Page 19 of Cloudy With a Chance of Bad Decisions

“Okay, he was nice.” He was not nice.

“Nice?Wow. That’s boring.”

“Shut up.”

“Nice is what you call the weather, Alex. Not a cute guy who is exactly your type.”

“I don’t have a type.”

“Sure you do. You know, anything with a pulse.” June’s grin grew wolfish. It was the same smile I wore half the time and I decided I really didn’t like it being directed at me.

“Ha,ha. Fuck you.”

“Fuck yourself.” June flipped me off.

I flipped her off back.

The train finally departed, and we were on the move again.

Silence filled the cluttered truck as June gathered her thoughts.

Leaning my head against the headrest, I watched the city melt into the country. Endless fields, tall golden corn, trees that drifted along the sides of the road casting long shadows we drove right through. A sunny summer sky and puffy white clouds spread as far as the eye could see, no high-rises or mountains to break the never-ending blue. The dotted yellow line that curled like a serpent down the winding road led us deeper and deeper into the countryside. Away from Columbus and toward Chesterton, the small town Roderick—and George—had been raised in.

“For real, though,” June spoke again, quieter this time. “Did you like him? We were hoping you’d like him.”

“We” as in June and her gaggle of matchmaking accomplices—Roderick, her fiancé, among them. Most of June’s matchmaking efforts had been made on her own. Not this one, though, nope. Because apparently, one person trying to hook me up for her wedding wasn’t annoying enough. I needed a whole goddamn army.

Though I highly doubted Roderick had been outright involved in the ticket purchasing aspects of June’s plan. He wasn’t diabolical enough for that.

“I know you were.” I knew why June had set this up in the first place. And because I knew, even though my first instinct was to blow her off, I couldn’t do that. Not when she looked so cautiously hopeful. Not when her pale blue eyes were bright.

Not when she’d admitted to me in confidence before I’d left home for my business trip in New York that her greatest wish for her wedding was to make sure I wasn’t alone, even if it was only temporary.

It was my own fault, really.

For stupidly trusting her with my secrets.

She knew better than anyone how badly I wanted what she had. When I’d informed her I wasn’t bringing a plus-one, she’d made it her mission to find me one. Even though she also knew I’d written off love.

Love meant being known.

Being seen.

Being accepted for all your flaws.

And I knew, least of all, no one was going to look at my pile of dirty socks and think “wow, this one’s a keeper.”

I was a romantic.

A romantic who was terrified of romance.

What a joke.

“George is cute,” I admitted, because it was true. I didn’t often open up about real feelings. But I figured I owed hersomething. “Especially when he’s grumpy.”

“When he’s…” June groaned. “Christ, please tell me you didn’tintentionallypiss him off?”

“I don’t want to lie.”

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