Five First Dates (Sassy in the City 2)

If I was going out on hot dates with four totally different curated men, obviously, I was going to forget all about Maddox and how he looked naked.

“You’re getting your dream, aren’t you?” Isla asked, expression amused. “It’s your own real life rom-com.”

“It is!” I said, eyes widening. I hadn’t thought about that, but she was so right. “This is going to be epic.”

“It’s going to be something,” she agreed.

Out of our squad Isla and I were the most different but I would argue the closest. She got me fully and I got her too. I knew things about her past the other girls didn’t. And she knew my love of the romantic comedy bordered on extreme.

I raised my iced tea. “To four first dates.”

They all raised their glasses.

“To having sex,” Dakota said.

“To the rom-com,” Leah chimed in.

“To having man candy living in your apartment,” Felicia said.

I looked at Isla expectantly when she didn’t offer her own toast. “Well? You have to say something too.”

Isla tapped her glass onto mine. “To living close to the train station and reasonably priced poke bowls.”

“Ugh! You’re the worst,” I told her.

She laughed. “Just keeping it real.”

“I don’t want real,” I protested. “I want love.”

Isla sipped her beer. “Yeah. And that’s the problem.”

“I refuse to let you ruin this,” I told her. “I’m going to have fun and you can’t stop me.”

She held up her hands. “I’m not standing in your way.” She lifted her glass again. “To Savannah’s adventures in dating. How’s that?”

“Better.” I sipped my iced tea and felt confident in a matter of a few weeks I could be having sex again.

Ripped out of sleep, I immediately realized what had woken me up. A baby crying.

Savannah’s baby crying.

Lying on her couch under a blanket I stayed there for a minute, eyes still closed, gauging the level and volume of his crying to see how realistic it might be that he’d settle down quickly and I could fall back asleep.

It didn’t sound promising.

It was way beyond whimpering or fussiness. It was hard, sharp crying that was growing in sound and intensity. It was swelling to full-on wailing. Nope. That kid was not going back down any time soon.

Prying my eyes open, I let them adjust to the dark and threw the blanket off of me. I was sleeping in sweatpants without a shirt. Fumbling on the end table, I found my phone. 2:24 a.m. Savannah had been true to her word. She hadn’t even been gone meeting up with her friends for a full two hours. Sullivan had been fine for me. We’d played and then he sat tucked in the crook of my arm while we watched the Eagles kick ass on Thursday night football.

He h

adn’t even made a peep about needing to eat. Savannah had gotten home at nine, nursed him, then he’d been out like a light. So had she. She’d stayed up to talk to me for about fifteen minutes, then had yawned so many times I’d let her off the hook and sent her to bed.

Now little man was screaming bloody murder.

I went down the hallway and knocked on the door.

Savannah yanked it open a second later. The nightlight in her bedroom cast a glow onto her and the baby. “I’m so sorry, Maddox,” she said, juggling Sully up and down. “I know tomorrow is your first day at the shop. I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”