ME: With those muscles, the only thing sweeping you off your feet is a hurricane.

My phone buzzed with another message from an unknown number, and a glance said it was my other number neighbor.

Yay!

I tapped on the notification and opened it.

NN #2: Hey… I’m Dante and I’m from Seattle. What about you?

Yeah, no, I think Dick Guy’s girl played him, and I switched conversations to tell him that.

ME: Unless your girl is named Dante from Seattle, you should probably block her.

It was a few minutes before he replied.

DICK GUY: Sorry, had to take my dog out.

DICK GUY: No. She’s named Rebecca from somewhere in South Carolina.

South Carolina? Did that mean he was close to me? Shit the bed.

I wasn’t going to ask. I didn’t want to know. I wanted to tuck him back into his little box of random stranger.

Then again, people met people from other states all the time online, didn’t they? It wasn’t that unusual to strike up a relationship online and meet in the middle or somewhere. At least, that’s what I read online. Mostly when I needed reading material for the toilet, to be honest.

I shook it off. I wasn’t going to think about it.

ME: Yeah. Block her. She’s played you.

DICK GUY: Damn it. I bet her picture was from Google.

ME: Probably. You can’t trust the internet. Abraham Lincoln said that.

DICK GUY: He wasn’t around when the internet was invented.

DICK GUY: Wait.

DICK GUY: I got it.

ME: I was about to question your intelligence.

DICK GUY: It’s late and I worked all day. Thanks for your help, stranger.

Was this goodbye? I was kinda sad about that. He was a better way to pass my time than watching yet another series of How I Met Your Mother for the fiftieth time before giving up after Lily and Marshall had their baby and it got boring.

ME: You’re welcome, stranger. Maybe make sure you have the right person before you send your genitals to them next time.

DICK GUY: Or avoid getting drunk and going on a dating website.

ME: Even better.

CHAPTER THREE – REAGAN

If You Name It, It’s Yours

“So, I have a problem.”

Ava eyed me. “When don’t you have a problem?”

“This is a serious one.”

Halley rolled her eyes and gripped the library cart.

Yes, I’d accosted her at work and dragged Ava with me and no, I did not regret it. It was our lunch hour and it wasn’t my fault my best friend was constantly taking my brother to lunch instead of me.

When else was I supposed to offload my eggplant-texting stranger issues if not over lunch?

At work.

It was her own fault.

“Okay, so, you remember on Monday when y’all came into work after your run?” I looked between them.

“You mean when Ava was a huge baby and groped your fridge to cool down?” Halley questioned.