even a little less hot than she is, he would have been gone a long-ass time ago. “Are you sure you don’t need some help getting—”
“I’m fine,” I interrupt bluntly, moving Ava gently to the side and standing to my feet. Her eyes bug out of her head as she silently calls me every name she can think of, but I have to stop this before I end up in an ambulance on the way to the ER to keep the viability of her story alive.
Loafer Guy’s eyes narrow, but I’m a dude, and I know how dudes think. If this shit is as bad as it obviously is for Ava to go to these lengths, he’d rather just know now.
“Brian, right?” I ask, and he nods slowly, glancing between Ava and me in confusion.
“Yeah. How do you—”
I shake my head and hold up a hand. Ava is still mentally cursing my very being, but I ignore her.
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re best to just cut your losses, okay? Ava is not into you—”
“Luke!” she yells, embarrassed.
“Well, you’re not, are you?”
Her eyes are actual daggers as she shakes her head.
“But she’s too nice to tell people like it is. So, I’m telling you. Move on. Find someone who won’t get seasick on your boat.”
“Luke!” Ava chastises again, and I shrug.
Brian doesn’t look back as he turns and leaves.
Ava, of course, is mortified.
“What is wrong with you, Luke?”
“What’s wrong with me?” I question. “You should be thanking me.”
“He must think I’m such a bitch now!”
“Yeah,” I say with a wave of my arm. “And who cares? Why the fuck do you care what Boat-Lover Brian thinks of you? He’s a stranger, Ava. Who gives a fuck?”
“I do!” she snaps, and I shake my head, head back to the couch, and take a seat.
“You don’t. Or you shouldn’t anyway. Just relax and be thankful the date with loafer boy is over.”
“It was my date,” she says, as if she was in control of it at all.
“If you don’t want me involved next time, don’t involve me,” I say simply before turning the volume on the TV back up to an audible level.
She stays by the door, stewing for a while—I can see her out of the corner of my eye—but eventually, she gives in, kicks off her shiny black heels, and walks toward my kitchen.
“You got any ice cream?” she asks and pads her bare feet into my kitchen. “I didn’t have dessert.”
“Ava.” A laugh jumps from my chest. “You are…”
“Enchanting?” she asks with a teasing lilt as she opens my freezer.
“You’re something, all right,” I mutter to myself.
“What was that?” she asks, walking from the kitchen to the living room and joining me on the sofa.
“I said, I guess I was right about Brian.”
She rolls her pretty sapphire eyes. “The date was horrible. He is a wine snob who kept ordering all my food and wouldn’t shut up about his goddamn boat, and I had to get out of there before I had to sit through a forty-minute dessert with him. A woman can only hear about a man’s dinghy so many times before she snaps.”
“Is dinghy a metaphor or…”
She smacks my arm, and I laugh. When she doesn’t say anything else, I venture into the dark place of our friendship where I have to slap reality across her face.
“You should’ve just told him you wanted to call it an early night, Ava. Or you needed to get home. Or, I don’t know, thanked him for dinner and just been honest that you weren’t really feeling it with him.”
“I just… I didn’t want to offend him.”
“It’s always better to be honest. Especially with guys. We’re very simple creatures, babe.”
She shoves another bite of ice cream into her mouth and mulls over my words.
“I don’t want to be the one to say I told you so, but I told you online dating wasn’t worth it.”
“Yet, here you are, saying it,” she sasses with narrowed eyes.
I shrug.
“Dating Boat-Lover Brian wasn’t worth it. I don’t know yet about online dating.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You’re going on more TapNext dates?”
“I’m no quitter, London. I wouldn’t feel right calling myself a Columbia graduate if I didn’t give this the old college try.”
My brows snap together in confusion, and if I’m honest, a little bit of unexplained, seemingly irrational anger. “You can’t be serious, Ace.”
“Oh, but I am,” she responds without hesitation. “I already have another date planned. With Abe.”
All I can do