Page 13 of Picture Perfect Love

Abby

Istraightened my clothes in the mirror, thinking to myself, Right, okay. You look great. Just like any other woman going on a perfectly innocent date with the new guy she’s seeing, and definitely not like someone who just woke up in another guy’s bed this morning...an infamous playboy’s bed at that.

Maybe I was overcompensating, but I felt the need to play up my innocence in my appearance. I opted for a blush pink dress with a sweetheart neckline and soft tulle skirt. My mother’s pearl earrings were the perfect finishing touch and looked classic with my blue eyes and dark caramel hair. I hoped maybe I passed for the part of the doctor’s girlfriend.

Then again… I wasn’t entirely sold on Christopher. He was nice and all. There was nothing really wrong with him. There just wasn’t anything that felt overwhelmingly right about him either. I didn’t feel the same primal pull I had felt with Joshua the night before. That sinful, powerful lust that made all the wrong about it seem so damn right.

I stopped for a moment and sucked in a nervous breath. Those were the wrong kinds of things to be thinking as I set off to meet Christopher, and if I was being honest with myself, I knew I probably needed to go ahead and break things off with him. It would be better to get it over with sooner rather than later, and I doubted I would experience any miraculous shift in feelings over the next few dates that would make me suddenly believe he was the one.

I faced my reflection again with an affirming nod. It was settled. I would go see Christopher one last time and let him down easy. And even more important to remember was that it had nothing to do with Joshua or any fantasy about what might happen if I ran into him again and was completely unattached.

A short while later, I showed up to the restaurant we had agreed to meet at, a snazzy French spot that Christopher had boasted as having the best wine and desserts in the whole city. I was surprised he wasn’t waiting for me outside, since he was usually early. But I took it as a good thing. It would give me a few extra minutes to build up my nerve before seeing him face to face.

But my brain didn’t want to cooperate. When I should have been strengthening my resolve to break it off, my thoughts were running wild instead. They kept slipping back off into memories from the night before—Joshua’s impossibly perfect manly body, sculpted and chiseled. His rippling muscles moving over me, the smoothness of his warm bare flesh and the wicked sounds he made.

It was suddenly very hot. I started fanning myself with the menu after sliding out of my jacket and waving the waiter over for a glass of wine. The bittersweet liquid, once delivered to the table, did next to nothing to calm down my raging libido. You’d think the night before would have been enough to satisfy me, but apparently it had only awakened the beast within.

I got so wrapped up in my dirty thoughts that I didn’t notice how much time had passed. I got frustrated when I finally thought to check my phone and realized it was twenty minutes past when Christopher and I had agreed to meet. I wasn’t going to feel the least bit guilty for thinking about another guy when he had the nerve to be so late without a single call or text!

Then I remembered how we neglected to ever actually exchange phone numbers. We both had the Heartstring app on our phones and would message through that. I checked my inbox, but there were no messages from him. Even if he had gotten called into work last minute or something, wouldn’t he have warned me?

The waiter started to look down on me with more pity each time he came around to ask if I wanted yet another refill.

“Yes, please,” I sighed, even though it was already my third. Just the same as my naughty thoughts about Joshua, if Christopher didn’t want me getting drunk without him, he should have showed up on time. At least that’s how I was choosing to justify it.

With another glass down and still no Christopher to foot the bill, I finally accepted the humiliated defeat and asked for the check. I was still in disbelief as I stormed out of the restaurant. I had never been stood up in my life! Did he somehow know about what happened with Joshua? He certainly hadn’t seemed like he did in our messages that morning.

Why it happened didn’t really seem so important as I called for a cab. It all had the same ending, me going home alone in a cab, and still not having had the opportunity to break things off with Christopher to ease my mind and conscience.

After giving the driver my address, I pulled out my phone and checked the Heartstring app again. Still nothing. So, I called my friend Rachel instead.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on a date with the hot doctor right now?” she asked immediately.

“Ugh, yes. I was on the date, but unfortunately he wasn’t. He never showed. He stood me up.”

“That sucks, hon. I’m sorry. But oddly enough, you don’t sound as upset as I’d expect you to be. What’s that all about?”

A smile curled on the edge of my lips, catching me by surprise. “I am upset, but I guess it’s not the end of the world. I was actually planning on telling him I didn’t want to see him anymore.”

“Oh! Then I guess it sounds like you both dodged a bullet. But again, why are we not upset about this?” She puzzled.

“I might have… met someone else,” I confessed, trying not to let my giddiness show through my voice. “And it’s not like it’s a big deal. We didn’t exchange numbers… no plans to see each other again…”

“But?”

“But…” I cupped my hand around my mouth and dropped to a whisper. “It was some of the best sex of my entire life.”

“What!? And who exactly is this mystery man? You’re normally not so quick to hop into bed with someone you just met.”

“True, but it felt like I had known him a lot longer,” I defended. But really what I did know should have detoured me rather than encouraged me. Everyone knew Joshua was a no-good ladies man, always getting himself into trouble.

“If you ask me, Christopher did you both a favor by not showing up tonight,” she replied. “I hope you have some way to see mystery man again, even if it’s only for the sex. You could use more fun like that in your life.”

“Speaking of which, I’m going to go back to my place and eat the same number of calories I would have consumed at dinner, but through ice cream instead,” I told her. “And then call it an early night. I’m going for a run tomorrow, then yoga.”

“Busy as always,” she teased. “Try and remember to take it a little easy at some point, okay? You need it after all that hot sex you apparently had.”

I didn’t bother explaining that the sex left me feeling more refreshed and energized than anything else, even with my awful hangover.

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