39
Jenn chokes on her coffee as we walk into the office. “You want me to do what?!”
“I want you to set me up on the dating apps. It’s time.”
“Oh, honey, no.”
“Yes!” I insist.
“No, I mean, you don’t want to get on the apps. Tell your friends. Friends of friends. The little old lady network at your church. Hell, stand on a corner with a sign! Trust me, anything is better than the apps!”
After a laugh, I explain as we head into the elevator together, “The apps are more anonymous, right? I mean, the whole problem with the church ladies and street corners is it’s basically shouting from the rooftops that I’m divorced.”
“You are divorced.”
“Not publicly, not yet, remember? We have to wait until the right press cycle.”
“Right. One can only hope there’ll be a disastrous flood or political assassination soon so you can slip your personal little announcement in there.”
I glare at her, “It’s not personal or little, given who we are.”
“Yes, yes, you’re very famous and important.”
I snort. “Unfortunately.”
She glares back, “As if you didn’t build a huge, glorious, downright inspiring personal brand for yourself. It’s just a shame you built it with that grumpy old man.”
I sigh.
He sure as hell didn’t look like a grumpy old man yesterday.
The conclusion I reached late last night, after screaming and crying in my pillow, is that he’s not just seeing someone. To be that fit and relaxed and smiley…he’s getting laid.
Which absolutely kills me.
I don’t want it to kill me.
I’ve been doing fine on my own. Loretta and me and the boys, we make a great team. Adam has stepped up to do more pick ups and drop offs and sleepovers at his house down the street. Everything is…working.
But to think of this Adam, the happier, healthier one. The one I used to know. To imagine his arms around someone else. His lips breathing onto someone else’s skin. His mouth talking to someone else, actually saying words and laughing and teasing.
Someone he actually wants. Someone he chose.
Yesterday annihilated me.
I didn’t sleep at all.
Which is why I’m more determined than ever to start dating. Immediately.
If he can find joy again—ogre of ogres—then I can too.
“Alright, I’ll think through my friends. Actually, I can already think of a couple great guys from my reject pile. I mean you don’t mind if they have kids, right?”
“I…”
“No, you don’t. You breeders are all the more the merrier! Ha! Weirdos.” She pulls up her phone and starts swiping and tapping frantically. “Look at this dream boat.” She shows me a guy. I raise an eyebrow. He’s gorgeous. Older. Sophisticated. “He has teenagers I think. Or if you want to take a few trips around the sun in the other direction…” She takes her phone away, swipes and then shows it to me again.
“Oh my gosh,” I say involuntarily at the sight of a younger guy with a ripped body, a killer smile and blond hair long enough to pull off a man bun. “I don’t know about the man bun?”
Jenn laughs. “Pretend he’s Thor. The longer you stare at shirtless photos of him, the more on board you’ll be, trust me. And,” she puts her phone down so she can wag her eyebrows in my face. “No kids. Very well-rested.”
“Huh.”
“Those are the first of many, my friend. Ma. ny. I’ll put together a list. I know you love a good list.”
I chuckle, startled at how fast she’s moving. “Actually,” she adds, “I’ll dump them all in a word document all messed up and you can put them in a spreadsheet! Now we know what you’re doing all night tonight! Partyyyyyy!” She teases.
I can’t help but laugh.
She’s especially fiery this morning.
“How about you? You’re chipper, anyone managed to avoid the reject pile lately?”
“What? No.” She says too quickly.
“Jenn.”
“Ugh. I don’t want to talk about it.”
I gasp in surprise and happiness for my friend, “Why not?”
“He has kids. I can’t stop thinking about this guy, dreaming of him, literally. He’s…amazing. But he’s so wrong, so not what I want, it doesn’t even make any sense.”
“Maybe he’s what you need?” I offer.
She dips her chin at me. “Some would’ve said you needed your opposite, a big, dark burly quiet grump. And how’d that work out for you?”
I wince.
“Oops, sorry. Too soon.”
“No,” I inhale. “It’s not too soon. You’re right. It didn’t work. So go ahead and send me the candidates.”
“You got it.”
“Sorry about Mr.Wrong.”
“Eh, I’m sure it’s just a phase. It’ll pass.” She says, but her face flinches as she says it. I wonder how long this phase has been going on with this guy. There’s clearly more she’s not telling me. But we both have full days ahead of us so I don’t ask.
Instead, we part ways in the lobby outside my office. As she goes down the hall, energized, I walk to my desk in a haze.
Do I want to date a hot older man with kids? A young man with a great body? I mean, I’ve already had one of the best bodies out there, I think the entire heterosexual female population would agree. Muscles do it for me, but I get the feeling I’d just be reminded of Adam all the time.
Heck, I’m already reminded of him all the time.
The boys’ facial expressions.
The broken garbage disposal he would’ve had fixed in under twenty minutes.
Grocery lists that no longer include any protein powders or beef jerky.
And all of that was just this morning.
You never think, when you weave two lives together seamlessly and definitively, how painstaking it will be to separate the tapestry, thread by tiny thread.
But I can and I will.
One string at a time.
First up, pull the thread attached to dressing up, going out to dinner, feeling butterflies and blushing and all the things I’ll experience by actually dating.
I hit refresh on my email, eagerly waiting for Jenn’s list.