Hot Stuff

“Forget it.” I cringe. “Let’s just get back to the ad.”

I turn back to the computer and start to type inside the personal ad template on my dad’s Bachelor Anonymous application.

Single Dad Seeks Juliet.

Yeah. That’s it. It’s got flair without being too ridiculous. I mean, it is for a contest being run by our local paper in which readers vote on the personal ad of their choosing to select an anonymous, unnamed bachelor who will be farmed out on several dates to find his Mrs. Right, so a certain amount of absurd is welcome—necessary, even—but I don’t want it to be too over the top. It should, at the very least, capture some sense of who my dad is as an actual person.

Fingers poised at the keyboard, I continue.

At 40 years old, after almost eighteen years of raising my daughter on my own, I’m ready to find someone for myself. I’m loyal, passionate, grounded in reality, and looking for someone who can say the same. I’m looking for my Juliet—without the tragic ending. Sense of humor is an absolute must.

Hailie looks over my shoulder, reading along with me as I type. When I get to the end, she whispers the addition of a finale so close to my ear, I squirm. “P.S. You’re beautiful. Yes, you.”

“What?”

“Talking to the reader always ups a feeling of engagement. That ad with that ending?” She shakes her head. “He can’t lose.”

“Great,” I say aloud as I type the addition into the template on the SoCal Tribune’s website.

On the inside, I am a mess.

But Hailie? Apparently, she’s just peachy-keen-jelly-bean with the whole sordid situation and reaches around me, scrolls down to the end of the page, and clicks the big red Submit button at the bottom.

“Hailie! What the heck?” Panic makes my heart lurch inside my chest like it’s stubbed its toe on the leg of the living room sofa.

But my best friend just smiles at me. “Too late to back out now, sweetcheeks.”

It’s really happening. My dad, Jake Brent, is officially in the running to be Southern California’s first Bachelor Anonymous.

Holy macaroni.

I want happiness for him more than anything in this world. He’s the best dad, and he deserves it. He deserves to find a woman who will make him happy. Someone who will make him laugh and smile. Someone he can spend time with when I’m away at college and no longer living at home. Someone he can build a life with.

But I can’t help but ask myself…Am I really prepared for him to win?

Because if he does, I can guarantee he’s going to be pissed.

Gah. Immediately, I glance at the date on iCalendar—June 15th. And then, I scour SoCal Tribune’s website to find out when the last round of voting for Bachelor Anonymous will occur—July 26th.

So…okay…almost six weeks of summer to enjoy until I have to worry about whether or not I’ll make it to see the first day of my senior year of high school…

Fingers and toes and pretty much everything crossed the next month and a half moves like Hailie that time she attempted to try out for the track team in the name of her crush on Taylor McKinley and ran the sixty-yard dash in a staggering two minutes—aka very, very, very slowly.

Holley

Today might be a Tuesday, but it’s feeling all kinds of Monday.

My work to-do list is a mile-long, and I have the lovely—cough painful cough—pleasure of fitting in a quick meeting with my editor in chief before I start my day.

With the fresh cup of coffee I snagged from the shop up the street in tow, I tip-tap my heels across the shiny white tile floor as I take a left out of the elevators and head down the long hallway that leads to Gloria Favorelli’s large corner office. Her door is already open, and the lively, early-August sun peeks its rays through the partially opened blinds of the window behind her desk.

And unfortunately for me, once I step inside, she doesn’t waste any time diving into the meat and potatoes of why she requested this powwow.

“Are you just as thrilled as I am about our Bachelor Anonymous contest, Holley?” Gloria asks, a far-too-happy smile on her face.

Sigh. I sit down in the chair across from her desk, and it takes a Herculean effort not to let out a deep, heaving, frustrated breath. Of all the journalists at the SoCal Tribune, for some insane reason, Gloria chose me—the woman who, just a little over six months ago, ended a more-than-a-decade-long relationship—to run this three-ring dating circus.

“Oh yeah,” I answer, the phony friendly tone of my voice not at all matching the pain that’s already starting to make its way inside my chest.

I had a feeling this was why she wanted me to stop by her office this morning, but I was desperately hoping it was about something else. Like, her telling me I’ve been switched to a new assignment and will no longer be running the dreaded Bachelor Anonymous contest.