Page 50 of Suddenly Dating
“I can’t come. I’m going to a party here in East Beach. I think I’m finally going to get to meet Birta Hoffman.”
“No way!” Casey squealed. “For real? How? Are you going with the woman you met?”
“Mallory. The party is at her house. But I’m going with...” Lola hesitated and squinted toward the living room. The big sliders were open, and she could see through to the front door.
“Who?”
“No one you know,” Lola said.
“Who,”Casey said sternly.
“A guy—”
“Aguy?—”
“Who happens to be my roommate. Don’t get too excited.”
Lola’s announcement was met with a long moment of stunned silence. “Whatroommate?” Casey shouted. “You have not mentioned a roommate all month! I thought it was just you in that house.”
“It was! I mean, at first it was. He was completely unexpected. But it’s turned into the weirdest thing,” she said, and filled her sister in on the events leading up to that very afternoon.
Casey took it all in, punctuating Lola’s tale with a lot of exclamations. But when Lola finished, she said, “Well? What’s he look like? Is he hot?”
“Casey!” Lola said laughingly.
“Oh. He’s ugly.”
“He’s not ugly! I’m just saying, looks have nothing to do with this situation.”
“Of course they do! On a scale of one to ten—”
“Stop it! Are you, a young woman who hates being objectified by men, really asking me to objectify a man I hardly know? Are youreallyasking me to tell you that on a scale of one to ten, he’s a nine?”
“Yes!”Casey shrieked. “A nine! Lola, youhaveto take advantage of that!”
Lola wasn’t about to confess that she’d tried to take advantage and had failed. So she took the path of least resistance. “I can’t. I’m sharing a house with him! It would be so awkward.”
“I’m not saying you have to date him, for God’s sake. Whatever you do, don’t dothat.”
As usual, Casey was all over the map. “Why not date him? What are you saying, I should just have sex with him one day and then we go back to being reluctant roommates? That is not the way I raised you, Casey.”
“Remember Dustin?” Casey asked, dredging up a boy from high school she’d been in love with. “You told me not to get involved with him because he had so much baggage and you were right.”
“What’s that got to do with anything? You were fifteen and he was nineteen. Hardly the same thing.”
“So how old is this guy?” Casey asked.
“He said he was closing in on thirty-four,” Lola said, trailing her fingers over the water.
“Thirty-four!” Casey shouted. “Red flags are popping up all over the place.”
Lola laughed at her silly sister.
“I’m serious. You have to ask yourself why a nine is single at the age of thirty-four. He’s probably a tool.”
“No, he’s not. He just ended a relationship. It’s a pretty common thing.”
“Yeah, when you’re twenty-four. At thirty-four, you have to assume there is something wrong with him that he can’t commit. Trust me, at that age, men are generally desperate for someone to do their cooking or they are afraid to commit.”
