White, Speaks English and Spanish, Attended university, Drinks sometimes, Omnivore, Doesn’t have kids.

Looking for women for short-term dating and hookups. Open to non-monogamy.

I brought my hand to my mouth like I was going to be sick and fell back on the toilet seat. Then I closed out of the text and returned to Kate. “I’m here.” I blinked back tears.

“Are you okay?”

Not even a little bit. “I’m fine. Just caught off guard is all.”

I straddled the line between full-on honesty and completely minimizing the extent of my distress. If I said I didn’t care, she’d know I was lying. But I really didn’t want to cry again. And I didn’t want to make Kate feel worse than she already did. She wrongly blamed herself for getting my hopes up that I could have something real with Finn.

“You should have banged the handyman!”

I choked on a laugh. “My bad. Though, honestly, this just confirms what I assumed about Finn the minute I found out he wasn’t from Pleasant Hollow.”

“What now?”

“I do what I came here to do. Write a story.” I gave her an abbreviated update. “In the meantime, I have to deal with the naked man in the next room.”

“Meaning?”

“I’ll let you know as soon as I figure it out. Thank you for looking out for me.”

“Always!”

After we ended the call, I stared at my sad reflection in the mirror. My face looked like it had been through a landslide—droopy eyes, downturned lips. I was a poster child for the heartsick population. I had to pull myself together before I left the bathroom.

I blinked a few times to wake up my dull eyes, patted my cheeks for color, and rolled my shoulders back. Into the mirror, I said, “It’s fine, Adi. You are fine. Now you can lower your expectations. It’s fine.”

I took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped back into the room.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Finn muted the television. “Everything all right with your friend?”

“Uh-huh.”

I crouched by “my” side of the bed and scanned the room for my clothes. My stomach hurt like I’d drunk a gallon of full-lactose milk—expired full-lactose milk with chunks—but I had options. I could take Finn’s dating profile at face value and assume his desire for commitment was limited to short-term dating with exclusivity up for debate. Or I could ask him straight up.

He’d been kind to me—welcoming—more so than anyone else in this godforsaken hamlet. Giving him the courtesy of a face-to-face rather than relying on OkCupid was the least I could grant in return.