Match This! (The UnSocial Dater#1) (19 page)

“She started it!”

“Shouldn’t have been involved, sorry you were. It’s over. I got this. Won’t happen again.”

He turns and walks away.

“I’m not done.”

“Taco Tuesday, Kat. See you tomorrow.”

****

I walk out the front, no reason to walk out the back and chance catching kid germs or pissy attitudes. It’s Taco Tuesday and I have a date at eight tonight. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but now, after that shit, I am hoping for an orgasm.

I slide in my car and start to put my phone on the charger when I see an alert. I hit the app and it opens.

@rider1: Damn if that’s a fan club I’d hate to see what your haters are like.

Kat: Brutal.

I type thinking of the shit I just left. For a brief moment I think that maybe, just maybe dating a preppy ass Ken doll would not be so bad. Not when I work with a bunch of assholes.

@rider1: Can’t let it get to you. Let it roll off your back. You need me to bust heads let me know.

Kat: Thanks but no thanks. I’m a lady who can handle herself.

It wasn’t a lie.

@rider1: With a man beside you who wasn’t just a player, you wouldn’t have to.

After Tacos with Mom and Macey I head to the pier for my
date
. Macey is going to follow me to make sure ‘
all goes well’.

Peter, yes that’s his real name, looks like a cousin to Alvin, but I pray to God he has a man's voice.

I had looked at his picture but was kind of preoccupied with…life to worry about a date.

“Kat,” he smiles as I walk up the wooden planks.

“Peter?” I ask forcing myself to smile. God answered my prayers, he has a...manly voice.

“Wow,” he says as he looks me up and down.

“Wow?” I ask curiously.

“You have a load of tattoos,” he says looking at me, but not really
at me
.

Peter is making me uncomfortable.

“Do you have any?” I say breaking the silence.

He blinks and it seems intentional. “I’ll show you if you really want?”

“Where?”

He looks around and leans in. “Low.”

“Your dick is inked?”

He laughs. “No, but close enough that showing you in public may get me arrested. Let’s save that for when we’re alone.”

“And what makes you think that will be anytime soon?”

“A man can dream,” he blinks again.

I stare at him trying to see if he has dust in his eye, or a speck of dirt, something to explain the constant blinking.

Nothing.

He’s looking me up and down again and making me uncomfortable-ish.

“I need a fucking drink,” I mumble and he laughs.

“I’ll take both,” and he fucking blinks again.

“A drink is cool but the fucking, that’s not gonna happen.”

He holds his hand over his heart. “Ouch, shot down.”

After a drink, a million more one-liners and distracting blinks, I decide Peter could be worse. At least he’s trying to be funny and charming. He’s also trying to get in my pants, but after the epic fail Sunday night I am not going to chance a let down again so soon. I have a peen collection that’s missing and a mom who knows no boundaries, at all. I can’t chance her walking in on me getting off.

When he walks me to my car he leans in like he’s going to get to kiss me.

I open my mouth to tell him that’s not going to happen and he grabs the back of my head and smashes his mouth against mine.

His tongue shoves in deep, like a sword.

I push mine against his trying to push it the fuck out and he groans. He groans, and shows no sign of retreating.

It’s not the worst kiss, but certainly not the best and people are walking by. How do I know this? My eyes are open.

My eyes are open and he is tongue fucking my mouth. And it’s a sloppy as hell fucking too.

I roll my eyes at the group of women walking by and they laugh.

He groans and without warning his hand covers my tit and his hard-on presses against my stomach. That’s it. I push him back rather forcefully.

“Kat,” he says looking totally fucking enamored with me.

“Peter,” I respond wiping my lips.

“You taste so good up there, I want to taste you everywhere.”

He leans in like he’s going to sword fight my mouth again and I hold my hand up stopping him.

“Kat,” he groans.

“I need to get going-”

“Before we end up fucking right here,” he says looking down. “I know, this connection we have, this, intense attraction.” I almost laugh because it’s fucking laughable. “We need private time soon, Kat.”

“See ya,” I say while opening the door and getting in.

