All Booked Up (The Remington Hills #1)

Chapter 1

ONE

Vienna

Celeste

“What about a mullet?”

I wish I could pick up my jaw from the floor, but my best friend just suggested one of the most heinous crimes known to mankind. The mullet. Or as I call it, the gateway drug into douche bag territory.

“No fucking way. I draw the line at mullets,” I mutter back, ducking behind a head of cabbage. “First, it’s mullets, then it’s a slippery slope into gym selfies and being called ‘bro’ while he crashes on my couch and mansplains cryptocurrency to me. It’s basically a hate crime.”

“A hate crime…to who?” Delaney asks, thumbs hovering over her social media feed of mulleted men.

“Intelligent people.” I cross my arms, decidedly taking a firm stance on this.

Delaney’s shoulders sag before she thrusts her phone in my face, “C’mon, Pinky, you know mullets are trending right now. Look…”

I bat the phone away playfully. “Okay, they’re not terrible.

But they’re not that.” I bob my head in the direction of the guy we’ve been partially stalking at our local supermarket.

Delaney is still huddled behind the melons, her glossy chestnut hair peeking out.

I’d overheard some of my TA students mention that this place was a hot spot to meet guys since it’s the closest market to Remington Hills University campus.

We started in the produce section to aim for a man that at the very least buys fruits and vegetables instead of living off exclusively macaroni and cheese.

I sigh and pull Delaney up from her crouched position. “Lane, this is fruitless,” I resign, pinching the bridge of my nose.

“Ha! What a wonderful pun, Pinky.” She smirks, wiggling her eyebrows toward the display of fruit.

“We could always try the kickboxing class I take sometimes down at the athletics club if you’re more into the athletic bro type?

My friend Lenny got a great beginner’s package.

I think it could totally work for your experiment and the list.”

The List. A few important attributes and characteristics I’d jotted down last week when we went over what my ideal man was. I slide my phone from my pocket and quickly scan over my inventory of must-have qualifications as we meander away from the vegetables department.

Loyal

Tall and handsome, at least taller than me

Chivalrous, but manly

Honest, but in a kind way

Can support himself, has his own place, and is financially stable

Goal oriented, at least one yearly goal and three lifetime goals

Isn’t afraid of a smart woman

Roughly my age, but no more than five years older

Intellectual – GPA higher than 3.0

Makes me feel emotionally and physically supported

It’s for science, of course. A lot of women say that, but in my case, it’s just factual. My medical school essay questions were going great until I hit this stumper:

How have you tested your decision to become a doctor through your personal life?

Against my better judgment I brought it up to my best friend Delaney.

She concluded that this could only mean one thing: Let’s find Celeste a hot guy and add more to her plate so she can be stressed academically, physically, and emotionally.

Thus leading us here to the grocery store, shopping for a man.

“Seriously, I think I’ll just be single forever.

But, Lane, I’ll definitely be single forever if any interested men hear you calling me Pinky, ” I say, drifting towards the meats department.

“Maybe we can make a pact to move in with each other in say, fifteen years? If we’re both single.

Get a boat load of fish or something,” I suggest.

“Why would we eat a bunch of fish, Miss Celeste June Pinkfordt?” Delaney asks dramatically, tossing her long hair over her shoulder before eyeing a whole salmon on ice displayed across from us.

“Not to eat, Delaney-you-don’t-have-a-middle-name Beatty. I meant as pets! I’m allergic to cats, remember?”

“Well, if Ellie and I ever break up, you’ve got yourself a deal.

We can get a whole aquarium together.” Delaney breaks her blinking contest with the salmon to look at me with a dramatic sigh.

“I’m not going to lie, I’m glad to be inside today at least. It’s getting too hot out for my liking,” Delaney adds, eyeing the glorious sunshine outside as if she were the undead.

Her pale complexion and signature bright red lips really play into her vampire aesthetic.

“Lane, it’s barely spring. We have a very limited time to enjoy the sun, I suggest you don’t squander it!” I mockingly reprimand my winter-loving best friend.

“It’s too hot, I’m shvitzing.”

I sigh at her endless dramatics, “There has to be a better place to meet men. Substantial men. Men that read. Men that have hobbies, interests. Men that—”

“Yes, yes, meet up to the standards of The List. Oh!” Delaney exclaims, hands splayed wide as if ready for a jazz number, “I’ve got it!

Okay, so my friend in my performance studies class mentioned that the university added a new cafe to the campus to boost morale, and I guess, increase their sales.

Most students are off campus right now, but you know who will be there?

Men that read.” She looks at me with a smirk that says she just solved the Da Vinci Code.

I nod in reply, already exhausted at this endeavour. “Hey, do you know what that new place is called?” I ask as we make our way back to the parking lot, our mission a complete bust.

“I think it’s something like Books and Brew or Biblio and Beans, I don’t know. We should check it out this afternoon, if you’re free.” Delaney lifts a shoulder in question.

“Hmm, could be cute. But I can’t. I’m meeting a tutoring student of mine. Maybe I’ll ask her to meet me there and let you know how it is?” I ask as we reach my yellow VW Punch Buggy.

“Fine by me, Pinky!” Delaney says as she settles in the passenger’s seat.

