“I do. It’s like we’re in some sort of a black hole!”

“Relax. Your Tinder account will still be there when this thing ends. Just sit down before there are no seats left.”

The joke would be on Casey if only she realized that I haven’t really checked Tinder since Decker came back. I guess your new-husband priorities just kind of fall by the wayside when your old husband returns. But regardless, I find the one open seat on the “stationary” side of the speed dating table, which means every sixty seconds when the whistle blows, I will not move but rather someone new will be sitting across from me. Casey is sitting on the rotating side, her face looking like it has more white powder on it than a frosted beignet. Somehow, it works for her. A guy who looks like a young Tom Hanks is the first to sit down across from me.

“Hi, I’m Liam,” he says, shaking my hand. His palm is cold and sweaty. “I guess you’re my first ‘date’ of the evening?”

“Charlotte,” I say with a forced smile as I return the shake like my hand is a dead fish.

“Sixty seconds are on the clock... GO!” shouts the moderator for this event.

“So, what do you do for a living?” I robotically ask as I take a sip of my now watered-down bourbon and ginger.

“I’m a hedge fund manager. And I also collect classic cars. I have about eight in my garage right now.”

“Wow, very cool,” I say, noting that hedge funds and classic cars might not actually be such a bad combo.

“Are you more of a Mustang girl or are you into Corvettes?”

“Corvettes,” I say, as if I really have an opinion on the matter. “How old are you?”

“I’m thirty-six. You?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“Right on. My little sister...”

Liam trails off about something related to his younger sibling while I maintain eye contact but feel around as discreetly as I can in my bag for a pen. Sixty seconds isn’t much time to work with, but the fact that he is a hedge fund manager and car collector is worth some extra exploration for the sake of the app. Even though there is no cell service on this godforsaken boat and I can’t plug these data points into my app right now, I just need ten seconds to jot down Liam’s info on the back of a cocktail napkin before the next round starts. It’s not ideal, but it’ll have to do.

“So, what kind of a guy are you looking for?” he asks just as the whistle to the next round blows. “Dang, that went by fast. Here’s my card. Get in touch if you’d like.”

I note that he says the word dang when frustrated—as opposed to damn—as my next date settles in across from me. It’s a woman. And not just any woman. It happens to be Gemma from WeHot. It’s a little foreign seeing my client here at a dating event. It’s like spotting your teacher out shopping for groceries. But that’s the risk I ran going to an event like this. You never know who’s spending their free time and disposable income on a singles cruise. For all I know, maybe her roommate dragged her here as well. That said, the fact that I somewhat know her will make telling her I’m not romantically interested in women slightly less awkward than having to break that news to a total stranger.