Jewel paled. “I…uh…I’m still not comfortable going back in there after Brady.”
“Oh.” Well, that certainly explained a lot.
They each took a large bite of pizza—Jewel after she pulled off the pineapple—and Azalea moaned around the pizza. It had been a long time since she’d had good, greasy, and not good-for-you pizza. Jewel grinned at her.
“I have a date tonight.”
“Do you?” Azalea stiffened. They were back to this. It seemed to be the only thing Jewel wanted to talk about lately. She’d never been so forthright with talking about dating before in their friendship, so Azalea wasn’t sure what had changed, but she could power through it for a few more months if she needed to. Hopefully the conversation would die soon enough, or Jewel would find someone to date and the conversation would turn to that relationship.
Jewel nodded. “In Dodge, actually.”
“Really? Why so far?”
“Not far for my date.”
“Ah.” Azalea pressed her lips together. So Jewel really was taking the dating out of town thing to a new level. “What are you doing?”
“Thought we’d go to that new sushi place out there and then go to the casino or to a movie.”
Azalea grimaced. “Neither of those sounds fun.”
Jewel shrugged. “Might be.”
“Whatever you say.” She took another bite of her pizza. “Have you talked to him much?”
“Uhh…we’ve talked a couple times on the phone.” Jewel paled, and she brushed her fingers together in a nervous gesture.
Leaning forward, Azalea grasped her hand and squeezed. “It’s okay to be nervous. You haven’t been on a date with a new guy in over a year. I’d expect you to be a bit nervous.”
“Oh, yeah, right.” Jewel still didn’t make eye contact. “I guess it’s more because we haven’t met yet.”
“You’ll have your phone on you. You told me where you were going, just tell me when you leave. Unless you want some kind of code word so I know when to call the cops.”
Jewel gave a nervous laugh. “What would our code word be?”
“Oh. Um…I don’t know.” Azalea looked around her dining area. “Pizza? You could always say you’re going to get pizza, and since I know without a doubt you aren’t doing that, then I’ll know you’ll need me to make some phone calls.”
“That’s a good one!” Jewel grinned, her excitement coming off her in waves.
Azalea gave her a small quirk of her lips. Oh to be young again with all the hope for a future. Azalea would have loved to have been there, but at the same time, she was happy with the decisions she had made along the way. She’d ended up right where she wanted to be.
Having made up from whatever the argument was, although Azalea was pretty sure it was more her just being morose than an actual argument, Jewel left to get ready for her date with promises to send Azalea pictures of her outfit. Finally having a chance to work on her grading, Azalea went back to her office and her desk. She was halfway through reports when she stared at the incoming text.
The picture was more than telling. Her stomach clenched at the sight of Jewel in a tight black dress that rested mid thigh. The top was cut low enough that her ample cleavage showed, but she’d covered her shoulders with a sweater. It was decently tight, but loose enough that it wouldn’t be inappropriate to wear to most venues.
It took minutes for Azalea to drag her gaze up to Jewel’s face, which was painted heavily with makeup. The dark eyeliner made her dark brown eyes that much deeper. She looked like a model. Azalea’s stomach clenched at the funny face Jewel had made at the camera, surely for Azalea’s own amusement. Texting a quick reply back, she set the phone down.
Hours later, when she’d heard nothing from Jewel and she’d finished her grading, Azalea pulled up her computer. Maybe Jewel was right. Maybe she should give dating one more try. She went to the websites they had ventured to the other week and had one more debate with herself before she started her own profile.
As soon as she was finished, she sat back and waited to see if any matches would magically appear right away while she scanned to see who else was on the site. She’d purposely not put a picture of herself up and used a username that would be hard to track back to her. She’d been vague about her workplace and hometown. She didn’t want someone unsuspecting to find her.
The women on the site were beautiful, mostly. Some were her type and others were far from it. She clicked on a few, skimmed their information and moved on to the next. Maybe she should have decided if she really wanted to be dating before setting up an entire profile for it. She hit on the fourth or fifth profile and clicked on it.
Her stomach dropped.
The woman staring back at her in the picture was another teacher, one she had dated eighteen years ago. Reading it over, Azalea gleaned she’d been married, had two kids, and was now divorced and looking for the real love of her life.
“Jesus,” she muttered.
Azalea could not have backed out of that profile faster. She searched through the website to delete her own profile, shuddering when it was finally all said and done. She stared at the computer screen in shock. That had been a bad idea from the start. She would be much better off not on dating sites again.
With that thought firmly in place, she shut down her computer and went to scrounge up some dinner. She grabbed her phone as an afterthought, seeing a text from Jewel she had missed. Her date had gone to the bathroom, so she’d snuck a moment to text that everything was going well and no pizza was needed. Good. The thought made Azalea smile. At least one person could be happy with online dating. She’d let Jewel stick with that pleasure.