“No women with them, and they look moneyed,” Lauren says. “And that one in the blue sport coat is super handsome. Maybeyoushould go for him.”
“He’s dressed like Thurston Howell III.”
“Who?”
“The millionaire fromGilligan’s Island.”
“You say that like it’s bad. That’s our ideal target!”
“Speak for yourself. I’m here for the free shrimp cocktail.”
“At least set your sights on lobster, sweetheart. This is aluxurycruise. And maybe you’ll meet someone. A fling is just what you need to forget about Gabe.”
“I’m very over Gabe,” I lie.
“You’re very not,” she says. “You haven’t gone on a single date since the breakup, and that was eight months ago.”
Well, that’s what happens when you fall madly in love with someone who wants to name your future babies on the third date, and then he breaks up with you two weeks after you move in together because he “realized he’s not ready.”
This type of behavior does not make a girl eager to race back to Bumble.
How do you cauterize a wound that goes so deep? Is it really so unnatural to miss someone you thought would be the father of your children, even if he hurt you?
Iammoving on. It’s just taking longer than Lauren would like.
The bigger problem is that ever since the breakup, I’ve felt flat. Uncreative. Unmotivated. Unsexual.
And my parents getting divorced is not helping.
But I’m ready to leave that behind. It’s time to shake off my depression over my failed relationship and flagging career.
This trip is about recentering myself, powering up, and reminding myself I’m the kind of person who knows how to go for broke.
“I concede a fling might be good for me,” I say. “But I’m not trying to canoodle with someone whose diapers I’ll have to change in ten years.”
“The kind of gentleman we’re going for will be able to afford a private nurse for that,” Lauren says. “And you’d be surprised at how well a seasoned man knows his way under the covers.”
“Um… Noted, I guess.”
Lauren scans the crowd for other potential suitors, identifying a well-heeled sexagenarian with twinkly blue eyes, a duo of middle-aged guys dressed in head-to-toe golf paraphernalia, and a strikingly handsome gentleman in stylish horn-rimmed glasses walking with an admittedly elegant cane.
And then she gasps.
“Oh my God, look,” she whispers, gesturing with her chin toward the check-in desk. I follow her gaze to a middle-aged couple with two very attractive young blond women.
“Uh-oh,” I say. “Competition?”
“Not them,” she says in a low voice. “Him.”
One of the girls steps aside, revealing a man who looks to be in his early thirties. He’s medium-tall and wiry, with a mop of dark, wavy brown hair. His white T-shirt sets off the muscles of his shoulders and reveals rather artful line-drawn tattoos on his forearms.
He glances over his shoulder and catches me blatantly staring at him. I all but fling my eyeballs out of my head looking away and blush so hard my face stings.
Before Lauren can mock me further, a woman in a pressed white crew uniform walks toward us, smiling.
“Miss Mathison and Miss Lanover,” she says. “It’s my pleasure to invite you to board. Follow me.” She gestures at the gangway, where a photographer is waiting by a step-and-repeat with the ship’s cheesy logo.
“Would you like a complimentary portrait?” he asks as we approach.
