Page 28 of The Quit List
“Sure,” I drawl.
“I’m serious,” she protests. “I need someone to help me find better dates. Someone who can read people, because I’m obviously lacking in that department.”
“You don’t say.”
“So… Can you help me?”
I stare at her, still a little confused. Why on earth would this woman want me—an almost-stranger with absolutely no long-term dating experience—to help her find the love of her life? “Don’t you have friends who’d be better suited to help you?”
“You’re my best hope.”
“And you’ve gleaned that how, exactly?”
“Because you had Keith pegged in an instant. His profile said he was looking for love, but you knew immediately he was looking for lovin’, if you get my gist.”
“I do. Unfortunately.”
“And you knew Emmett had a girlfriend.”
“Emmett?”
“The park-walk ghoster,” she clarifies.
I frown. “I only knew those things because I know men like that,” I say, silently correcting men in my mind to one particular man.
“Then help me avoid them! Help me find a man who wants the same things I do.”
And for some reason—maybe the hydrogen peroxide Maddie insisted on dousing my arms with has leaked into my brain—I find myself pausing. Find my gaze traveling over the girl with the cute dress and the messy hair and the terrible taste in men, and I see Maddie before she met Seb. I see their potential baby girl in two decades’ time, wanting to find a good man.
I see all the women my father has hurt over the years. My mother included.
And so, I decide to humor her. Give Holly-the-bad-dater a hand with all her bad dates.
I raise a brow at Holly quizzically. “So, if I were to suggest that you stay for a drink right now, you’d say…?”
She puts her hands on her hips. “I’d say: are you offering to help me, or are you asking me out, Jax?”
This makes me laugh. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Dante, Kara and some of the other staff watching us from across the restaurant with undisguised interest. But I don’t care. Because I’ve just decided that I like Holly and her blunt, abrupt mannerisms and weird ideas.
“And I’d say that I can’t handle any more of your rejection for the moment.” I chuckle, then gesture to the stools that line the bar. “Take a seat and we can get started with… weeding out all the toads.”
11
HOLLY
“Sit,” Jax says again as he comes up behind me, where I’m dithering in the middle of the restaurant. He points to a bar stool in the corner.
“Say please,” I reply.
Why? Why would I say that?
And why does he smell so good? I still remember that smell from the night he saved me from Keith—that clean, woodsy, altogether manly smell that’s nothing short of delicious. I mean, shouldn’t he smell like spilled beer or something?
“Well, excuse me, ma’am. Where are my manners?” Jax laughs. I like that he laughs easily. There’s something so nice about making an attractive man laugh. Not that Jax is an attractive man. Well, I mean, he is, objectively speaking. But I’m not personally attracted to him. Definitely not.
He doesn’t fit any of the criteria I’m looking for.
“Please sit, Holly.” He pulls out a barstool for me. Cocks an eyebrow. “Better?”