Take Your Time (Boston Love #4)(2)

He probably thinks he’s intimidating.

Hell, he should be intimidating.

Little does he know, intimidating is my type.

You see I, Delilah Sinclair — better known as “Lila” to those who learned my name the normal way, rather than reading it off the thin plastic license in my favorite leather Kate Spade wallet as their partner smacked metal cuffs a bit too aggressively around my wrists and shoved me into the backseat of a squad car — have always found an undeniable thrill in chasing men who don’t want me.

The stiff-upper-lips.

The commitment-phobes.

The bad boys.

The ones a smarter girl would take one look at, turn on her sensible shoes, and run from, full-tilt. Do not stop, do not pass go, do not rack up two hundred dollars in credit card debt at your favorite outlet store, even though they’re having a truly incredible sale.

The thing is, I don’t even own sensible shoes. And if you see me running, well, you should probably start running too, because it means something scary is most likely chasing me. (That, or Marc Jacobs just released his new summer line.)

I can’t apologize for it.

I won’t apologize for it.

These days, everyone is so afraid of being politically incorrect or posting something offensive online or accidentally saying something uncouth in casual conversation, most times it’s safer not to say anything at all. We edit ourselves within an inch of our lives, every day, every damn conversation, just to please people we’ll probably never see again. Hardly anyone says what they feel, or actually owns up to their honest-to-god opinions.

Not me, though.

My friends describe me as blunt, which I’m pretty positive is just their way of calling me an asshole in the nicest possible terms. They’re right, though. I say what I feel. I do what I say. I leap before I look and think about the consequences on the way down, just before I hit the ground.

Splat.

I don’t believe in all these boring, bullshit standards of propriety in modern society that dictate everything from first date etiquette to thank you card procedures. Which probably explains why, when I see a man who lives by the rules, who runs his life with unwavering restraint… Well, let’s just say, that old opposites attract saying became a cliché for a reason.

I don’t do it to be cruel. I do it because it’s addictive. There’s something about a challenge that excites me. The more disinterested a man appears at first glance, the more I seem to want him. In my book, unattainable is the ultimate form of sexy.

Give me a tight-laced man with a stern-set mouth any day… I’ll drive him wild, just to prove I can. Tie his orderly little life right up in knots, until he’s so tangled up in me he can’t even recall what it was like before I melted his cool-blooded calm into an inferno of chaos.

Before you say it — yes, I’m perfectly aware a therapist would have a field day with me. Whatever. He’d sit there for a two-hundred-dollar-an-hour session, trying to diagnose me; I’d sit there, refusing to take things seriously, probably trying to seduce him. Hell, if he was cute enough, there’s a significant chance I’d get him full-frontal on his leather recliner before my time was up, exploring alternate limits of the term doctor-patient confidentiality…

Sorry. What was I saying?

Oh, right.

I generally make a point to pick men who are allergic to relationships. The players — not only to beat them at their own game, but so I can teach them a few new rules of engagement along the way. And let me tell you… I’m always the MVP.

The only problem with this, of course, is when I inevitably attain the unattainable… catch the uncatchable… snag and shag the guy all the other girls couldn’t even get close enough to brush with the tips of their French-manicured fingers, until he’d bend over backwards just to make me his…

Well, that thrill I was chasing?

It disappears.

And it’s back to square one.

Err… to be more specific, back to the closest bar, where I’ll speedily identify another perpetual bachelor over the rim of my martini glass, and start the cycle all over again.

My girlfriends, worried by my constant revolving-door of conquests, frequently remind me that, statistically speaking, I’m bound to stumble upon a good man eventually. Don’t worry, Lila, they assure me, frowning slightly as I laugh off yet another break-up. There are plenty of fish in the sea.

True though that may be, as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t mean I have to eat seafood every night. In fact, I’m more of a catch and release kind of girl, when it comes to reeling in men.

Officer McStudMuffin is still glaring at me from down the hall, so I tilt my head, pop my hip, and waggle my fingers at him in my best flirty wave. My lips twitch when I see his scowl intensify. Damn, he’s even hotter when he wants to throttle me.

Rather than push my luck, I call on my final shred of common sense and turn to the payphone. I can’t recall ever using one — hell, I didn’t even know they still made these obsolete contraptions anymore. In this modern, thoroughly mobile world, I rather figured they went the way of typewriters, floppy disks, mp3 players, and pagers.

I pluck the heavy plastic receiver from its cradle and lift it to my ear. Listening to the dial tone buzz flatly, my eyes lock on the small, square metal buttons in front of me. I raise a hand to punch in a phone number, mentally preparing to plead with my best friend Phoebe to come bail me out… attempting to think up some way to explain these rather odd circumstances… and freeze as I realize I can’t call Phoebe.