I looked her dead in the eye as I lied my ass off. “A real woman would never compete with her man financially. I knowmyplace. How could I possibly make him the perfect omelet if I’m in the workplace? I will need at least a couple of hours to stir and cook and wash the curds to make homemade cheese. Not to mention the gardening time for bell peppers and all the chicken maintenance for fresh eggs. I have researched this extensively. I cannot with a clear conscience waste my time at a corporate job. There is just no way to adequately take care of my husband unless I am in the kitchen full-time, where I belong.” The only reason I knew anything about cheese in the first place was because I had considered homemade cheese as a wedding favor, in that weird phase where I was exploring a cottage-core wedding.
Suddenly, I was glad that I had. The look on her face made it all worth it.
“I am honestly surprised that you would suggest that a man like Charlie should have less than ten children… with genes like that,” I gestured at his very average-looking physique, “heneedsto pass them on.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t think that this is going to work out for us,” Charlie’s mother sighed heavily.
“Oh.” Charlie looked a bit lost. He stared slack-jawed as his mother got to her feet, deciding for him that his date had come to an end.
I was vaguely curious if he had enough of a spine to stand up to her, but was ultimately unsurprised when he glumly followed her, getting to his feet as well.
“Sorry about this,” he muttered, without meeting my gaze.
As the two of them strode out of The Thirsty Pearl, I heard Mother Dear hiss in Charlie’s ears, “Don’t you worry, my precious boy. Mother will find you an even prettier girl. Someone who will know how to treat you like the King you are.”
“But Mother, I likedher.”
It was probably a bad thing that Charlie was so taken by this fake version of me that was just saying nonsense to scare his mother away. But in all honesty, there was a part of me that was amused. It wouldn’t hurt if the thought of me lingered in the back of his mind as this perfect girl who’d gotten away… Maybe it would be good for him. Maybe it might give Charlie the push to someday, possibly,nottake his mother along on his dates. To let him sever the umbilical cord for an hour or so.
“I know my sweetest boy… but I don’t think it would have worked out. She seemed a little bit…crazy.A mother can always…” With that, the two of them were out the door. Guess I would never find out what a mother could always do.
I checked my watch. Seventeen minutes to scare them off.
Time-wise, this was a lot more efficient than some of the other dates I’d gone on.
Saying all that crazy nonsense was pretty relaxing—it felt liberating. It almost made going on this awful date worth it.
Almost.
CHAPTER 8
AVRIL
After unpinning allthe pictures of potential beta dates and tearing out the yarn from the corkboard, I tried a new strategy. I don’t know what was crazier; the fact that I’d tried a plan thisoutrageous, or the fact that it seemed to be working.
I took each and every picture of all the future dates that I had considered. I turned each one over, so I couldn’t even see their faces—nothing at all. Then I just picked one at random.
Without even looking at the guy and making pros and cons sheets… instead of spending a good half an hour combing through the profiles to figure out everything I could about the guys… I just picked someone at random.
While I am surprised that I actually did that, what was more surprising was that this date was actually going well.
Me. Avril Stryker, was going on a perfectly normal date, with a perfectly normal guy.
The two of us had a perfectly lovely conversation. He actually even made me laugh out loud once. Almost twice.
This guy was almost too good to be true.
He didn’t spend the whole date talking about himself and how important he was. He never mentioned any fucking imaginary tables—to ask me what I brought to them. This guydidn’t even bring his mother to the date, or try to convert me to a new and weird ideology or anything.
All in all, this date had actually gone well.
“Wanna come back to my place?”
“You know what, sure.”
I was, after all, out here finding the man that I planned to marry. It was important that I test drive the goods. So sure, I could welcome the sexual advances of someone I barely knew.
Why not?
