Page 8 of Biggest Player
So handsome.
Younger than I am by several years.
Something about him looks too perfect, too polished, as if his photos have been plucked straight from a stock photo website.
Men like him don’t exist in the real world.
“Not in yours, anyway.”
I’m tempted to do more investigative reporting, though that takes some of the mystery out of dating, does it not? Digging for details? I mean, shouldn’t he be the one to tell me about his personal and professional life? Not the internet?
Yes.
Waiting is the right thing to do, and I have other shit to worry about.
Like my daughter, who’s going to be home soon.
Setting my phone down again, I pick up tidying at the sink where I left off, a long sigh escaping my frustrated lips.
Chapter 3
Dex
To say my date this evening went horribly wrong is an understatement.
I lean back against my pillows, showered and shaved and exhausted, my fingers drumming anxiously on the mattress next to me as my brain recounts the train wreck that was my date with Claire.
It started off promising enough. Meeting someone new always comes with a nervous excitement and anticipation that this could finally be the one who frees me from having to masturbate in the shower, night after night.
But as soon as Claire walked through the door of the sleek bar I’d chosen to meet her at, I knew the night was headed straight for the gutter.
I’m sure you’re asking yourself why.
Dex, what could have possibly been so bad?
Well. Let’s just say the pictures she used in her profile must have been taken during the Paleolithic era because the woman who showed up? Looked nothing like the photos she’d posted.
Not even in the same decade.
Now, I’m all for embracing natural beauty—but there’s a limit to how much Photoshop and editing a person should be allowed to get away with, and let’s just say: she had crossed that limit by a mile.
I tried to hide my shock and disappointment behind a polite smile, but it was impossible to ignore the glaring disparity between expectation and reality. I also couldn’t ignore the fifteen years that had been added to her face—Claire is nowhere near my age, not even close.
I hate being lied to.
Strike one.
“This was a waste of my time,” I said, stifling any chance of salvaging the evening. “No.”
“No? You’re just gonna ... leave?” She raised her thin eyebrows, frosted lipstick from another era sticking to her upper front teeth. “But I want to get to know you! You’re Dex Lansing!”
She clearly only wanted to date me because of who I am, which was strike two. Plus, she was screeching: strike three.
My head was shaking.
No, no, Godno! “Not happening.”
I’m out.
