The Undateable

by Sarah Title

  Well, most of the time he was following the rules. There were also the times when she broke the rules, and he followed along.

  So, he was following along while she rewrote the rules?

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “Huh?”

  “Your face. You looked like you were confused about something.”

  “Oh, that’s just my face. It’s nothing.” Just Colin. And how you can think you know someone, and then they surprise you.

  And wasn’t that the truth. She looked at Matt with fresh eyes. So he gave off a strong whiff of patronizing. There were worse things than trying to be nice, right?

  “You hungry?” he asked, pulling containers out of the brown shopping bag he’d carried into the park.

  “Starved,” she said, and meant it. She’d woken up too late to eat a real breakfast, and then she’d been running around trying to get ready for her date so she skipped lunch. She did not, as a rule, skip meals. She sort of wished Matt would hurry the hell up unpacking that bag.

  “Thanks for bringing the food,” she said.

  “Hey, when I take a girl out, I take care of her.”

  He’s being nice, not patronizing, she reminded herself.

  “Wow, this looks great.” Her stomach growled. “Do you cook?”

  “No, it’s from this great little market in my neighborhood. My girlf—” Matt stopped, container of pasta salad frozen in midair.

  “Your what?” Bernie asked. Surely she’d misheard. Surely he didn’t just start to say girlfriend?

  “Nothing. It’s a great little market. Everything they have is delicious.”

  Maybe he meant ex-girlfriend. She needed to give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s not patronizing, and he doesn’t already have a girlfriend, she told herself.

  “Olive?” He passed her ajar. She didn’t take it.

  “Matt.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  “What? No! What? That’s crazy! Come on. No way. Okay, fine, yes.”

  Bernie blinked at him a few times, soaking in the newest twist in her ridiculous dating life.

  She did her best to stand up without flashing her underwear at him—he didn’t deserve it, the jerk—and she stomped down the hill to the parking lot.

  * * *

  “You owe me lunch.”

  Colin checked his watch. He’d pulled up to the park five minutes ago, which meant Bernie had been on her date for about half an hour.

  He’d been planning to wait five more minutes before doing a casual walk-by to see how the date was going.

  And now here was Bernie, adorable skirt and nice hair blowing in the wind, looking like she was going to kill him. At least they were back to normal.

  “What happened? Where’s Matt?”

  “He’s up there,” she said, pointing up the hill to where Matt was sitting alone on a blanket. “He’s probably on the phone with his girlfriend.”

  “His what?”

  “Don’t you screen these guys at all? First a walking psychopath, now a guy with a girlfriend?”

  “I didn’t think I would have to ask if a guy had a girlfriend when he’s signing up for a dating story!”

  She snorted at him. He wanted to protest her unfairly low opinion of men, but he couldn’t. He should have screened for girlfriends.

  “Let’s go.” She brushed past him and started walking across the parking lot.

  “Where’re we going?” he asked, rushing to keep up with her.

  “I’m starving. You’re buying me lunch.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “YOU MUST BE SICK OF IT.”

  Bernie put down her beer and picked up the container of takeout noodles. He watched, fascinated, as she dangled them into her mouth.

  “Of what?” he asked. He’d lost track of the conversation.

  “A whole month without dating.”

  He took a swig of his beer. He hadn’t really thought about it. But he’d been out of the game for a few weeks before he started this story, and Bernie was right, he hadn’t been on a date since. Not that there would have been time. But until she mentioned it, he hadn’t really missed it.

  Of course, now that he’d had the realization, it should have been a blow to his pride, to go this long without even a first date, but he felt fine about it.

  “I guess I’m just living vicariously through you.”

  She snorted. “That doesn’t sound very satisfying.”

  “No, I guess it’s not.” And yet, he was fine. “I’ll get back out there once we’re done.”

  “Women of San Francisco, beware!”

  “That’s right. Beware of all of your dreams coming true. Ow!”

  She hit him on the shoulder. It didn’t hurt, but he rubbed the spot like it did.

  “I’m still not convinced that dating is fun,” she said.

  “Has it really been that bad?”

  “No, I guess not. I mean, some of them have been bad. . . .”

  “Are you saying you’re not into vegan puppeteers?”

  “No. And I could have fallen in love with that poet, gosh, if only he had talked even more about his mother.”

  “Hmm. That would have been very sexy.”

  “Very sexy.”

  He watched her, slouched back into the couch in her living room, her feet up on the coffee table surrounded by cardboard containers. She looked different. It wasn’t the makeup or the hair—the hair was the same, thanks to the wind. No, he realized it was because she looked relaxed. He’d known her for almost a month now, and this was the most relaxed he’d ever seen her. No fancy dinners, no raucous nightlife, just kicking back with a beer.

  He liked that. Hell, he liked her, even though she annoyed the shit out of him.

  “It has been interesting, though,” she said.

  “Interesting? That’s not exactly how a guy wants to hear a date described.”

  “No, I just mean in general. I know you think I’m a total hermit—”

  “No, I don’t,” he lied.

