“My dad always said if you want to meet a baseball fan, go to a game and if you want to meet a drunk, go to a bar.”
“Wise man, your dad. Baseball fan?”
“Nah. He was into music.”
“Was he a musician?”
“No but my boy—” She stopped herself short of saying that her boyfriend was one. She took a gulp of coffee and hoped for deliverance.
“Ex-boyfriend?”
“Kind of.” She said, meaning kind of boyfriend, not kind of ex.
“We won’t talk about him. What kind of work do you do?”
“I’m an accountant.”
“Really, that must be interesting.”
“Not really, but it’s easy and it pays the bills,” she admitted. “Greg, tell me about your last breakup.”
“My girlfriend Abbie slept with my best friend.”
“Ouch. What’s his name?”
“Charlie. And now they’re getting married and they want me to come to the wedding and let bygones be bygones. I know it’s the mature thing to do, just to wish them well, but he was boning my girlfriend.” He shrugged and took a drink of his sugary coffee and grimaced.
“I’m sorry about that. Like, on behalf of my people, I apologize that she slept with your friend.”
“Thanks. Not your fault. Probably my fault. I’ve been reading Cosmo and it looks like maybe I’m not that creative in bed. I should put that on my Tinder profile...Greg, 36, not creative in bed. Maybe I’ll get all kinds of right swipes!”
She giggled and he laughed along with her.
“Maybe you can help me update my profile so I can get more girls like you and fewer girls who ask what my salary is. Like, right up front, what do you earn? And their comments are so...”
“What?”
“Negative. Like I should grow a beard to look more manly or I should just shave my head cause it’s obvious I’m going bald. My hair is a very big topic of conversation apparently.”
“They sound like assholes.”
“That was my impression. So will you help me craft a better profile? Scroll through some pictures and pick out better ones?”
“Sure. Why not? I like being bossy,” she said.
“Tomorrow, same time, same place?”
“You hate coffee.”
“I’ll have water,” he said. “Thanks, Britt. This was fun. Much more so than I expected when it looked like there was going to be a smackdown.”
“Thanks. It was a lot better than I thought it would be, too,” she said.
Britt stopped by the shop and got a microwave dinner. She wasn’t going out with Marj, possibly ever again. She felt bereft that she and her best friend were in a fight, the biggest true disagreement they’d ever had. She wanted to talk to someone about it, to Jack actually. But how could she explain to him what she’d done, how she’d stayed on a coffee date with some guy she met on Tinder? She couldn’t talk openly with Marj about her problem with picking up a new guy because it meant telling her the truth about Jack. Stymied and lonesome, she added a bag of caramel corn to her shopping cart.
Chapter 8
Back at home after her scorched, plastic-tasting lasagna, she tucked into the caramel popcorn. Stretched out on her couch with the bag on her stomach, she tried to sort out what she ought to do. She had settled on never speaking to anyone again and becoming a recluse when Jack called.