“Speaking of . . .” Shayla nodded towards the door, and sure enough Luke and Nikki came waltzing in, arm in arm.
Had he seriously left my parents’ house to go on a date with her?
“Let’s go somewhere else.” I downed the rest of my beer and slapped a five on the counter.
Shayla did the same as we both stood to leave.
“Leaving so soon?” The voice of a thousand fingernails raking against a chalkboard sent chills down my spine. It took everything in me not to turn and wrap my hands around her skinny little perfect neck and—
“This place is a dud tonight.” Shayla took a step between Nikki and me.
I dared a glance up into Luke’s eyes, which seemed vaguely apologetic. Or was that pity? It didn’t matter because Shayla was pulling me out the door.
“Can you believe they came here?” I asked when we were outside in the fresh air.
“It was kind of Luke’s place before it was ours.”
“Whatever. I need to find a man. I need to get past this rebound stigma.” Before Nikki had her claws so far into Luke that I couldn’t remove them.
3
“Tinder or eHarmony?” I asked sitting at the second bar of the night.
“I’d go with Tinder. Less intense.” Shayla sat down and ordered us a couple of beers.
“Okay, Tinder downloaded.” I looked up from my phone. “Now what?”
“You need a good picture. The one from your Facebook is okay, but . . .”
I knew what she was saying. A picture of Fizzy and me sticking our tongues out at the camera would likely attract the wrong kind of attention.
“Do you have any selfies?”
“Uh? Without Fizzy?” I scrolled through my pictures. “Doesn’t look like it.”
“Okay, I’ll take a picture of you. Hold still.” Shayla snapped a photo and held it out for me to see. “It’s pretty good.”
If pretty good meant a hot mess, she was right. Ugh. “It’ll do.”
“Now you need to come up with a short description of yourself.” She handed the phone back to me.
What was I going to say? Broke, living in my parent’s basement, bested by rattlesnake wannabes, oh but I can solve a murder without being killed . . . barely. Yeah, I didn’t think so. “I don’t know, Shayla, maybe this isn’t a good idea. Don’t you think I could just pick someone up at a bar or something?”
“Nobody does that anymore. It’s like you’ve been out of the dating game since high school.”
I practically had. “Then you write something. I don’t know what to say.”
She thought about it for a few seconds and then began typing furiously. She was way more versed in these things being several years younger than me. “There. That should do it.” Her smile was nothing short of evil genius.
I squinted down at the screen.
Park Ranger seeking someone who can keep up. I’m a badass and super hot. I like light beer with lime and long walks up steep mountains. I have a dog. If you’re allergic, swipe left.
I nearly peed my pants. “Shayla, I can’t say those things.”
“That’s nothing. Wait until you see what other people write.”
“But I’m not a badass and definitely not super hot.”
“Um, not that I’m into that sort of thing, but have you looked in the mirror lately?”
I blushed. “What does swipe left mean?”
“To bug off.” She giggled. “Or that they don’t like you. You do the same. See?”
She went to all the guys I’d been paired with. “See this guy? Says he’s just in it for some fun. Um, left.”
“But he was kinda cute.”
“Fun means sex. He wants a bootie call.”
I could feel my jaw drop. “What self-respecting woman would swipe right for that?”
Shayla’s cheeks flushed. She slowly raised her hand.
“No. Way.” I shook my head. “Shayla, what would have made you . . .”
“It had been a long time, and I thought it might be a good idea. I didn’t go through with it.”
That’s when the laughter commenced. “I. . . cannot . . . believe,” I said through gasps. “You . . . could . . . have . . . gotten . . . herpes!”
We both laughed harder at the last word. Shayla’s face lit up when she laughed. It was a bummer she thought she had to stoop to that level to get the attention of a man.
“So have you met anyone of any worth doing this?” I asked when we had finally composed ourselves.
“Not really, but I haven’t been on very long.” She shrugged. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
By two in the morning, I had gone through each and every guy the app considered a match for me. I only swiped right on a few—the ones that weren’t too cringe-worthy.
Shayla promised I’d get more matches as time went on, so even if I didn’t find someone right away it could still happen. I finally had to put the phone down to get some much-needed rest before my trail shift. I was shadowing Seamus, and I wanted to be as prepared as possible. He’d already seen me make an idiot of myself with that snake. I didn’t want him to think me completely incapable of doing my job. Especially if he had any say in who would get the full-time position.
The trail rangers, though technically park rangers, didn’t typically patrol the reservoirs but rather the many miles of trails throughout Prairie City—one of the largest cities in northern Colorado. Their office was located several miles from where I’d been stationed all summer at Alder Ridge Reservoir. If I got the full-time position, I’d get to patrol all three of the reservoirs, maybe the trails, and possibly even the open space areas that were disbursed between neighborhoods and that butted up to the foothills.
I typed the trail ranger office address into my GPS making sure I could hit a Starbucks on the way. After getting only three hours of sleep, I was going to need a quadruple shot of espresso.
Seamus leaned against the side of his truck sipping his coffee
