Doug looked down at his feet and laughed lightly before meeting her gaze again. “Sounds like a plan.”
Taryn stepped forward and gave Doug a quick hug, deflated about how the night had gone and ready to get home. “Have a good night.”
They walked in opposite directions to get back to their cars, and she didn’t bother looking back to wave. Her steps were purposeful on the sidewalk, but her mind sifted back through the date, replaying the conversation, analyzing.
Damn, she had been boring. She spent so much time with her colleagues, who thought the minutiae of research were top-level entertainment, and her students, who were forced to pay attention to what she said, that she’d forgotten how dry all that stuff could be to someone outside of that world.
Ugh.
Taryn pulled out her phone and texted Kincaid.
Taryn: Thanks for the setup.
It only took a few seconds for her friend to respond.
Kincaid: Uh-oh, ur texting me before midnight. That can’t be good. Did I miss the mark?
Taryn: Not ur fault. Apparently, I’m boring.
Kincaid: WHAT? Did he say that? B/c I will kick Doug’s ass.
Taryn: No. I’m saying it. I bored him.
Kincaid: It’s not ur job to entertain a dude.
Taryn: Correction—I bored myself. He was just along for the snore-worthy ride. I’m BORING.
Kincaid: *hugs* You’re not boring. You’re brilliant.
Taryn: The two aren’t mutually exclusive. Can be both.
The phone rang in her hand. Taryn passed her parked car and kept walking, needing a bit of fresh air before the drive home. “Hello?”
“Stop calling yourself boring,” Kincaid said without preamble.
Taryn stepped over a wad of gum stuck to the sidewalk. “I’m just calling it like I see it.”
“No. You’re not seeing it clearly. You’re just in a rut, honey,” Kincaid said, her sassy country-girl accent coloring each word with concern. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. It can happen to the best of us.”
“Oh, please. When in your life have you ever been boring?” Taryn asked with an eye roll her friend couldn’t see. Kincaid was the definition of the life of the party. She could probably turn a seminar on time-shares into a hot ticket.
“It’s happened. I swear,” she said dramatically. “I had a stretch where I worked so much that I was in bed with a guy and found myself telling him how the cornices on his windows would raise the value of his house.”
Taryn laughed. “Oh no.”
“Yes, you better believe I took myself on a vacation two weeks later,” Kincaid said with a huff. “If I’m thinking about cornices when I have a naked man literally on top of me, it’s a code red. That needed the Bahamas.”
“I don’t have time to go to the Bahamas.” She didn’t have time to get a pedicure, much less take a trip to an island that served umbrella drinks.
“I know, but maybe you just need to take a break or shake things up a little,” Kincaid suggested. “Try some new things. Meet some new people. Hell, move to the city. I could get you a good deal on a condo. I know an agent who works the area near the university.”
“Move to the city?”
“Sure, why not? You’re young and single. You can move where you want.”
Taryn’s eyes drifted to the loft apartments in the building on the other side of the street. The big plate-glass windows shone bright with interior lights at this hour, different versions of home being displayed in each—a modern minimalist look with bizarre artwork on white walls and a couple sitting at a dinner table, another apartment with a collection of African masks above the couch in a funky display, and yet another with a cat perched in the window and a woman drinking coffee or tea in a chair nearby.
Move to the city? Not that the thought didn’t sound glamorous. Taryn had always been captivated by the idea of living downtown in some big city. The buzz of life all around her. Restaurants and shops just a quick walk away. It was so far from her reality in Long Acre, three streets over from her parents in a boring ranch-style rental house, that she couldn’t even wrap her head around it.