Oh, God. Now she was depressed. All the stolen goodies in the world couldn’t make it less sad that she was home alone on a Friday, dreaming up ways for a bad date to be humiliated. Maybe it was time to sign up for one of those online matching sites. After all, she sure as hell wasn’t hiring Andy Dawson as matchmaker.
There were shoes in her closet she’d rather eat.
Clunk. What the hell? The fucking squirrels around here were out of control lately. The other day, she’d seen one chubby and possibly drunk fall—actually fall—from a telephone wire. It looked almost embarrassed when it hit the ground, miraculously alive.
Clunk. Throwing shit at her window was too much, though. She might be a feminist, but she wasn’t an animal activist. Those little shits would see what it felt like to get an acorn or two to the face.
Clunk. That actually sounded like her bedroom. Oh, hell no. It wasn’t enough she slept poorly already? It wasn’t enough that the sun streaming in that damn window woke her not just on workdays, but ensured she hadn’t had a lazy Saturday since she moved in? It wasn’t enough that those little rodents owned the neighborhood trees, causing her poor elderly cat to have a conniption every time she napped in a window?
Clunk. They now wanted her. Well, Jaylene Kim would show them exactly what they were up against. In her bedroom, she selected her least-favorite pair of stilettos. Hefting them, she smiled to herself. The many evenings of halfhearted dart playing in bars, waiting for the band to go on, had honed her aim. In the battle of Jay versus squirrel, PETA would not be pleased.
Shoe in each hand, clunk, she slid the window open and leaned out. One long arm, complete with heel, snaked out as well. Her eyes darted around the oak in front of her brownstone, seeking out the culprit.
Bonk. The next missile hit her between the eyes. Blindly, she reacted and heaved the shoe as hard as possible.
“Fuck!” Well, that squirrel sure had a mouth on it, she thought as she rubbed her forehead.
Wait—how many squirrels actually dropped F-bombs? She cracked one eye, then the other. Shit. The squirrel she had nailed was none other than the hot neighbor. Shit, shit, shit. This was why she never dated, she couldn’t even tell a squirrel from a hot guy. Shit!
“Noah?” she ventured.
“Jesus!” came the response.
“Well … not quite?” How exactly did one respond in a situation like that?
“Jay?”
That she could answer. “Yeah! Um, sorry about the shoe. I thought you were a squirrel.” Now that her eyes were aimed at street level, it was quite obvious there was a cute guy throwing pebbles at her window. How she thought she was being attacked by wild animals was going to be unexplainable. His gorgeous, scruffy, now-bruised face grinned up at her.
“People have made a lot of assumptions about me over the years, but this is definitely a first. Wanna come down?” She yanked her head back in the window so fast she nearly decapitated herself. Did she want to come down and spend time with a beautiful and well-read man? Obviously. But he’d been so hard to read himself the other night. Did she want to spend the next hour second-guessing everything coming out of his mouth?
Hell yes, she did.
“Give me five minutes!” Pants. She needed pants. How was her face? Was any makeup still lingering from this morning’s application? Did it matter?
She yanked on a pair of black skinny jeans over her lace boy shorts. The Indigo Girls tank she had been lounging in would have to suffice. As for makeup, she gave herself a stern talking to. There was zero need to “fix herself up” for a man. If he liked her, it would be about her sparkling wit and clever repartee, not her winged eyeliner. Although—red lipstick was her signature, so no problem re-upping that. How was a woman supposed to be heard in this world without bright lipstick? She again stifled the inner feminazi as she dabbed on a touch of her favorite perfume oil. Smelling good made her feel good, so that was all right to do.
Despite her hard words to herself, Jay paused before opening her front door and took a deep breath. Don’t think too much. Don’t preach too much. Don’t ruin your first Friday with a man in ages. Blowing air and mantras through her freshly coated lips, she stepped onto the stoop, only to have all the wind knocked out of her by the man standing before her.
“Why didn’t you just ring the buzzer?” she asked. After all, it wasn’t like she wanted him to know how weak her knees had suddenly gotten. Now it was his turn to look like he’d been punched.
“I … I don’t know. I was trying to be cute, I guess.”
Damn it. It was cute. And romantic. Or it had been until she’d gone and threatened the man with a spiked heel to the eye. “It was cute. I’m sorry. No one’s been cute to me in a while. And it was surprising, is all.”