Page 17 of 28 Dates

Which is probably why even though this guy Michael has his face shaded, his opening line still makes me giggle.

What kind of car does a Jedi drive? A toy-Yoda.

It was perfect and cheesy, and yet it’s like this particular guy knew I needed something so basic after Creepy-Toe-Licking Brett.

Perhaps that’s why I swiped right and kept it saved and spent hours trying to think of the perfect witty response.

Instead, all I came up with was an equally lame joke.

Why did the movies come out 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3…in charge of scheduling Yoda was.

But then I quit playing around and sent him a simpleHey, your pic is really cool. Are you a beach kind of guy or do you prefer the city?

His response:Depends on my mood and who I’m with, but I live in the city.

Since then, we’ve gone back and forth a few times. I’m pretty sure I told him more about me than he did. Isn’t a guy who’s interested in me supposed to be a good thing? Still, the fact he’s dodged some pretty basic questions already makes me question continuing further discussion.

What can I say? Meeting a guy who said he wanted to lick my toes in a public bathroom has made me ultracautious.

Like when I asked him what he did for a living, his response wasI work late nights. Which could be anything from a bartender to a semi-truck driver to a pimp or a drug dealer. I mean, help a girl out. If I was seriously trying to use online dating to find my soulmate, I’d be frustrated. It appears some men aren’t any better at communicating through a keyboard than they are in person.

Still, something about the way this guy banters with me when I give my answers appeals to me. He seems playful yet mysterious. It could be an attractive thing…or deadly.

“How’s the app working for you?” Trey asks. He plops down on the love seat next to my couch and kicks his feet up onto my coffee table. The guy is a self-made multimillionaire, and it always cracks me up how he dresses like he’s a freshman in college and he didn’t learn how to do laundry before leaving home. Today he’s wearing sweatpants that are frayed at the hems around his ankles, bare feet because he kicked off his Adidas slides as soon as he stepped into my apartment. His black T-shirt is worn and stretched around the V-neck collar. He looks a mess, and yet I know his mind is always working, and even though it’s only seven in the morning, he’s already been up for well over an hour, either running around the city park paths or working out in the building’s exercise room.

“Besides the creep who offered to lick my toes?”

When he called over the weekend, I told him I’d tell him this morning. I didn’t want to spend more time thinking about it than I had to. Plus, I really wanted to see the look on his face.

It’s priceless and totally worth the wait. I grin around the edge of my mug.

His face scrunches like his eggs are churning in his stomach. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. It was gross, Trey. And then he grabbed my hand and asked if he could see them in the bathroom.”

All grossness evaporates, and his face turns to steel. “What’s his screen name?” He’s already yanking out his phone and arching his brows at me. “And when was this again?”

“Thursday.” I barely mumble the word. The guy’s protectiveness of me gets a bit unbearable sometimes. Would Trey act like this if I wasn’t his best friend? “It’s not like you can do anything. The guy has a weird toe fetish. I mean, sure, I wouldn’t have liked to learn about it over coffee, but it’s not like he did anything wrong.”

“Did nothing wrong? Did you just tell me he grabbed you? That’s not okay, Caty-bug.”

Sometimes it’s like they forget I was the one attacked. They saved me. I healed from it. I’ve been able to open up to men since then, and I don’t think my attack in a dorm stairwell has anything to do with my reason for not wanting to fall in love. I’ve just seen repeatedly how it doesn’t work. My parents are the prime example. They married for love, which quickly turned to regret and then bitterness, and in the midst of ruining each other, they raised me as the forgotten third wheel. Who wants to make a lifelong commitment and have it end that way?

Not me.

Still, what I seem to forget is the look of fear and fury that had hit Trey and Corbin as soon as they’d seen me held against a cement wall. A guy I didn’t even know approached me in the hallway after leaving a dorm party. He’d shoved me through the door, pressed his body up against mine on the wall, and before I knew it he’d slapped me and shoved his hand beneath my skirt.

Fortunately, that’s as far as it went before Corbin and Trey found us and shoved him off me. But that look of fury on their faces that night? Two other strange men barreling down the stairway, coming across that, it’s forever ingrained in my mind. And it’s what helped me heal because even though there are a bunch of assholes in the world, Trey and Corbin constantly remind me that there are far more good and decent men, too.

“His name is Brett.”

“I mean his screen name.”

“That is his screen name. Unoriginal. Unassuming. It might have had some numbers after it, but when we talked he seemed completely nice. It’s not like he’s the only creep in the world.”

“That doesn’t matter, and if he’s going to be scaring women away, he’s not the guy for this round of testing. Besides, him grabbing you in any way is against the terms and conditions they agree to before signing up.”

Like anyone ever reads those. I let it go, though. Trey knows what he’s doing.

---