  “But I do like meeting new people. And I can’t imagine another situation where I would meet a disc golf-playing graphic designer.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “People are interesting, you know?”

  “Just not necessarily for dating.”

  She sighed. “Mostly, yeah.”

  “Well, unfortunately, the story was not thirty friends in thirty days.”

  “I’d be into that story.”

  “I don’t think I could sell my editor on that one.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Besides, don’t you like the energy and tension of dating?”

  “Maybe. Sort of. Not really, no.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No. I mean, the nervousness I used to feel is getting less debilitating. It’s kind of pleasant now. And I have had some good times, even though they’re not necessarily romantic times. But it hasn’t been really sexy, you know?”

  “I tried my best to find hot guys for you,” he said, and felt immediately ridiculous. “Well, the girls at the office tried their best to find hot guys for you.”

  “Maybe I’m just a little frustrated.”

  “But I thought you were having fun.”

  She turned her face to him without lifting her head off the couch. “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Oh. That kind of frustrated.”

  “Yeah, that kind of frustrated.”

  “Well,” he said, hedging. “What about Ben? He didn’t rock your world?”

  She sighed. “No. We stayed up all night listening to music.”

  “So not . . . ?”

  “Is it terrible that I only pretended we slept together because I could see it bothered you?”

  “Hey, it didn’t bother me. But I guess that’s not a good idea on the first date, right?”

  “Psh,” she said. “You’ve never slept with someone on the first date?”


  “Well, sure, but . . . oh, I see. Double standard.”

  She smiled at him. “You’re learning! Anyway, none of them really felt right. Not even Ben.”

  He felt relieved. He wasn’t sure why.

  “Of course, it didn’t help that you were always there.”

  “Are you saying I cock blocked you?”

  She shrugged into the couch.

  “Well, you haven’t exactly been great for my love life. As you just pointed out.”

  “Hmm,” she said around a mouthful of beer.

  “Hmm,” he said, wondering what she was thinking. Whatever it was, he enjoyed watching her think it. He’d miss that face when this was all over.

  “We could fix that,” she said.

  He smiled noncommittally, still enjoying the view.

  Then his brain caught up.

  “Wait, what?”

  She shrugged again. “I’m just saying. We’re two red-blooded Americans.”

  “Americans?”

  “You know, the expression.”

  He had no idea what she was talking about.

  “I mean we’re two moderately attractive straight people. . . .”

  “What do you mean ‘moderately’?”

  “Okay, we’re two superhot straight people who are not totally repulsed by each other.” She looked at him for some sign of agreement.

  “Sure,” he said, because he was not repulsed by her.

  Quite the opposite.

  In fact, he was pretty attracted to her. Physically, in a way he hadn’t been the first time he met her. He didn’t think it was because her looks had changed. Maybe. Maybe it was because she was wearing better clothes now. But he didn’t feel attracted to her when he first saw her makeover. Which might have had something to do with the permanent scowl she wore that day in the office.

  Now she only scowled when she wasn’t laughing at herself.

  And he liked that about her. Sure, she had some unfortunate battle-ax tendencies, but she always seemed conscious of the ridiculousness of any situation, and she was just as willing to laugh at herself as she was to laugh at anybody else. More so.

  None of that, however, had anything to do with the fact that, if he was not mistaken, his librarian project was propositioning him.

  “I’m just saying,” she went on, inching into a more upright seated position, “we both have an itch to scratch, so why not?”

  Why not? He could think of many complications if they slept together. Like the fact that he was writing a story about her. But it wasn’t as if he was her doctor or her teacher. He was a writer. He wasn’t even really a reporter. Being unbiased wasn’t really a consideration in his pieces.

  So . . . why not?

  She sat up all the way, then leaned toward him. “Right? No big deal.”

  No big deal, he thought, and he couldn’t really think of anything else because she had put down her beer and was coming toward him, unbuttoning her blouse and leaning over him.

  “If you have an objection, now would be the time to voice it,” she breathed in his ear.

  Objection. He should object. Why? He forgot. It was taking all of his brain power to remember how to breathe. But when he breathed, all he got was the scent of her, sweet and citrusy, and then his beer was out of his hand and on the coffee table next to hers, and her shirt was on the floor, and her hands were on the arms of the easy chair and he tilted back, but not away from her because she was right there with him.

  * * *

  Colin growled.

  She’d never heard a man growl before. Not at her. Not for a reason she wanted to be growled at.

  But oh, she liked this growl. This growl had Colin surging off the chair and sweeping her up with him, dropping them both on the couch with a bounce.

  “Sorry,” he gasped. “That bra affects me.”

  She smiled up at him and squirmed under the pleasant weight of his body covering hers.

  “It’s new,” she told him.

  But she didn’t give a crap about the bra. That wasn’t true. She liked the bra. It was surprisingly comfortable, but that was not her main consideration when Colin’s mouth was an inch from hers and all he was doing was smiling down at her.

  “Are you gonna kiss me?” she breathed.

  “Uh-huh,” he said, but he didn’t. He just pinned her down with his eyes, examining every part of her face.

