Page 15 of Good Girl's Guide to Love
“Thanks, I guess.” I slump in my chair. “I just felt like I had to try something. I’ve also seen videos about looking confused at a grocery store? Maybe that’s where I’ll meet my soulmate.”
“Nah, girl. The hardware store. That’s where you look confused,” Mia says. “That’s where I plan into find my lumberjack.”
“Lumberjack? After the way you drooled over the football players this week, I figured you were on a football player kick.”
“I’mnevernot looking for a lumberjack,” she says. “Now, don’t get me wrong, if I ran into a Fury guy tonight, I wouldn’t say no to a night of fun. But end game? A six-foot-five man of the woods with a cabin and a healthy 401K.”
“That’s oddly specific.”
“I like what I like. What can I say?”
I laugh at my best friend, who’s always marched to the beat of her own drum. I knew she was going to be a special one the first day we met at orientation at Nashville Children’s. I had my notebook out, ready to take detailed notes on everything our guide was about to tell us. I even had color-coded pens to make sure I could keep my notes organized. I came equipped with two water bottles because I didn’t know when we’d get a break, along with pretzels and a granola bar in case I got hungry. All Mia brought was a can of Monster Energy and her cell phone. Later I found out her phone died ten minutes into training and that the Monster was her second of the day.
It was nine in the morning.
I asked specific questions that took me ten minutes to piece together. She at one point blurted out a question about what the acceptable reactions were if someone stole your lunch.
On paper, we shouldn’t have become friends. We have nothing in common. But when you work enough traumas together, and need to literally pick your person up from the floor after they lose a tiny patient, you’re bonded forever.
That, and I always have gum.
“Okay, so let’s recap,” Mia says. “You’re lonely and don’t want to be single anymore, and your best option, which isn’t an option, is your ex who randomly texted you this week?”
“Yes.”
“Dating apps suck.”
“Big time.”
“And despite you wearing a neon sign at the grocery store announcing that you’re single, no one is randomly approaching to ask you out.”
I shake my head. “I even made sure to put on makeup and change out of my scrubs before I went.”
Mia takes a deep breath and reaches over to hold my hand. “Well, my friend, I hate to be the one to tell you this.”
My heart sinks. “What?”
“I think it’s time we shake things up a bit.”
That doesn’t sound fun. “What’s that mean?”
“It means you’re in a slump. You work with the same people and see them every day, and there are no prospects there. Unless you haven’t told me a huge secret, there’s not a former love of your life pining for you back in Rolling Hills. You see the same people day in and day out, which means you’re never going to meet someone new.”
I groan, but only because she’s right. My days blur together for the most part where I can’t tell one from the other. Dating apps aren’t my jam, and I’m not the kind of extrovert that would ask someone out if I saw them in the wild, and clearly, no one is asking me for my phone number. Even when I literally run into them. “So what do you suggest we do? Because if you’re making me do this, I’m not doing it alone.”
The grin that forms on her face is worthy of the Cheshire Cat. A frisson of alarm runs down my spine. “Mia…why are you smiling like that?”
I was concerned before. But now that she’s wagging her eyebrows, I’m down right petrified.
“Let’s go do karaoke.”
Thank goodness I wasn’t having a sip of my drink, because I would’ve spit it in her face. “That’s your idea of mixing it up? Can’t we just go to another bar? Or line dancing? That doesn’t sound so bad, and I can dance much better than I can sing.”
She shakes her head. “I love you. You’re my sister from another mister. But you play it safe. In every aspect of your life. We come to the same bar because it’s comfortable. You play by every rule in the book. You don’t swear. You don’t drink. You’re the most non-risk taker in the world.”
“Exactly,” I say. “And you’d have to get me to drink a whole bottle of something if you think I’m going to stand in front of a bunch of strangers and sing.”
I was a competitive dancer my entire childhood, so being on a stage doesn’t scare me. But all those people staring at you? Likely laughing at you, especially when you’re me and can’t carry a tune? No, thank you. That sounds horrible.
