Nic nodded. “Once. Like I said, I didn’t have great role models, but I thought I’d give it a try.” She thought back to the girl she’d met in college—Kayla. “I was twenty, I think, when I met her. I liked her a lot. At first. I wouldn’t say I was ever in love with her. I didn’t have those deep feelings, whatever that is. But I thought maybe it would grow to that. She was fun and we had a good time together. But then she got into the whole college scene and was binge drinking and partying. Stuff I wasn’t into. Turns out she was a mean drunk and she liked to pick fights with me, then she wouldn’t remember it the next morning. It was too much. That was my parents’ relationship. Yelling, fighting. I thought, is that how all relationships were? If so, I wanted no part of it.”

“Was she the same age?”

“A year younger.” She rolled onto her back. “One morning, after a fight the night before, I broke up with her. She didn’t remember getting hammered, didn’t remember the fight. It didn’t matter. I was through. She kinda turned into a stalker for a few months after that. So much so that I didn’t go out at all. She finally moved on to someone else, but I was over the whole dating thing by then. Sex became so much more relaxed when you didn’t have to worry about the emotional crap that comes with dating.”

“And that’s how you still are?”

She smiled. “I’m not in college anymore. I’m over thirty. I have a job that demands I get to work before dawn. So no, I don’t cruise the bars at night, looking for a hookup. I’m with Eric and Addison a couple of times a week. I have dinner with my uncle at least once a week. I have a handful of other friends that I go out to dinner with occasionally. And yes, sometimes I get lonely, and I go to the bar. And sometimes I go home alone and sometimes I don’t.”

She heard Abby sigh. “I wish I could be like you. I’m not brave enough to pick someone up at the bar like that. My friend Sharon says I like to vet them first before I become even a little bit involved with them. So, I get lonely too. I feel left out. Most of my friends are couples. In fact, I think all of them are.”

“Do they try to set you up? Blind dates and whatnot?”