“Noted.” Lex chuckled darkly.#p#分页标题#e#
I made a mental note to make sure he actually checked her off the list rather than making fake promises just so he could get his rocks off.
“Oh,” Lex said, “and Gabi says if you don’t make it tonight for dinner, she’s going to glue your hand to your penis. Though she was much more graphic.”
“Always is.” I grinned. “Text her and let her know I’m on my way.”
“Done.” He hung up.
I didn’t pick this life. It’s not like I woke up one morning and went, Wow, wouldn’t it be so badass to help dowdy women get the guy? And before you stomp off in a huff, look at the facts. Almost 60 percent of women marry down, meaning most women go for a man with the dad bod. The guy who is more than likely going to make less than them; never work out; eat hot dogs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner; and, let’s face it, need Viagra by age forty.
All it takes is a simple Internet search to get the facts.
Women are, by nature, insecure creatures, and if by the tender age of thirty-five they haven’t settled down, they’ll most likely marry the guy with the unfortunate bald spot and a heart of gold.
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
It’s kind of like when you go to the pound and pick the dog with the lazy eye because you feel sorry for it, and you know without a doubt that bastard will never stray.
So what’s the difference between settling and settling?
The first type of settling is cute. The dog with the lazy eye, or in this case, the man, really is what’s best for the girl. A match made in heaven. They’re the couples you see holding hands while you wonder if the girl’s legally blind. It’s the hot tall mom and the short dad. The sorority girl and the guy with the beer gut. The cheerleader and the science nerd.
For some reason, the universe accepts this. I accept this.
What I don’t accept? The insecure type of settling, desperate in nature.
Granted, that’s rarer.
But getting more and more common.
It’s when a girl never reaches her own potential, thus settling for less than what she’s worth. It’s the quiet girl who was never taught how to wear makeup. The chubby girl who eats her feelings but has a hilarious personality, who should by all means be paired with the quarterback.
It’s the matches who never find one another.
It’s my sister.
Quiet, shy, a bit desperate, but gorgeous. She used to crush hard on a guy from my team. And when I say hard, I mean, she ran her car into a mailbox once when I had him over for the Fourth of July.
The crazy part? He was totally into her, but because of her insecurity and awkwardness, she never pursued him. She was too scared to take that next step and meet him halfway.
I was too selfish to care, and she made me swear not to intervene.
A year went by. He got tired of waiting; she got tired of “rejection.” And she settled for her lab partner, Jerry.
Now she’s married to some loser who thinks video games are an Olympic sport, and that when the beer is gone, a magic beer fairy restocks the fridge while he sleeps at night. Idiot probably thinks buffalo are extinct as well.
My friend, on the other hand? He just got drafted by the Steelers and was recently in a Nike commercial.
I was sitting on my sister’s couch, at her birthday party nine months ago, when my life clicked. My knee hurt like hell, but it was nothing compared to seeing the look of complete devastation on her face as she watched my friend on national television while Jerry yelled for her to pick up the baby so he could keep on playing Xbox.
My sister deserved better. Deserves better. And as I iced my knee, thanks to an unfortunate incident I didn’t want to dwell on, I had an epiphany.#p#分页标题#e#
If only she had been more secure, known how to read the signs, known how to get the guy she really deserved, she would be happier. An ounce of confidence would have changed her life, and knowing how to read guys, to read a situation? Hell, just learning one rule in my playbook would have changed her life.
She wouldn’t be stuck in Yakima, Washington, the place that’s known as the Palm Springs of Washington but really, if you ask me, is drug and gang central, worse than LA.
She’s a Seattle girl surrounded by cows, drugs, tractors, and a weekly date night at Applebee’s.
To make matters worse, it’s not like she can move back to Seattle, not with her husband taking over the family tractor business and with his entire clan having lived there for over forty years. There was nothing I could do. Nothing she could do except the occasional call or text.
So basically she was stuck in hell until something shifted in their situation. But by the looks of it? World peace would be accomplished before that ever happened.