Rate a Date by Monica Murphy Page 0,13

fifteen minutes.

But that’s okay. I don’t want Kelsey to keep lingering and try to convince me I should go on this double date with her.

“You’ll go out with us Friday, right?” Kelsey leaps out of the chair, tossing her hair over her shoulder. She looks like she’s in a shampoo commercial. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”

I’m skeptical of course. “I need more information. What are these guys’ names? And how did you meet them?”

“I met Paul on Rate a Date,” she says, which I get since this is where we’re supposed to meet them. “And his best friend’s name is Theodore.”

I wince. “Theodore?” I have an immediate image of what this man with the name Theodore must look like, and it’s…

Not good.

I am being very judgmental, and that is not good either.

But I am getting serious Alvin and the Chipmunks vibes right about now.

“Yeah.” Kelsey smiles. “Paul is really cute. So is his friend. He showed me a photo of the two of them last night.”

“A recent photo?” Sometimes photos on the internet are ten years old and twenty-five pounds less ago. Yeah. I might’ve done that a few times. I was a lot cuter at twenty than I am now at twenty-seven.

“Of course,” Kelsey says. “I’ve been talking with Paul since Saturday night. He seems really into me. We even FaceTimed last night, and it was so much fun. He started talking about Theo, and how he just came out of a relationship, and when I told Paul about you, he thought you sounded just like Theo’s type.”

Huh. I’m not so sure about this. Red flags are popping up. As in…

“He’s just out of a relationship? Like, how long of a relationship?”

“Uh, long term. But it’s no big deal.” Kelsey waves her hand.

I stare at her, unease slipping down my spine. “How long are you talking?”

“Ummm.” Kelsey makes a little face. “Five years, give or take?”

“Five years?” The words explode out of my mouth like I have no control of them. I’m so loud, I make the little old lady getting her hair colored in the chair two booths over startle, tossing her wrinkled copy of People magazine to the ground. It lands with a loud plop, and the hairstylist—her name is Jen, she’s super sweet—shoots me a confused look before grabbing the magazine for her client.

“It’s no big deal. They were engaged, but she cheated on him. It was this big thing, but that was a while ago and all is well now.” The fake smile pasted on Kelsey’s beautiful face is a dead giveaway. She’s glossing over some fairly important facts. Meaning this woman cheated on poor Theodore and he probably only found out about it a few months ago and he’s still wallowing in his sadness.

This is a disaster waiting to happen. Theodore is most likely in a deep depression, and for all I know, he could still be in love with his former fiancée.

“I don’t know…” My voice drifts. “This doesn’t sound like a good idea.”

“You’ll lift his spirits. You love lifting people’s spirits.”

“People I know and love,” I remind her. “I don’t know this guy.”

At all. She doesn’t really know his friend either.

“Aw, come on. You should give him a chance. Like I’m going to give Paul a chance.” Kelsey takes a step forward and grabs my hand, giving it a gentle shake. “Give him a chance, El. Go out with us. It won’t be so bad, I swear. It’s just dinner.”

I’ve heard that before. It’s just a coffee date. Or, it’s only meeting up for drinks. What’s the harm in a couple of drinks?

Those situations always end up not good. Not good at all.

“What if I’ve already met someone?” I think of Mitch. We’ve been talking, mostly at night. It’s Wednesday, so that means we’ve been chatting for four days. Three and half really, since we haven’t really talked today, which is fine. I don’t expect to hear from him every hour or anything over the top like that.

It’s been…nice. Our chats. He’s easy to talk to. I’m not interested in anyone else who claims we’re a match on Rate a Date, and I’m getting lots of suggestions. I ignore the notifications, telling myself I’ll check them out later. That’s not how it’s done on a dating app, I know Kelsey will tell me I’m going about this all wrong, but I sort of don’t care.

So far, I’m only interested in Mitch.

But he lives in Vegas. Or he will soon—like mere-days soon. Why