Any Way You Want Me - By Jamie Sobrato Page 0,13
beginning of the year, and they said I’d definitely find my one true love this year.”
Yasmine glanced at Alex, then quickly looked away, amusement twinkling in her eyes. “Maybe that just meant you’d meet him this year. But you might not realize he’s the one until months or years later.”
This apparently was not the answer Hannah was looking for. “No, I definitely have to know it’s him right away. Biological clock and all,” she said, as if Yasmine, at twenty-six, understood such things.
Alex, oddly enough, was beginning to understand the ticking of the clock. Not that he felt as if his time would run out at midnight on the thirty-first, but he did find himself wondering when and if he’d ever have the chance to test that all the equipment was working properly.
And Yasmine’s words kept echoing in his head. You might not realize he’s the one until months or years later. A nagging voice in his head wanted to know why Yasmine had lingered in his mind all these years. Why, of all the cases he’d worked on, of all the women he’d known, was she the one he couldn’t forget?
Was it possible that only now, nine years after she’d first laid eyes on him from across the witness stand, Yasmine might realize he was The One?
And where the hell had that idea come from? He knew whatever he started with her would be doomed, so there was no point in imagining a future. Women generally didn’t fall for the men who’d sent them to prison.
He’d managed to tune out the conversation that had been happening at the table. He started paying attention and found Drew still looking uncomfortable, and Hannah discussing how she’d eliminated all her former matches through a careful and insane process of critiquing their shoes.
“So, let me get this straight,” Yasmine said. “You can sum up a guy by the shoes he chooses to wear on a first date?”
“Absolutely,” Hannah said.
“But what if your dream guy is on his way to the car to pick you up for your first date, wearing the right shoes, and he steps in a pile of dog crap, then goes back in and changes into the wrong pair of shoes?” Drew asked.
Hannah seemed caught off guard by the question, but after a few awkward moments she recovered and answered, “If he’s Mr. Right, then the second pair of shoes he chooses will also be the right shoes.”
Alex was beginning to wish Hannah would go off in search of a pile of dog crap instead of staying here to inflict any more of this conversation on him.
“So you must have already sized Drew up based on his footwear,” Yasmine said. “How does he fare by your shoe standards?”
“I never do the analysis while on the date,” Hannah said.
Of course not. That would be crazy.
“So when do you do it?”
“I simply take detailed mental notes during the date, and then afterward I write it all out and decide what his shoe choices mean for my destiny.”
“I personally think it’s what’s in the shoe that counts. I could never love a guy with bad feet,” Yasmine said, her tone teasing as she cast a glance down at Alex’s Bruno Magli’s.
“Ew, I hate feet! They’re just so gross.” This, from Hannah of the shoe-analysis method of dating.
“I think they’re sexy,” Yasmine said, then sipped her champagne. “Our company recently designed an interactive software program for foot fetishists.”
Hannah didn’t seem to know what to say to that. “So…you guys make sex software? What, exactly, does that mean?”
“Have you ever heard of the game Virtual Bimbo? It’s our bestselling product.”
“Virtual Bimbo?” Hannah looked horrified. “As a woman, don’t you find that offensive?”
“I actually think it’s hilarious. The game allows you to design your own bimbo, and then you take her out on the club scene and try to get her laid.”
The look of horror grew.
“It’s supposed to be funny,” Drew added.
“You win the game if she scores with the hottest guy in the club,” Yasmine said, seeming to enjoy Hannah’s discomfort, “and you lose if she has to go home with the weenie guy. The final video sequence shows her having sweaty, multiple-orgasm sex if it’s the hot guy, or boring rabbit sex with the weenie guy.”
“Oh my God, that’s awful.”
Drew made a throat-clearing sound and said, “So, Kyle, what did you do before you came to Virtual Active?”
Alex had rehearsed his answer a hundred times in his head, until he could spout it as