Trigger (2 page)

Dylan

I called it a night when it was slightly after nine and I was unable to take any more of the stale air in my office. By nine-thirty I was home and on eCupid, checking out girls I could contact for my last two dates.

I hadn’t exaggerated when I told Victor my previous dates had sucked. The first girl, Nicole, had stood me up. I had remained at the bar for a whole fifty minutes. At first, I wondered if we’d misunderstood each other regarding time and place, but when I checked our site communication I saw that this was unlikely the reason. I kept scanning the venue for a five-foot-six brunette, while also obsessively logging into the site on my smartphone to see if Nicole had contacted me to say she was running late or something. She hadn’t. When I got home and went back on the eCupid site, I discovered that her profile was gone. She’d pulled a fast one on me.
Oh, well. I should have figured something was not right with her when she’d declined to give me even her phone number.

I’d been more diligent with the next girl, a beautiful law student who loved politics, traveling and good food, making sure I got both her personal email address and cell phone number on which we exchanged texts before committing to a date. She was on time and looked like her profile photos, but her personality, not to mention her voice, had been so awful I’d longed for the date to be over minutes after we laid eyes on each other. Two hours later, after having been forced to listen to the girl’s screechy monologue about herself, I managed to get a word in, saying I had an early morning meeting and had to call it a night.

The third girl I made sure I spoke to on the phone before asking her out for a drink. Unfortunately, this one, while sweet and attentive, looked nothing like her photos. I doubted I’d even have spotted her had she not been the only girl at the bar and had approached me.

There had been a desperate, puppy-like quality to her, which had made it impossible for me to blow her off when she asked if I had time for dinner after our drink. So I’d stayed, silently cursing myself for giving this girl hope I’d call her again. I had promised myself my dog days were over, and what I was doing was dangerously close to dog behavior.

As I walked to my car three hours later, tipsy from beer, I’d almost convinced myself that maybe I would call her after all. So what that I wasn’t sexually attracted? She had been sweet and funny and intelligent, the kind of girl any normal guy should count himself lucky to have as his girlfriend. Looks fade, but personality lasts forever, right? But when I woke up the next morning, I knew I wouldn’t call her. I needed to feel some kind of chemistry, and with this girl, there had been absolutely none.

My eyes stopped on the photo of a dark-haired girl with a great smile who used L.A. Delicious as her screen name
. If that’s the way she really looks, she sure is delicious,
I thought. Very cute with those glittering hazel eyes and that big smile in a heart-shaped face, surrounded by flowing chocolate locks. And, apparently, she was logged in right now.

Without even opening her profile, I sent her an instant message.

Nina

“Hello?” I said into my cell. Someone I didn’t know with a 213-area code was calling me.

“Good afternoon! May I speak to Nina?” Upbeat male voice.

“This is she.”

“Hello Nina, how’s your day going so far?”

“Can’t complain.”
Who the heck is this fake-sounding dude?
I thought and took another look at the number on my smartphone screen. Nope, still didn’t recognize it. Must be a telemarketer. I sighed inwardly. Why hadn’t I let it go to voicemail?

“Great! This is Dylan Whitman.” Before I got a chance to ask how or if I knew him, he added, “from eCupid. I was supposed to call you today to settle the details for our date tonight, remember?”

“Oh, yeah, right…” It was the attractive lawyer I’d connected with on eCupid last night. He had in fact told me he’d call this afternoon. I quickly searched my mind for a memory of what he looked like. Tall, athletic, honey-blond hair cropped short, nice eyes and smile. Yes, too corporate-looking for my taste, but when he’d contacted me I thought that I might as well respond. I could use the attention after having failed my audition so miserably. No matter what I tried to convince myself, bungling it
was
a big deal. We got into a conversation and he’d asked if I felt like going for a drink the following night. Sure, I’d replied, having no other plans.

“Great! What are you in the mood for tonight?” Dylan said in that annoyingly upbeat voice of his. “A lounge or a bar?”