I shut the door and see him blinking.

I pull out, as quick as a man avoiding pregnancy, and get the fuck out of there.

I glance in the rearview and he’s standing there waving like a fool.

I laugh to myself and then out loud. This is a fucking joke. A sick joke. A sick, twisted joke.

Whoever said that being with someone was better than being alone was as fucked up as they come.

I allow myself to briefly imagine life with someone like Alvin. I imagine myself in our nest, him looking good, but that fucking voice would have me running to the busiest street and laying sprawled out waiting for the next truck to run me over.

Not-Rex, sucked in bed and was no conversationalist. The turn on was the way he stood in the shadows watching me. The turn off was him not being able to hold a conversation and when I insulted him about being inept he didn’t have the balls to tell me I was a bitch. He simply followed me into the house and then and only then did he take any sort of dominant position when he walked past me, wordlessly, leading me to his room. Fuck, I even had to put the damn condom on him and he still stood there stunned.

In his defense, and I have no idea why I am defending him, he was not Rex, he didn’t know me, he must have just thought it was his lucky night. It was.

I know Peter was eager to pet my pooty. So eager, I also know, that sex would suck dong. He would have probably come when I put the condom on him.

Out of the three Not-Rex was probably my favorite.

He knew his place. I imagine myself patting him on the head like the dog he is, ‘
Good Not-Rex,
’ and as amusing as that is, it would never be something I would want for more than a night, let alone a lifetime.

Dating was another joke. What is it even for? To find a lifelong mate? The divorce rate clearly indicates that the adolescent fantasy of a happily ever after was about fifty percent and the life expectancy of a human being rises due to the miracles of science. Does this not scream wake up to the bitches in the world who still believe in their knight in shining armor, the guy she’s about to spread her legs for, will be hers forever?

It’s too fucking bad you aren’t taught that your self-worth and happiness cannot come from making someone else happy, or the opposite, someone else making you happy. Even if it started out on an even ground, both people making the other equally as happy, situations change, shit happens, people die, kids act like asses, bills pile up, and there is no way to make that not happen.

Years ago I’m sure it was a little different. Men were men. Take my father for example, he was a man. He loved me, loved her, and there was never a time I doubted that. He worked, supported his family, came home, played with his kid, hugged his wife, and now I know from Mom, he was a good lay.

I raise my hand and fist bump the man that just a few days ago I was pissed at.

See, even more reason to avoid a relationship. I am a moody bitch. I can ignore my ‘feelings’ for the most part and get through a day. Pissed off is about as equally looked past as stupidity is by me.

Back to men. We women all bitch about them, we do. We complain that they are pussies, or deadbeats, or don’t want to work. Well, who the fuck raised the spray tanned, eyebrow waxing, lug heads? The same women complaining about the type are raising the next generation of them.

I pull down my street and look at the clock, it’s nine thirty. Date number three was sixty minutes of my day I will never get back.

I could have been in bed, with a plastic peen, in my comfy unicorn pajamas concentrating on an orgasm and not replaying in my head what I already know about love.

It is a joke.

I pull in the driveway and put my car in park. I grab my phone and look at the app. Twenty eight notifications from Match Up.

Fuck that.

“Match this!” I give my phone the finger.

When I walk in, Mom is standing at the island smiling. “How was your date?”

I shrug. “Okay.”

She looks at me as if she is trying to read me.

“It’s insane to think you’ll find someone on one of these sites.”

“Thousands of people do,” she says.

I shake my head. “I guarantee all those ads about happy couples are paid actors and actresses.”

She laughs. “Maybe some, but I doubt all.”

“I told you I’d give it a try for a week-”

She interrupts. “We agreed on two.”

“Yes, we did, but you don’t seem to be holding up your end of the deal.”

“Darby is coming home tomorrow. She’ll be here Friday.”

“So,” I shrug.

“So, I don’t have time to date. We’re going to be very busy getting settled,” she smiles.

“This smile is brought to you by a bullshit excuse,” I say using the same tone she had at the wine festival.

