She kept staring.

I scooted a little closer. “Hey,” I said, dropping the charming act. “You okay?”

She stirred, almost surprised by my voice. She looked over at me and barely seemed to see me. Oddly enough, that was kind of nice. Somebody who wasn’t eager to please me, for a change.

“Sorry,” she said. “Weird morning.”

She was blonde with long-ass hair that was in an Amazon-like braided ponytail thrown over her shoulder. She had tan skin with a speckling of freckles across the bridge of her nose and big, blue eyes. Her nips were a natural, deep shade of reddish pink and she had the perfect posture of a woman who danced or did yoga religiously.

Yeah, I noticed. I already mentioned I paid attention to detail, like the way her right index finger was idly scratching a nervous little white patch in her dark blue jeans. It was a well-worn spot, and I had a feeling most of her clothes would have a similar worn spot in the same area. I also noticed how she wore little snowman earrings in red and green even though we were still four months out from the holidays. One of those people, I thought.

I felt my own stupid brain working in its old, disappointing ways. That was the word of the day for me. Disappointment. Because it was starting to feel more and more like a stupid little circle I was running in. Meet a girl, find a new and exciting way for things to end, repeat. And where was I now? I’d wandered right over to the first beautiful woman I saw and started trying to talk instead of even processing what I’d seen on that fucking cork board.

Maybe I should’ve listened to that little voice in my head. Then again, what did a little voice know?

“Weird is the right word,” I said, ignoring my own internal warning bells. They were telling me to walk right the fuck out of Pollard Marketing, forget about Annabelle, and swear off women for a couple years. Things would be simpler. Wasn’t simple boring, though? “What’s with the tattoo on that guy’s fingers? I mean, put aside how dumb it is to get ‘Suck it Dudes’ on your fingers, but why go plural? He could’ve had a neat one letter per finger situation.” I was hoping to get at least a smile out of her. For some reason, the look on this girl’s face was tugging at something deep inside me. For once, it wasn’t the string that led to my cock, either. Maybe that string was connected somewhere in the vicinity of my heart? Probably not, but maybe.

The corner of her lip twitched, but it was more of a bitter smile than amused. “He was drunk. And yeah, I always thought it was a really stupid tattoo. Not as stupid as the girl who believed that guy actually cared about her though, I guess.”

Oh, shit. “Those balls were your boyfriend’s?” I asked. Stupid, Dean. I should’ve said hands. Bringing up the balls was hardly the most sensitive way to approach this, especially because she had to be aware how unusually small and unimpressive they were. “The ass was my girlfriend, actually,” I said. “So we have that in common, at least. Both our significant others decided to screw us by screwing each other.”