“Uh, why don’t we just meet at a bar?” I said. Why was he talking like he was some kind of salesman and I a prospective customer? Or was that how lawyers sounded these days? If that was the case, no wonder I’d stayed away from them. I wasn’t a fan of cheerful, corporate guys. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’d had his profile photos photo-shopped to make him look better and was really kind of average. God, how I regretted having agreed to go out with him! Sadly, I wasn’t able to come up with a good enough excuse to back out this late in the game.

“Great,” Dylan said. “Why don’t we meet in the bar at Schiller’s in West Hollywood? Do you know where that is? La Cienega and Wilshire.”

“Yes, I know it.”

“Great! Is nine p.m. good?”

“Sure.”
If he says “great” one more time, I’ll puke
, I thought.

“Great. I will see you in a few hours then. Take care until then, Nina!”

My stomach turned, but I managed to keep down all the pasta with chicken I had devoured after my lunch shift at the restaurant. “Um, you too. See you in a few.”

I stared at my phone after disconnecting. God, if I was going to get through the night with this dork, I’d better have a drink or two
before
heading to Schiller’s… But it was almost five-thirty and I needed to do laundry before heading out later; if I waited another day, I’d have absolutely nothing decent to wear when leaving the house. Besides, I should stop jumping to conclusions about people this way, a bad habit of mine. Maybe this Dylan-guy had just been nervous and was more appealing in person. A lot of people weren’t good over the phone.

Yeah, right
. I laughed.
Fat chance.
Good-looking lawyers like him were all the same, unbearably full of themselves, totally unsexy. I’d met enough of them to know and this one had sounded exactly like them.

But I tried to stay positive as I gathered my laundry in a huge blue IKEA bag. At the very least, this date might give me some good material for the one-woman show I was putting together that would hopefully take my career to the next level finally—the level where I was making consistent money being an actress. A lot of the show surrounded my dating experiences and I’d already come up with forty minutes’ worth of material that seemed to work. Twenty more and I’d have enough to start performing my show at different venues. Well,
try
to perform it… Convincing club owners that I was good enough was easier said than done, even if I promised to promote the hell out of the show. I nodded to myself. Yes, as bad as this date would be, it was bound to give me a few more bits.

Dylan

I was driving toward Schiller’s. My expectations for my date with Nina weren’t high, partly because this girl, though cute as hell, wasn’t really my type, and partly because of how my previous three dates had gone.

Having suffered from a bad conscience for days after my third eCupid date, I had decided that I would just go through the motions with the last two, get through them and be done with it. I’d learned my lesson, and I had been right all along. If the girls you found on dating sites weren’t nuts or unreliable, they lied, putting the guy in an uncomfortable position. I didn’t want to hurt anyone the way I felt sure I’d hurt that last girl. And what really annoyed me was that it hadn’t been my fault. Had I known what she’d actually looked like, I would never have gone out with her in the first place. She’d used false advertising to get me to come meet her, tricked me. Liars didn’t deserve much empathy.

I glanced at the digital clock embedded in my car stereo to make sure I’d be arriving at Schiller’s on time. A quarter to nine. Being only a few minutes away, I had plenty of time. Exhaling, I moved my gaze back to the road before me. Yes, online dating
definitely
wasn’t for me, exactly like I’d tried to tell Victor the first time he brought up the subject and again, earlier today, when we’d caught up on the phone. It would be great when this stupid bet was over and I could cash in my steak dinner in Vegas.

To minimize any additional pain and suffering, I had taken several precautions before settling on a time and place to meet this fourth girl. Not only had I spoken to her over the phone to hear her voice, but I had done a search online to see if I could dig up additional photos of her, like on Facebook and such, that she might not want the guys on eCupid to see.

It had turned out that finding more photos had been incredibly easy since she had plenty posted on her Facebook page, which was open to the public. While she was actually hotter in her most recent photos than in the ones on her eCupid profile—especially in her cover photo, the one that had made me discover her profile in the first place—I didn’t think I’d be into her. I had never liked girls who were as… flamboyant as this girl seemed to be, judging from her Facebook photos and the fact that she was an actress. With an upcoming one-woman show, according to one of her posts.
One-woman show
… Surely it was as terrible as most other one-person shows I’d been forced to go to over the years, desperate attempts to get discovered. Usually, the better-looking the girl, the worse her performance was. Not that it mattered if she sucked or not. After tonight I would never see her again anyway.

