Even worse was that nothing else in her life seemed to get back to normal either. She was barely doing her job, all of her old friends were boring, and worst of all…despite the fact that her life list had returned to its status on her nightstand, she hadn’t once opened it.
Didn’t want to open it.
“I’m a mess, Sue.”
“It’ll get better, I promise. Guys have a way of making us…crazy. But it’ll fade and you’ll feel right again.”
She smiled at her friend’s well-meaning advice. Even though she knew she was dead wrong.
Brynn didn’t want to go back. But she didn’t know how to go forward either.
* * *
It wasn’t that Brynn had never been on a bad date before. She’d had her fair share. But she’d never been on a bad date that should have been great.
Like many little girls with romantic inclinations, Brynn had spent a fair amount of her younger years daydreaming about her future husband. He’d be tall, naturally. Dark, personal preference. Handsome, that was a given.
He’d also be smart, successful, and kind, but never boring.
James had almost made it. Minus the boring part. And considerate and kind weren’t quite the same thing, but he had been a good guy.
But Michael Alden?
Oh baby—he was literally the stuff of fantasies. Her fantasies.
She even prided herself a little in branching out from her doctor/lawyer dating pool. Granted, he was CIO of a pharmaceutical company, which meant he mostly worked with doctors. But still.
Take that, Will Thatcher. I’m not such a creature of habit.
She could change it up.
She could be different.
She could be open-minded.
Case in point, Michael had a dog. Brynn was not a dog person. At all. But was she writing Michael off just because of that? No, no, she was not.
And yet she wanted to go home. Badly.
“Is everything okay? You seem a bit quiet,” Michael said as he topped off her wineglass with a delicious Pinot Noir.
“Sorry,” Brynn said sheepishly. “Long day.”
They were all long lately. Ever since that awful showdown with Will, her days had somehow become an endless string of the same old coffee, the same old commute, the same old workday. Same salad for lunch, same problems, same triumphs…
She half listened to Michael as he told a story about how his nephew’s space shuttle drawing looked disturbingly like male genitalia. And even though she laughed in all the right spots…even though the anecdote was genuinely entertaining, it was all…wrong.
He was wrong.
The hair was too dark. The eyes weren’t the right color. His shoulders weren’t quite as broad as she might like.
And he didn’t excite her.
Her heart starting to pound, she quickly put him through her Future Filter. That mental game she played with every potential partner where she fast-forwarded five years to the point where they had wedding bands and family trips to Disneyland and a homemade-ice-cream maker for special treat days.
She could see it all.
And she didn’t want any of it. Not with him.