1
“THERE’S NOTHING WORSE than having the hots for a sexy guy, and then finding out he has the personality of a turnip.”
Lucille Vandenberg—known to her friends and family as Lulu, which wasn’t great, but was certainly better than Lucille—didn’t try to keep the disappointment out of her voice as she griped to her friends, Viv and Amelia. Honestly, a guy who looked as good as the man holding the guitar at the crowded bar should have boatloads of brains and charm to go with his amazing body. But this one? Ugh. She’d had more scintillating conversations with her houseplants.
“Sorry he turned out to be a disappointment,” said Amelia, her pretty, gentle face full of commiseration and support.
Viv wasn’t as comforting. “If the turnip’s hung like a porn star, you can handle a root vegetable, Lulu. I mean, it’s not as if you want a life partner here.”
Lulu wasn’t convinced, mainly because, once again, she’d set herself up for disappointment. For the past month, since she’d moved to Washington, D.C., she’d been on the lookout for an interesting guy to help break her long romantic dry streak. For what seemed like forever, she had been so focused on getting through grad school, and then on her internship in Rwanda, and then on her new job with a local NGO. She hadn’t allowed herself a single date in ages. Of course, that also could have been because her last serious relationship had been with someone who’d been so self-absorbed and career-focused, he hadn’t even known her middle name, her favorite color, or much of anything else about her a year after they’d been together.
But now she needed sex. Badly. Needed to have it with somebody who would make her forget she hadn’t had it for so long...or at least make her believe the wait had really been worthwhile. She could deal with him not caring about her middle name or favorite colors, at least for one night.
“I just wanted to meet somebody nice, sexy and smart, and have a welcome-to-Washington adventure,” she mused.
And when she’d come into this Dupont Circle bar earlier in the week and met the super-hot guitar player, she’d thought she might have found the perfect person with whom to do it.
But when they’d talked tonight, he’d turned out to be as adventurous as a trip to the dentist. Not even a trip for a filling, or a root canal, just a plain old check-up. Yawn. The monosyllabic conversation they’d shared when she arrived tonight had crushed her fantasies completely.
“Who cares about his IQ?” Viv added. “It’s his looks and size that matter.”
“Maybe to you,” said Amelia, her tone a bit disapproving.
Really, the two former college roommates couldn’t be more dissimilar, and Lulu wondered how they’d survived. They were like Oscar and Felix, only female. One was sexually conservative while the other was a bit of a slut. A definite odd couple.
“I wish I could be as brutally shallow as you, Viv,” Lulu said. “But I need conversation to go with the pecs and schlong.”
Viv grinned, impossible to insult. She was the queen of mean. “Fine, forget him. But don’t give up. The night is young.”
Maybe. But she didn’t want merely smarts, she also wanted a guy who was honest and direct, who didn’t play games with his intentions. Someone who knew what he wanted and went after it...not a wishy-washy dude who couldn’t even speak unless the subject was his favorite band.
Why the hell was it so hard to find somebody like that?
Amelia raised her voice to be heard over the crowd, which was growing louder with every costumed body that crammed into the trendy bar. “There will be lots of guys here tonight. You’ll find somebody better.”
“I doubt it.”
“Have another drink. They’ll all start to look better after three of those things,” said Viv, gesturing toward Lulu’s glass.