come over andPHix my vase of daisies, which she then inPHormed me is—and I quote—“The easiest PHlower to paint.”

Overall score out of 10:4. Stephen was just PHine. But I ended up lauPHing at him, not with him.

As of last night,I’ve gone out with nine of my ten Swipe Rite men, and thankfully, none of the other matches turned out to be like Warren. No one on the internet has any idea about the pool incident, but the awkward videos from our Sir Axe-A-Lot date sure got plenty of play. Like, more than any of the others.

During our latest check-in, Jemma said their already-increasing membership spiked even higher in the first forty-eight hours after our axe-throwing and mutton-eating, simply because the exposure was so high.

But ultimately, Swipe Rite wants potential singles to think of their app as the place they’ll meet their future princess or Prince Charming, not a series of un-kissable frogs. So they decided to roll out a new angle to the campaign:

Who Will Nori Choose?

In addition to the usualpics and videos Swipe Rite has been sharing, there are bonus posts now, with montages of clips and carousels from my previous dates. Oh, and these all include polls.

Sometimes they ask people to vote on which guy they want me to choose for myself.

Sometimes they ask which guy the singles would choose for themselves if they could.

For the record, Quentin and Miles are stealing that particular show. Poor rashy Clayton is dead last, even though the allergy wasn’t his fault.

So now I kind of want to vote for him just to even things out.

Meanwhile, for the past week and a half, Cash has been unusually—what’s the word I’m looking for?—attentive. For a guy who doesn’t have time to date, the man sure checks in on me a lot. Even more than East and Becca do, and I still get daily texts or calls from them.

He’ll stop by, knocking on my door, asking if I want him to grab my mail. And he’s usually around when I’m arriving home from my dates, either in the library reading, or out in the courtyard on a lounge chair. He’ll flash me a little wave or salute. Not intruding. Just … there. Paying attention. Aware of me.

And I like that.

Not to mention I barely have to ride Red to work anymore. That’s because Cash constantly texts, offering to drop me off and pick me up. I have no idea how he manages this, given his work schedule. I can’t imagine he’s suddenly booking fewer cases each week. So I’m starting to think he drives back and forth from his hospitals multiple times a day just to be my chauffeur. He’s always wearing scrubs. Usually in a hurry. And yet, he’ll still make time to pop into the shop and buy some baked goods.

Everyone at Serendipi-Tea loves him now.

To be clear, I don’tlove himlove him. That’s not what I meant. In this case, I’m using the word “love” to mean the way people feel about a beautiful sunset. Or ripe peaches. Maybe winning a particularly hard game of Scrabble. These things are delightful, but not necessary to survival like actuallovelove.

And no matter how much I like Cash—evenlikelike him—pursuing a man who avoids relationships is a waste of my time. Especially since my goals haven’t changed. I still want to end up with my perfect match before I’m thirty. So I can’tgive my heart to someone who actively runs from love. And I don’t want to turn Cash into something he isn’t.

He’s worked hard to get where he is today. After losing everything, he picked himself back up again and found new goals to pursue. He wants to move to the West Coast someday so he can do more to help kids who need spine surgery. What kind of woman tries to interfere with a dream like that? A selfish one, that’s who. And that’s the exact opposite of the Nori I’m aspiring to be. Which is why I’m so grateful Dorothy’s finally ready to be picked up.

I’ve been enjoying Cash driving me to and from work a little too much lately. Not to mention the casual run-ins before and after my dates. It’s like Cash Briggs was a nonissue for the first twenty-seven years of my life, and in less than twenty-seven days, he’s become the one constant I can count on.

For someone I wrote off as an egotistical doctor the first time I saw him, he’s proven to be one of the most down-to-earth people I’ve ever met. I wonder if he would’ve turned out that way if his career with the Black-Caps had continued. If Cash Briggs remained the pro-athlete he’d been groomed to be.

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