Single Dad Seeks Juliet

I keep staring there until Holley looks up and meets my eyes unexpectedly. It makes her startle, and I take a little perverse pleasure in it. It’s the least she owes me for this.

“So, Bianca,” I begin, forcing myself to look away from Holley and look my date in the eye. “What is it you do for work?”

“I’m a brand spokesperson on Instagram.”

“And…sorry, I’m not really in touch with a lot of today’s social media stuff…what does that entail exactly?”

Her red-painted lips quirk up at the corners. “I talk about different products on my Instagram page, and they pay me.”

“Is Instagram the one with the bird or the one with all the pictures?” I ask. I know Chloe is always talking about them, but I honestly can never remember what’s what.

Bianca’s eyes widen, and her lip, I think, might even quiver. “You don’t know what Insta is? Do you have a profile?”

I shake my head. “I pretty much leave all of that stuff to my teenage daughter.”

She grimaces into a fake smile, and I almost fucking laugh.

Hell, now she’s questioning what she’s doing here with me, too.

She looks at me again, though, moving her eyes over my face and body and squaring her shoulders. “Never mind.”

I take a deep breath and decide to try again. The more effort I make, the quicker this dinner will be over, and I can ask Holley what the hell she was thinking. “Are you from San Diego originally?”

“No, I moved out here instead of going to college.”

Right. Okay. I make it a point not to comment on how that may not have been her best idea.

“Have you ever been to Balboa Park?”

She squints as she thinks about it. “Is that, like, the place where they filmed Rocky?”

“Yes,” I lie, just because I can, and once again, explaining seems like the most torturous thing in the world.

“Oh my God, no, I haven’t. But we should, like, totally go! My brother always loved that movie, and Sylvester Stallone is a total artifact. Posting to Instagram with him would be a huge flex.”

She laughs, hard, and the loud, screeching sound of it nearly startles me out of my chair.

I didn’t think this thing could get worse, but my God, it just did.

It really, really did.HolleyDate number one for Bachelor Anonymous is officially underway.

And I have the horrible pleasure of being the journalist who is being forced by her editor to stalk their every move in the name of selling papers.

Thanks a lot, Gloria.

Bianca reaches out and touches Jake’s hand flirtatiously. Jake glances down at it with a weird look in his eyes. I try to read their lips as Bianca laughs and pulls her hand away, but I’m failing miserably. Obviously, I should have trained harder for this moment. Taken up lip-reading exercises on the internet. Searched for a coach to help me study. Something.

Now all I am is a regular creepy woman in the back of a restaurant staring desperately at a couple on their first date. I was trying to be inconspicuous, but in the future, if I want to have anything to write about at all, I’d better choose a closer table.

It’s almost cruel, however, the way that Bianca’s laughter carries. Now, I don’t need to be closer to hear that at all. It’s this horrid mix of Fran Drescher and Janice from Friends, and it’s ricocheting off the walls of this upscale restaurant like it’s on a mission to make everyone’s ears bleed.

Jake glances over Bianca’s shoulder at me, and I have to wonder if he’s thinking the same thing I am. It’s a damn shame I don’t know how to play charades well enough to spell it out for him without making a scene.

And hey, that’s probably a good thing. Maybe he’s not thinking that at all. Maybe he’s thinking she has the most beautiful laugh he’s ever heard and my insinuating otherwise would offend him.

Bianca cackles like a hyena again, and I cringe.

I have to hope he doesn’t find that lovely, though. For the love of God, I hope.

When my phone buzzes in my pocket, I purse my lips in question, but I reach down to pull it out.

Eight thirty at night? My dad is already in bed, and—man, this is pathetic—I don’t really know anyone else.

For better or worse, Raleigh got all our friends in the breakup. I guess I could be sad about that if I really tried, but the truth is, we were only really friends with his friends from high school and their wives. And, to be frank about it, the wives and I never really jived.

In the end, even the women chose Raleigh’s side. Although, I don’t know if they had much of a choice. They were married to all his bros, and that group of friends was very much a “bros before hoes” kind of crowd.