“It’s not an excuse, Katherine,” she says and takes a sip of her coffee. “You’ve taught me a few things.”

“Is that right?” I am shocked.

“Yes,” she nods. “I never had the chance to be my own person. I was so young when I got married. In seven years I experienced the love of a man, the love for a child, and what a happy home could be. I never had that until your father.”

“But his drinking.”

She sighs. “It didn’t bother me that he stopped at a bar after work. Heck, he deserved it. It only bothered me when he died. So, not only did I get to experience a love I had only dreamt of, I experienced my heart being ripped apart by losing the man who was supposed to make me feel happy for the rest of my life.”

“All the while trying to keep it together for me,” I say.

“And for me.”

It’s quiet for a moment while we both think about what was just shared.

“Kat, I wouldn’t change it for the world. I wouldn’t go back if I could and not sleep with Sean in the back of his dad’s pick-up truck, or insisted on using protection so I wouldn’t get pregnant. I wouldn’t because those seven short years were the best of my life.”

“What about Sam?”

“Well I wouldn’t have married him either had your father not left us.”

“I hate when you say that. Left us,” I tell her.

“I can’t say he’s dead. I can’t when the memories of him are so alive. I look at you and see him.” She shrugs. “I think maybe that’s why I’m so overprotective of you and your sister. If I lost either of you, I wouldn’t survive. Staying away from you for almost five years except on holidays felt like a slow torture. Knowing you were okay kept me going.”

“You need a life outside of us.”

“That’s not the point. The point is, I have lived, and loved, and hurt. I have made mistakes and I am not afraid to make more. My oldest daughter, my Kitty Kat, is someone to not only be proud of, but aspire to be more like. My youngest may be the death of me.” We both laugh. “But I know she’ll come through. Then, and only then, will it feel okay to move forward.”

“Well, you have three days until she gets here.” I grab her phone. “We had a deal. You’d try if I did.”

“I can’t,” she laughs but looks excited.

“You can. Besides, you aren’t the only single parent out there. We’ll find you someone as overbearing as you are with their teenagers and you two can hook up when they’re at school or with their other parent.”

“I couldn’t,” she smiles.

“That smile, is brought to you by a woman who knows damn well she can,” I joke, but I know a woman like my mother needs a man in her life.

Do I need her to be happy for her? Or do I need to keep her busy and out of my hair? Maybe both.

****

I lay in the spare room looking at the ceiling thinking of another nonsensical statement, ‘It’s better to have loved and lost than to never to have loved at all.’

I need to Google that tomorrow. My bet is a man came up with that to try and brainwash women into not flipping shit when they lost. Mom bought into it. I didn’t.

I roll over and see the notifications on that damn app and it’s like crack. I grab it and see twelve messages. I thumb past the five ‘you’re beautiful’, and the five ‘want to hook up's,’ seeking the only one that interests me at all.

An hour ago:

@rider1: You adding to the fan club tonight?

Kat: Yeah I suppose.

The response isn’t immediate. It comes as I am getting ready to plug the phone into the charger.

@rider1: Anything good?

Kat: Nothing I’ll do again.

@rider1: You fuck him?

Kat: Why would I answer that?

@rider1: You seem like an honest person who doesn’t give a shit.

Kat: Are you spanking your Willy thinking about me getting laid?

@rider1: Do you think the thought of another man’s feeble attempt at getting a woman like you off gets me hard?

Kat: Yeah, I do.

@rider1: You tell me you fucked him and I can pretty much guarantee I won’t get hard for a month.

Kat: I fucked him

@rider1: Goodnight Kat.

Kat: What, you don’t want details?

He doesn’t respond.

He’s spanking it.

Perv.

I go to work early again, and as expected there are a couple dirty dishes in the sink. Fuckers.

I grab the two empty bottles of Gatorade that were left in the sink and start to toss them out. I see movement inside and I nearly drop them.

One has a ladybug and the other a caterpillar.

“No fucking way,” I laugh as I look at them.

After sprinkling a couple drops of water inside the bottles with grass and sand already inside, I set them on the windowsill.