Book Lovers(42)

It feels like there’s poison inside of me. No matter how hard I run, I can’t burn through it. For once, I wish I could cry, but I can’t. I haven’t since the morning of the funeral.

I pick up my pace.



* * *





“I’ve found him!” Libby squeals, running into the bathroom as I’m trying to coax my curtain bangs into submission, against the express wishes of the unrelenting humidity.

She thrusts her phone toward me, and I squint at a headshot of an attractive man with short, chocolaty hair and gray eyes. He’s wearing a down vest over a plaid shirt and gazing across a foggy lake. Over his picture is BLAKE, 36.

“Libby!” I shriek, realization dawning. “Why the hell are you on a dating app?”

“I’m not,” she says. “You are.”

“I am definitely not,” I say.

“I made an account for you,” she says. “It’s a new app. Very marriage minded. I mean, it’s called Marriage of Minds.”

“MOM?” I say. “The acronym for the app is MOM? Sometimes I worry about the severe lack of warning bells in your brain, Libby.”

“Blake’s an avid fisherman who’s unsure if he wants kids,” she says. “He’s a teacher, and a night owl—like you—and extremely physically active.”

I snatch the phone and read for myself. “Libby. It says here he’s looking for a down-to-earth woman who doesn’t mind spending her Saturdays cheering on the Tar Heels.”

“You don’t need someone exactly like you, Sissy,” Libby says gently. “You need someone who appreciates you. I mean, you obviously don’t need anyone, period, but you deserve someone who understands how special you are! Or at least someone who can give you a low-pressure night out.”

She’s looking at me now with that hopeful Libby look of hers. It’s halfway between the expression of a cat who’s dropped a mouse at a person’s feet and that of a kid handing over a Mother’s Day drawing, blissfully unaware that Mommy’s “snow hat” looks only and exactly like a giant penis.

Blake is the penis hat in this scenario.

“Couldn’t we just have a low-pressure night out together?” I ask.

She glances away with an apologetic grimace. “Blake already thinks he’s meeting you at Poppa Squat’s for karaoke night.”

“Nearly every part of that sentence is concerning.”

She wilts. “I thought you wanted to switch things up, not be so . . .”

Nadine Winters, a voice in my mind says. It takes me a second to recognize it as the husky, teasing timbre of Charlie. I suppress a groan of resignation.

It’s one night, and Libby’s gone to a lot of trouble for this very weird gift.

“I guess I should google what a Tar Heel is beforehand,” I say.

A grin breaks across her face. If Mom’s smile was springtime, Libby’s is full summer. She says, “No way. That’s what we call a conversation starter.”



* * *





Libby (acting as me) didn’t tell Blake where we were staying, and instead suggested I (secretly we) meet him at Poppa Squat’s around seven. In her flowy wrap dress with her hair perfectly tousled and pink gloss smudged across her lips, you’d think she had something better to do than nurse a soda and lime while watching me from across the bar, but she seems perfectly excited for the underwhelming night ahead.

Normally, I’d arrive to a date early, but we’re operating on Libby’s timeline and thus arrive ten minutes late. Outside the front doors, she stops me by the elbow. “We should go in separately. So he doesn’t know we’re together.”

“Right,” I say. “That will make it easier to knock him out and empty his pockets. What should our signal be?”

She rolls her eyes. “I will go in first. I’ll scope him out and make sure he’s not carrying a sword, or wearing a pin-striped vest, or doing close-up magic for strangers.”

“Basically that he’s none of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.”

“I’ll text you when it’s safe to come in.”

Forty seconds after she slips inside, she sends me a thumbs-up, and I follow.

It’s hotter in Poppa Squat’s than it is outside, probably because it’s packed.

The crowd is drunkenly singing “Sweet Home Alabama” around and on the karaoke stage at the back of the room, and the whole place smells like sweat and spilled beer.

Blake, 36, is sitting at the first table, facing the door with his hands folded like he’s here with Ruth from HR to fire me.

“Blake?” I outstretch a hand.

“Nora?” He doesn’t get up.

“Yep.”

“You look different than your picture,” he replies.

“Haircut,” I say, taking my seat, hand unshaken.

“You didn’t say how tall you were in your profile,” he says. This from a man who listed himself as six feet and an inch but can’t be taller than five nine unless he’s wearing stilts under this table.

So at least dating in Sunshine Falls is exactly the same as in New York.

“Didn’t occur to me it would matter.”

“How tall are you?” Blake asks.