Page 28 of You've Got Male

“You need another?”

“No. Yes.” She laughed but the lines around her eyes didn’t crinkle. “My family and friends have become obsessed with my dating life.”

Jonah was a little obsessed with her dating life, too. Like wanting to know if she had one. And if she did, was it serious?And why did that bother him so much?

“To the point that they have schemed behind my back to find me my soulmate using social media. I’ve gone viral, Jonah.”

“That sounds like a you problem,” he said.

“Men show up at my work with roses, asking me out on dates, professing their undying love, and trying to convince me that we’re a perfect pair. I have to publicly turn down each one and it’s not only embarrassing, I feel awful. I don’t want to be the turn-down queen,” she said. “There was practically aBacheloretteepisode shot at the coffee house the other day, which was streamed live on ClickByte. Someone even left a poem comparing my body to a Ferrari on my front windshield. It’s not just my family and friends now. It’s as if all of America has an opinion on my dating life.”

“You want to hear my opinion?” he asked softly, making sure to have zero judgment in his tone. He knew how many cooks she had in her kitchen. He’d been around her family and friends enough to know how much they ran over her wants and needs. Never in a malicious way, it came from a place of love, but he imagined the outcome was the same—Evie feeling like her life wasn’t her own.

“Nope.”

He bumped her shoulder with his. “That’s a shame because I was rooting for Ernie.”

“Are you shitting me?” She smacked his bicep. “You let me tell the whole humiliating story and you already knew?”

He chuckled. “Well, I didn’t know about the poem. And a Ferrari, huh? I’d say you were more a Chevrolet SUV.”

She glared at him. “You just downgraded me from a sports car to an SUV.”

“A sleek and sophisticated SUV that is efficient and dependable and safe. I would trust it with my family.”

Shock and tenderness filled her eyes, and when she spoke hervoice was barely a whisper. “Even if I did make you almost kill Ryan’s tree?”

He rested his hand on her leg and gave it a squeeze. He tried not to focus on the way her silky skin felt beneath his palm, or the way his thumb moved back and forth along the gentle slope of the knee. “Even then.”

Evie’s phone rang. She didn’t move to answer it, just tilted her beer back and downed it in one gulp.

“I’ll let you get that and”—he paused—“thanks.”

This was his chance to get out of there, but instead Jonah found himself saying, “It could be your prince coming to save you.”

“I’m not looking to be saved. Plus, I don’t believe in princes. Unless they come bearing wine, then I might think about—”

Her phone rang again.

“You should probably get that,” he said again but didn’t move.

Evie looked down at the screen and groaned.

“Ernie?” he asked.

“No. It’s the butcher from Marnie’s Meats and More. My mom gave him my number after he saw my video.”

“And you’re avoiding him because you don’t want to date a butcher?”

“I’m avoiding him because I don’t want to—”

Her phone rang again.

“You can’t just keep ignoring him and hoping he’ll go away.”

“You know what? You’re absolutely right.” She handed him her phone. “Here.”

“No can do. I’m not into butchers.”

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