  If her face ruined this for her . . . she wasn’t going to let that happen. She wanted this. She wanted him. Maybe it was just a month of pent-up sexual frustration, but she didn’t care. There was a man on top of her, and he was the man she wanted. So she picked her head up and closed that pathetic distance between them.

  And then it was on. She’d kissed him before—twice— but nothing matched the ferocity of this kiss. She felt it, too, like they had to get at each other now or it would be too late. Too late for what? She didn’t care; she just kissed and kissed and wrapped her legs around his while his hands went exploring all over that new bra.

  And then he broke the kiss, but she wasn’t mad because he trailed hot kisses down her neck. She shivered and unwrapped her legs so she could get the leverage she needed to pull his shirt off without dislodging that tongue from doing whatever it was doing to her skin. But he was distracting and buttons were hard, and she couldn’t get the damn thing off.

  “Help,” she urged, and he sat up and tore his shirt over his head, which was a mistake because the wrists were still buttoned.

  “Crap,” he growled as he pulled at the inside-out arms of his shirt.

  “Stop,” she laughed at him, then shoved him back so she could sit up and help him get out of the damn shirt.

  The process was made infinitely more difficult by the fact that, while she fought with the buttons, he was continuing his exploration of all the sensitive spots on her neck. And sternum. And through her bra.

  Finally, finally he was free and his arms were around her, but she didn’t let him push her back down. Instead, she pushed him back so she was straddling him on the couch and had a chance to admire shirtless Colin.

  “I hope you’re not objectifying me,” he told her.

  “I’m not,” she said as she ran her fingers over the ridges of muscle on his chest and his stomach. “Your personality is really hot.”

  He threw his head back and laughed, and there was all that gorgeous skin for her to explore, so she did. He was hard and smooth except in places where he wasn’t, like the smattering of hair across his pecs, or the line that led down into the waist of his pants. She was really getting into it—and so was Colin, if the rise and fall of his breathing was any indication—when she felt his hands go around her back and the clasp on her bra sprang open.

  “Hey.” She started to tease him about . . . well, she wasn’t sure what because he was looking at her with such intensity, with such want, that she just sat up and let him take in her breasts with his eyes and his hands and his mouth.

  “Bernie,” he said after a few minutes of her squirming helplessly on his lap while his tongue did wicked things to her. “Bernie, can we—”

  “Bedroom?”

  “Yes, please.”

  He had excellent manners.

  He also had excellent core strength, which he demonstrated by squeezing his arms around her waist and hoisting both of them off the couch. It was a blatant show of masculinity and it was also a testament to his talented mouth that she did not even consider saying out loud the gender dichotomy joke that raced through her brain and right back out again as he took her mouth and she held on tight.

  Their blind, conjoined shuffle took them a little longer to get into the bedroom, but once they did, it was so worth it. Colin tossed her on her unmade bed, and she retaliated by tearing off his jeans. So it was only fair that he reach up under her skirt and pull her panties off. It was her turn to get him more naked, but she made the executive decision that a condom was a more urgent need, so she scrambled up to her bedside table and rifled through t
he drawer. She knocked a few books over in the process, but that wasn’t entirely her fault. Colin was all growly again and up behind her, pushing her skirt over her hips and leaning his chest into her back. She could tell that he had taken the initiative to remove his underwear, which made the dig through hair ties and bookmarks and all the junk that had accumulated in her bedside table all the more difficult.

  “Hurry up, please,” he growled into her ear, both demanding and polite. She wiggled back against him, just to see what would happen, and what happened was he bit her earlobe and cursed and Bernie thought that if she died right then, she would die happy.

  But not as happy as she would die if she found the damn condom.

  And then there it was, a whole row of them, and she turned in victory, but Colin was not interested in sharing her triumph. Well, he was, but his involved less “ah ha! Hooray!” and more tearing the foil wrapper and sheathing himself and untwisting her legs so she was open to him.

  “Ready?” he whispered as he hovered over her, his whole body poised.

  “Yes, yes,” she whispered back, urgently, and pulled him closer. She arched up as he entered her, cruelly slowly, and she looked up to see the wicked glint in his eye so she squeezed and the glint turned less teasing and more growly, and she wrapped her legs and arms around him and held on.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  THE BEST EVER.

  That was the most articulate way he could think of to describe making love to Bernie. She was perfect. She was equal parts teasing and hot and daring. She was lying out, resplendent in her naked glory, and Colin wasn’t thinking about how he’d never had sex with a woman like her before, a woman who thought like her or acted like her or looked like her. He was just thinking about her, and how he wanted her again, and how he might probably love her.

  Which was clearly just the sex talking.

  The best sex ever talking.

  Colin idly picked up a wave of Bernie’s hair and ran his fingers through it. “Your thirty days are almost over.”

  “Mmm,” she said, and snuggled into his chest. He’d miss this, burning off this energy together.

  It was just forced proximity, he told himself. He’d spent every day of an entire month with her. That was more time than he’d spent with anyone in his life that he wasn’t related to. Just look at how he didn’t even like her when they first met. How else could he explain the warm feelings except that he’d gotten used to her?