Page 1 of The Quit List

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HOLLY

Ever heard the saying, “Quit while you’re ahead?”

It’s very, very helpful. Like, when you’re in Vegas for your sister’s bachelorette party, and you’re up fifty bucks on the slot machines, but then that last gin and tonic you just knew was a bad idea starts to make your head a little fuzzy, and you can’t help but funnel that cash back into the machine, convinced that the little pieces of fruit are going to align and you’re going to be the Strip’s next instant millionaire.

For one glorious moment, you’re invincible. Powerful. You can do anything.

As your fifty bucks whittles away and you fall behind, you begin to feed the beast with more and more cash, determined to regain your position in the lead…

Then, the next morning, you wake up The Hangover-style, with last night’s mascara panda-ing your eye sockets, a slice of lime tangled in your hair, grease from the fried chicken sandwich you devoured at 3AM splattered all over your dress, and an email from your bank regarding unusual activity on your account.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner, you are not.

“I’m not following, honey. What does your drunken trip to Vegas have to do with us ordering dessert?” My date, Keith—because of course he’s named Keith—frowns at me as he wipes the remnants of his lobster ravioli from his lips with a napkin.

Everything! I want to scream. It has everything to do with it!

But instead of screaming (because if I’ve learned anything from dating, it’s that no one likes a madwoman), I calmly splay my hands on the linen tablecloth and force myself to look Keith straight in the eye. “We should’ve quit while we were ahead. Instead, we stuck out this date for the past two hours while we both wished we were somewhere else. Right?”

Keith stares at me blankly.

“So now,” I continue reasonably, “we should cut our losses, settle the bill 50/50, and get on with our lives. Ordering dessert is only going to drag out the inevitable. We both know that you’re not going to call in one day, or three, or seven, or whatever the recommended wait time is these days, and that we’re never going to see each other again.”

My dinner companion continues to stare at me like I have two heads and one mouth. Even in his stupor, he’s actually quite nice looking with that thick blond hair and chiseled jawline. You know, objectively speaking. Like if you see him from a far, far distance that puts you nowhere near his personality.

Truth is, I can’t say I blame him for seeming so flummoxed.

This isn’t how I usually end dates.

When a date goes badly, I tend to do what every other normal person does: I pretend that I had a lovely time, say that I look forward to him calling (when we both know he won’t), and the night ends after dessert with a perfectly amicable—if a little disingenuous—parting of ways. Thereby avoiding all unnecessary conflict in the process.

But Keith, here, has officially frayed my last romantic nerve.

And in the interest of being the opposite of disingenuous—ingenuous?—I’d rather stab myself in the eye with my fork than prolong this evening.

Which is saying a lot because the Full Moon Bar & Bistro has insanely good peanut butter chocolate cheesecake.

I would know, because I’ve been here for the past ten (yes, I said ten) Saturday nights in a row on dates. None of which went particularly well. But also, none of them went so badly that I didn’t want to round out the night with the universal bad-dates-silver-lining that is cheesecake.

Until now.

Keith blinks at me for a moment with watery blue eyes before his lips twist. “Still not following, love. Are you saying you don’t put out or what?”

I don’t know why I’m shocked by this. I really don’t.

“What I’m saying is that we’re completely incompatible.” My voice is still calm and reasonable enough to mask my inner turmoil.

Keith showed up fifteen minutes late and went on to be incredibly rude to the waiter when he heard that there was, indeed, gluten in the pasta. He then proceeded to order said gluten-laden pasta before talking about himself for an hour. And if that wasn’t bad enough, it was mostly in the third person.

Conversation topics ranged from humble-brags about his Very Important Job (something to do with bossing people around), to feminism (Keith does not appear to be a fan), to the minimum wage crisis (this mainly consisted of his thoughts on how if people “showed more initiative,” they could be fancy-suit-wearing bossholes too, one day!).

And yes, he chose to rant about the latter while our waiter uncorked our wine and poured our drinks, giving him the occasional smirk as he spoke.

Awkward and mortifying don’t even begin to cover what I felt as the poor waiter walked away.

And after that particular moment of grossness, I had confirmation that I, for sure, could not stand this man.