Nina

I couldn’t spot Dylan anywhere when I reached the bar at Schiller’s. It was three minutes after nine. I found an empty barstool and sat.
Figures he wouldn’t be here
. Guys like him always sailed in fifteen, twenty minutes late, blaming their poor punctuality on their demanding workload when, in reality, they were just inconsiderate jerks.

“Nina?” a soft but undeniably manly voice said behind me.

I swiveled around. A tall, very attractive guy somewhere in his mid to late twenties with a thick head of honey-blond hair combed sideways the way professionals always did stood in front of me. As our eyes met, I felt, much to my surprise, an instant pull toward him. I couldn’t stop a big smile from spreading over my lips.
Wow.
He was definitely hot, as good-looking as his profile photos. Maybe this date wouldn’t be so bad after all.

I got to my feet and extended my hand. “Yes, that’s me. You must be Dylan.”

He smiled back, flashing a row of nice, white teeth, and took my hand. “Yes, I am. I was in the men’s room. I hope I’m not late?” He glanced at his wristwatch. I couldn’t help but notice that his wrist under his shirt cuff was a little hairy. I felt my stomach lurch pleasantly against my will. I didn’t usually like hairy guys. It was just that the hair on his arm was so… so very sexy.

“Not at all,” I replied. “I just sat down. I didn’t even have time to get a drink yet.”

That smile on his face was still there. “What would you like?”

“A dirty martini. Can you please make sure the bartender makes it very dirty…?” I gave him an innocent look, pretending like I had no idea how suggestive my request had sounded. I hadn’t intended for it to come out that way, it just happened. The smile on Dylan’s face froze and his turquoise eyes widened a touch. He cleared his voice before saying, “Sure. Any particular vodka?”

“Kettle One, please.”

Dylan nodded and turned to get the bartender’s attention. As Dylan was giving the bartender our drink orders, I stifled a giggle.
Oh, this was going to be fun.
I unnerved him so easily! Imagine what I could do if I
wanted
to…

He turned back to me and handed me the drink. Judging from the way he was looking at me, he had recovered from my words. He held up his beer glass in a toast.

Without saying a word, I brought my martini glass against his beer and then had a sip, holding his gaze all the while. The liquid burned the insides of my mouth in a delicious way, tasting salty and spicy at the same time, just the way I liked it.

Maintaining our eye contact, Dylan had a large swig of his beer. He swallowed and a small smile spread over his broad mouth. “Dirty enough for you?”

Not bad. Better comeback than I had expected. I gave him a mischievous smile. “Uh-huh. Not that it can ever be
too
dirty.”

He took a gulp of beer.

I let a beat pass before continuing. “So, you’re a lawyer? What firm do you work for?”

“Greenberg and Glusker. You know of them?”

“I don’t think so. What kind of law do they handle?”

“The boring kind. Corporate law.”

I nodded. “Oh. That explains it. Being an actress, I’ve really only kept up with entertainment law firms.”

“Right. You’re an actress. How’s that going?”

“Great. I was in a national commercial a few months ago and I did a few parts in some independent movies this year. I was also in a sketch comedy group until recently. You know, improv.”

“You do improv? That’s
brave
. I can’t imagine how tough it must be to stand in front of an audience trying to be funny on the spot. It must be terrifying.”

“I sure do improve, and stand-up comedy, too. It
is
absolutely terrifying to stand up there, but also absolutely incredible. There’s nothing better than when you really hit the mark and the audience doesn’t want you to leave the stage. It’s even better than having multiple orgasms.
Way
better.”

Dylan coughed, just barely managing to swallow his beer.

I acted like I had no idea what had set him off and, with a concerned look on my face, I put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

Dylan cleared his voice again, his face a shade redder. “I’m fine, thank you. I just swallowed a little too fast.”