How to Date the Guy You Hate by Julie Kriss Page 0,31

at all. We could spend the weekend together, and it would be just fine.

Except for the fact that he kept texting me. And I kept texting him back.

“Well, your ex is going to die of envy, if that’s what you want,” Holly said. “Between you in that dress and Jason in a suit, it’s going to be killer. You should have seen the night he went to the prom.” She rolled her eyes. “I think half the girls there passed out when he walked in.”

I put down my wine. The prom was pre-Charlotte, so he would have gone with some other girl. I didn’t ask. “Don’t tell me Dean went to the prom,” I said to change the subject.

“No,” she replied. “He stayed home that night, I remember. I didn’t go to my own prom, either, because nobody asked me. Isn’t that pathetic?” She shook her head. “Did you go?”

“I went with Casey Banville. Remember him? He was the only other member of the chess club by the time they shut it down.” I wasn’t a chess champion, but I was good enough. Chess had gotten me through the tough times after my mother died—it had a defined set of rules, and you could plan and strategize, and it always made sense. For a few years, it had felt like the only thing in my life that gave me control. I had been chess club president until the club had had to shut down for lack of members.

Holly laughed. “You dated Casey Banville?”

“Briefly.” I grimaced. “It was bad. It’s bad when two chess club dorks come together.”

“You really know how to pick them,” Holly said.

I did. I had a pattern of picking terrible men. Not mean guys, or even guys who treated me particularly badly—no, I had a pattern of picking chess geeks, guys who were creepily attached to their mothers, guys who smoked pot like it was their vocation in life, and—most memorably—my last boyfriend, who might actually have been bi. I didn’t need a therapist to see that the guys I chose had the same long-term reliability as the jobs I took.

Kyle was the coolest guy I’d ever dated. He’d been good-looking, and he’d played bass, and at seventeen I basically thought he was God. Until he dumped me for my cousin and cracked my confidence in two. I hadn’t loved him, exactly—I knew that now—but the experience, coming so close after losing my mother, had felt like heartbreak.

Still, no guy I’d dated, Kyle included, could kiss like Jason Carsleigh. Or fuck like him, either.

I was going to be cool about it. In control. It was one simple wedding. We could be grownups.

All of that went out the window as soon as he pulled up outside my apartment to pick me up.

I was standing in the front doorway of my building, my bags at my feet and my dress on a hanger hooked over my shoulder. It was a nice morning, dry and clear and slightly cloudy, and I was wearing loose-fitting cargo pants and a snug black t-shirt, leather flip-flops on my feet, my hair tied at the back of my neck. When Jason’s car pulled up, I nearly jumped, I was so nervous. And then he got out of the car.

He had to unfold out of the seat, he was so big. Worn jeans. White t-shirt. Navy blue shirt unbuttoned over top. His hair was tousled, damp from the shower again, and he hadn’t shaved. My knees went a little weak. I hadn’t seen him since that day—the day of the call. The day we’d had sex. He turned his dark brown gaze on me, and I had to refrain from licking my lips. Be a grownup, Megan.

It had thrown me for a serious loop, the first time he’d texted me. If you want a repeat, I’ll consider it. Let me know.

Then: I can go all night.

Then: I still have nail marks on my ass.

I had spent an embarrassing amount of mental energy on those texts. Was he fooling me? Teasing me? Sure, he was a guy who had just gotten laid—he was trying to get laid again. But did that mean he’d actually liked it? Or was I just the closest, easiest possibility?

“Hey,” he said, coming toward me. “You ready?”

I cleared my throat. “Yeah, sure. Let’s go.”

“Hand me your bags.”

I did, keeping my purse and the dress on its covered hanger. He swung my bags easily into the car, next to his own, and I