Unlike the rest of my friends, Tanner had no loyalty to James. And he had this weird thing about true love. Like what was meant to be was meant to be. Destiny. Fate. All that.
I laughed. “No.” I pressed my lips together. “Almost. I don’t know. She seemed so sad tonight. What the fuck is wrong with me?”
Tanner clapped his hand on my back. “Nothing is wrong with you. It’s normal to not want to be alone when you’re having a shitty day. And Penny’s probably sad because she’s in love with you and trapped in a terrible marriage. If you sleep together, you’ll know for sure.”
I wasn’t sure if that was true. I knew I loved Brooklyn long before we’d slept together. But Tanner had this philosophy that you had to sleep with someone in order to know if it was true love. I believed the opposite. To me sex had nothing to do with love. No strings attached. Just the way I wanted it. Speaking of which. I scanned the bar and locked eyes with a tan brunette laughing with her friends. I could use a distraction tonight. She caught me looking and flashed me a mischievous smile.
“So if you didn’t kiss Penny, what did the two of you do?” Tanner asked.
“She’s setting up a dating profile for me on some stupid app.”
“What?” Tanner leaned forward so that I’d stare at him instead of the brunette with sex eyes. “You’re going to start dating? Why didn’t you tell me? You don’t need a ridiculous dating app. Those things are useless. Their algorithms know nothing about true love. Delete it. I know plenty of single women to set you up with.” Tanner pulled out a binder from…somewhere.
I blinked. I was pretty sure that binder hadn’t been there a second ago. “Where the hell did that come from?” I asked. “Did you walk in here with that thing?”
“Of course I did.” Tanner flipped open to a random page.
“But you…” I shook my head.
He continued scanning the pages, ignoring me.
I’d had too much to drink. But I was sober enough to know that I didn’t want to go through this binder. Because each page he flipped past contained a headshot of a woman accompanied by a detailed profile.
“Ah. Right here.” Tanner pointed to some rando on the page.
“I’m really not interested in your weird binder full of women.” I pulled it away from him and closed it. I didn’t want Tanner’s rejects. Hell, I didn’t even want to date anyone, so this conversation was pointless. “I’m not actually looking for anything. You know that. It’s just a ruse to hang out with her.”
“Oh. Well, that’s brilliant. You get one on one time with Penny to get her to fall in love with you. Nice plan.”
I shrugged. I was pretty sure it was more idiotic than brilliant. And it wasn’t really about her falling in love with me. I just liked spending time with her. And constantly dreaming about fucking her. Yeah, it was a problem. But for some reason I had no desire to squash it.
“Well, if you do go on any dates, make sure you introduce me to the girl before you sleep with her.”
I looked over at him. “Why?”
He shook his head. “Because if you sleep with her it could be true love, and I want to make sure she seems like a good fit. After all, I’ll be hanging out with her a lot too if you get hitched.”
So he willingly wanted to be a third wheel on my dates? I’d been actively avoiding that same scenario with James and Penny tonight. Who actually wanted to be the third wheel? Yeah, Tanner was a weird guy. But he was also my best friend. Which probably made me just as weird. “What about her?” I asked, nodding over to the brunette. “Think she could be a good fit for me?”
“Wingman on duty.” Tanner saluted me before sliding out of his seat. “I’ll go see.” He had the brunette laughing in two seconds flat.
I’d never tell Rob, but Tanner was an even better wingman than him. Women just melted into a puddle at his feet. I would have been jealous of his game if I didn’t think I was just as good.
Tanner whispered something in her ear and she laughed again. And then he walked back over to me, without the girl on his arm. “Nope,” he said and sat back down. “Definitely not a great fit for you.”