He’d inherited the house, a large bank account, and custody of his two younger sisters when his parents had died, and he’d kept the furniture the same. The whole place had a lived-in, almost shabby feel, but anything that plugged into a power socket was updated every six months.
Being the child of self-professed hippies, raised according to their back-to-nature philosophies, there was nothing I liked better than a brand new, shiny appliance. The icemaker was my favorite. An entire appliance whose only job was to create ice and have it waiting to tumble into my cup any time of the day or night. Now that was living the dream.
Finn threw the lime juice in the blender to join the other ingredients and I pushed down the lid and switched it on. The rattle of the ice being crushed into the alcohol made me smile. I might be having a dry spell, but there was always late night mojitos with Finn.
Drinks in hand, we headed for the sofa. He’d obviously resigned himself to having this conversation—he never held out on me if he knew it meant a lot. I hugged his arm on the way past, completely conscious in that moment of how lucky I was to have him in my life. I didn’t know what I’d do without him.
“So,” he said, then paused to guzzle half his drink. “What did mustache boy say that’s got you thinking these stupid things?”
“Nothing.” I took a long sip of my mojito as I tucked my feet up underneath me on the vintage sofa. “Do you remember the last time I dated anyone?”
“That guy with the awkward fuzz on his face was here tonight. Am I wrong, or was that a date? And more importantly, did you tell him to stop embarrassing himself and just shave it off?”
Ignoring the dig about my date’s admittedly patchy beard, I brought the conversation back into focus. “It was a first date. That doesn’t constitute dating someone.”
“How are we defining it?”
I grabbed the mojito pitcher from the coffee table and topped up our glasses. “It has to be something regular. Maybe five dates or more.”
“What about the guy with the pink beret?”
“Nope,” I said and adjusted my glasses. “Two dates and never heard from him since. Besides, it was a red beanie. And it was winter, so it was a sensible choice of headwear.”
“Hmph.” He chugged more of his drink. “What about the one who was wearing his sunglasses at the bar?”
“Larry. And he’d had eye surgery and had to wear the glasses around bright lights.” I chewed on my bottom lip. He was hot and I’d had high hopes. “One date, and then I accidentally ran into him at The Three Beers a week later and we had a few drinks. Maybe we could call it one and a half dates.”
Finn wrapped a hand around the back of his neck—a spot that usually bothered him when he’d spent all day hitting the books. “I don’t even know why we’re discussing this. You want to date, and you go on dates.”
“I want something more.” My female friends fell in and out of love all the time, and their sex lives made me sound like a nun. Was it so wrong to want a little of what they had?
Finn shrugged and lifted his feet to rest on the coffee table. “Then choose better men.”
An easy solution—blame it on the guys. But if I wanted things to be different, I couldn’t resort to platitudes to make myself feel better. I had to face the truth. “It’s obviously not them. The common factor in all this here is me.”
“And here we are back at the start,” he said, not masking his exasperation. “There is nothing wrong with you.”
But I wasn’t so sure. “Hang on a sec.” I put my glass down, jumped up, and grabbed my laptop. Time to get mathematical about the situation. “Let’s go through this again. Who have I been on dates with?”
“This is crazy. You know that, right?”
“You were expecting sane after a disappointing date and two mojitos?” I opened a new spreadsheet document.
He threw back his head and groaned, but I could tell he was smiling.
One hour and another jug of mojitos later, I had a color-coded graph that tracked my dating progress. I hit print and stood a little woozily to snatch the paper as it spurted from Finn’s fancy printer.
It was just as I’d suspected. “See?” I said as I thrust the paper under his nose.
“See that you’ve lost your mind, you mean?” But he took the graph.
I settled in beside him on the couch so I could point at the page. “There’s a downward trend. The guys I dated in high school lasted at least a couple of months. Then it decreased to around four or five dates. In the last year, it’s gone down to one or two dates.”
I looked at the plunging line again. I’d made a lot of graphs, charts, and spreadsheets in my time—I was halfway to being an accountant, after all—but this was by far the most depressing graph I’d ever made.
“So you’re getting pickier about guys. Good for you.”
“But I am not the one ending these non-relationships. They’re getting more picky about me. Color-coded charts don’t lie, Finn. This totally explains my dry spell.” It was hard to get to the sex dates when the guys cut and ran beforehand. “How long can you go without sex before you become a born again virgin?”
Finn gulped his drink, looking like he wanted to be anywhere but in this discussion. “There are probably other factors in play.”
That was true. What factors hadn’t I taken into account? What was the commonality in first or second dates…?
And then it hit me.
Kissing.
These guys seemed eager when they asked me out, but once they’d kissed me, they drove off into the sunset. Tonight’s date had kissed me briefly at the door when he’d arrived, but he’d been different once we’d headed for the bar. And he hadn’t made a move when he’d dropped me home…
Mortified, I covered my face with my hands.
I was a bad kisser.
“What?” Finn asked.
Could I admit this? Even to my best friend? I looked up at Finn’s sweet face; his dark blue eyes were filled with concern. I’d never been able to keep secrets from him, and it looked like that wasn’t about to change now.
“It’s my kissing.” I blew out a lungful of air, resigned to my fate. “I kiss them on the first or second date, then never hear from them again.”
His eyebrows drew together. “You’re kissing guys on the first date?”
“A little focus here, please. Apparently I’m a bad kisser.”
“And I revert to my previous theory.” He shook his head. “You’ve gone insane.”
“My entire dating future is doomed. I’ll grow old, probably still in this house, surrounded by cats.” I grabbed his hand. “Promise me you’ll let me live here when I’m wrinkled and lonely. And that you’ll make sure I have an ice maker in working order?”
“I’m sure you’re a perfectly good kisser, Scarlett.” But he said it patiently, as if he were speaking to a child, and let go of my hand.
I threw myself back on the sofa, feeling the need to be as dramatic as this realization was. “You wouldn’t know—you’ve never kissed me. The guys who have are currently running for the hills.”
He took my glass. “And that’s enough for you tonight.”
“It makes total sense. In high school, I was dating boys who didn’t know much about kissing themselves, so they probably didn’t notice, and the relationships progressed. Then,” I said, stabbing the chart with my finger, “the dating length gets shorter the older I get—because the guys I date are getting older, too, and they obviously have higher expectations of kisses.”
“Scarlett—”
I held up a hand, cutting him off. “It stands to reason their expectations are higher, since nowadays, these guys tend to take me out to places that don’t have a drive-thru. My lack of kissing skills is the only thing that makes sense of the data.” I slid down on the sofa and threw my feet onto his lap. “God, what twenty-one-year-old can’t kiss properly? I’m doomed. Doomed, I tell you.”