Her phone begins chiming repeatedly like a broken doorbell.

I turn the ignition and raise my eyebrows at her questioningly.

She rolls her eyes and waves a hand at me, “It’s just my girlfriend, she got off work and is now inundating me with cyber love.

” Delaney sighs deeply while snuggling her phone into her chest. I chuckle because as extra as my best friend is, she loves love.

She’s been dramatic since the moment we met, or rather, crashed right into each other.

I was hurrying to my second-year chemistry class across campus and she, with theatre costumes piled higher than her head, ran smack into me.

We sat in a pile of gowns and textbooks dumbstruck before immediately bursting out laughing and introducing ourselves.

Delaney had just started her first year as a theatre arts major and needed some help locating all the various places on campus.

We met up later that day right at our crash spot and have been inseparable since.

A little sadness creeps over me at the thought of finishing my degree next year and being apart from her for the first time.

But watching Delaney’s face light up figuratively and literally from the brightness of her phone screen reassures me she has someone else watching out for her too, even if it’s long distance.

I just care for my best friend so much and I’m happy for the love she has found with her girlfriend.

I drive off toward Delaney’s apartment on the other side of Remington Hills and hope that one day I can find that kind of love. Fairy tale love. No mullets involved.

“You know, even if you were into mullets, the way that guy was fondling those apples…” Delaney shudders.

“Right? They did not consent to that grope fest that’s for sure,” I add.

Delaney bursts into a fit of laughter and I follow along, all the way to her front door.

My smile only falters when she opens her phone back up and looks all dopey-eyed.

Delaney is a love sick puppy from a few texts and a GIF her girlfriend sent.

“How did you manage to get into such a wonderful relationship while studying full time?” I ask with a huff, a small academic to-do list flipping over in my head.

“I have no idea. It must have been fate because my parents wanted me to marry our rabbi,” Delaney says, throwing her purse down onto her entrance table, the top of which is a bedazzled world map. I raise my eyebrows in amused shock at this new information.

“Yes,” she adds with a laugh. “I had the same expression. To which I told them: One, I’m not as Jewish as they are, so being a rabbi’s wife wouldn’t be a fitting role for me. And two, he has a penis.”

I choke on air, reeling at the sight it must have been to see Isaac and Mara Beatty realize their daughter was a lesbian. And basically agnostic.

“My bubbe almost fainted while my parents scrambled to find words to punish my lack of Judaism while simultaneously supporting my lesbianism.” Delaney shrugs.

“And?” I press.

“And they bought me this rainbow Star of David.” She smiles and pulls the necklace out from under her t-shirt.

A smaller silver Star of David hangs on a plain silver chain, the symbol encrusted with colourful gemstones in rainbow order.

“That was a long time ago though, so it wasn’t quite the same reaction as when I told them about Ellie.

They were more concerned with it being a long-distance thing than anything,” Delaney says, pulling her phone out again at the endless chirps and dings.

I’m over the moon happy for my best friend, she truly deserves the universe.

However, it’s hard not to feel that pang of jealousy bury itself deep in my gut like a miniature green monster carving up my insides and passing notes to my brain like elementary school children, all with one thought in mind: You don’t have that.

I exhale slowly and settle on to the comfy sofa.

I don’t think Delaney could hear my melancholy anyway.

Her fingers fly across the screen of her phone with the sound on.

Every clickety clack of a button pressed chiming in my lizard brain.

Tap, tap, tap…

Must…find…love

Tap, tap, tap…

I quickly reach for the remote, turning on a nineties cartoon Delaney always has on hand and try desperately to mute my envious inner monologue.

It’s not like I’m a hideous specimen doomed for an eternity of loneliness.

It’s just the time spent actually dating, well, hasn’t happened.

I’ve focused so hard, for so long on my academics that my love life is D.O.A.

and my social life has nearly flatlined.

Delaney is my saving grace in that sense.

She pushes me out of my pre-med focused bubble and drags me to events every now and then.

By the end of the night, without fail, I’m always happy I’m out.

I just need that push. My mind reels back to the essay question that I can’t seem to wrap my head around.

How have you tested your decision to become a doctor through your personal life?

Truthfully, I haven’t. I’ve been head down, nose in the books basically all my life.

This year is definitely not the time to be looking for love.

Dating experiment? Sure. It has conclusions, boundaries, a purpose!

This experiment will help me answer that goddamn med-school application question that’s been nagging my brain since the first moment I read it.

This year counts more than ever for my future medical career thus far, so my focus should be purely academic.

My classes combined with tutoring, and being a TA has my schedule overcrowded as is.

Now isn’t my time to fall in love. Perhaps after medical school.

Besides, I don’t need a man. What I deserve is that fairy tale, swoon-worthy, can’t-get-enough-of-them kind of love.

Anything less and it’s not for me. For now, I’m absolutely fine by myself.

If there happens to be someone who not only exceeds my expectations but also crosses every item off The List and makes himself available to me?

Well, then maybe I could pencil him in. Without Delaney dragging me to that grocery store, it’s hard to visualize putting myself out there in any capacity.

At least, not without a plan. I settle into the couch with a renewed sense of purpose, now is not the time for love but it is the time to funnel that effort into my experiment. Let the dating trials begin.