Dating the Enemy

  Dating the Enemy

  Copyright © 2018 by Nicole Williams

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products, bands, and/or restaurants referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  License Notes

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  To everyone who’s ever been broken by love, but refused to be defeated by it.

  Love on.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  About the Author

  “For being an alleged expert in all things of a romance-related nature, your love life sucks.”

  “Thanks for the reminder. Friend.” I nudged my “alleged” friend, Quinn, as we moved up in line at our favorite place to grab breakfast before heading into work.

  “Telling it like it is. That’s what friends are for.” Quinn blew me an air kiss before scoping out the display case of crack cocaine in pastry form. I wasn’t sure why she scanned the selections every morning—we’d been ordering the same thing for the past three years. “You know what today is, right?”

  “Yeah, it’s March fifteenth.”

  She saw right through my act. “Also known as the one-month mark after hooking up with Steamy and Dreamy. If you don’t hear back from him by today, you might as well—”

  “Yeah, I know, Quinn.” To distract myself from the mention of a certain male, I focused on the chocolate-filled croissant that had my name on it.

  “I’m not saying that to be a bitch. You know that, right?”

  “I know.”

  “There’s a reason we follow certain rules when it comes to the male species and it’s to protect us from the douchecanoes of the world.” Quinn’s sneakers squeaked against the tile as we moved up.

  Only a few back from the cashier. I could almost feel my blood sugar spiking. “This guy, I don’t know. He was different. Definitely not one of those douchecanoe types that are taking over the world.”

  Quinn shook her head. “It’s like a damn plague.”

  “A swarm of locusts.”

  “A swarm of douchecanoes, whose only compass is the aim of their dick.” When the older woman in front of us gave us “the look,” Quinn the traitor pointed at me and muttered, “Relationship Troubles.”

  “He wasn’t like that,” I said, quieter so as not to add elevated brow number two to the tally. It was still early.

  “You haven’t heard from him for a month.”

  “Almost,” I said promptly. “Almost a month.”

  Quinn’s eyes lifted to the ceiling. “You spent a whole what? Five-ish hours with him?”

  “No.” I gave her an insulted look. “Almost nine hours.”

  She waved at me. “Excuse me. That’s damn near a long-term relationship. Definitely long enough to ascertain the man you dove into bed with after a couple of drinks was not one of those one-night-stand, dick-compass douchecanoes.”

  Elevated eyebrow number two.

  It was going to be one of those mornings. And it was only Monday.

  “There was a connection.” My fingers curled around my pearl necklace, twisting the smooth orbs. It was an old habit, worrying at my grandma’s necklace. I was lucky I hadn’t rubbed them all down to nubs by now.

  “Yeah, I took sex ed in fifth grade. I’m familiar with that connection.” Quinn employed her hands to demonstrate an act that was inappropriate for a café with finches on their curtains.

  “Not that connection. The other one. The important one.”

  “Says the romance writer who’s so hopelessly romantic she wrote an article about a fish falling in love with a duck.”

  My mouth fell open as I squared myself in front of her. Quinn was pretty much my total opposite: tall, thin, dark hair cut to her jaw, complemented by dark eyes and skin. She dressed totally different from me as well. She lived in sneakers—the trendy, bright kind—never wore anything from her waist down unless it was a pair of jeans, and her chest was always covered in a T-shirt with some emblem or saying or picture on it.

  Quinn’s pinkie went beneath my chin to close my mouth.

  “First of all, I am not a romance writer. I am a journalist. One who researches and writes about topics of an amorous nature.”

  “A romance writer,” she mouthed slowly.

  My arms crossed over my pale pink cardigan. “Second, I’m not a hopeless romantic. I’m a hopeful romantic. And third—” I glared at her when she gave an exaggerated yawn—“that article was well-documented.”

  “It was a fish—a rainbow trout, if I remember correctly. And a mallard duck.” From the way she was blinking at me, it was like she was waiting for me to be struck by a lightning bolt charged with reality.

  “If you actually read the article, you would have realized I didn’t say it was love the way we humans know it, but a connection nonetheless. One that made no sense but could not merely be written off to coincidence.” My nose wrinkled as I said that last word. The coincidence people. That state-of-mind. Believing nothing happened for a reason, and that fate was a fallacy. What a sad way to spend one’s existence.

  “It’s really a miracle they haven’t committed you yet.” Quinn patted my cheek before pulling cash out of her pocket. We were next in line.

  “Okay, okay. I know the duck-fish article was out there, but people eat that stuff up. And you can’t deny there’s something going on when a duck feeds the grasshoppers it catches to a foot-and-a-half-long trout.”

  Quinn’s head tipped. “And that’s supposed to convince me of true love how?”

  “It’s supposed to convince you, and my readers, that there’s one special someone for everyone.”

  “And what am I supposed to do if my special someone is a scaly underwater dweller with fins?”

  I patted her cheek. “Then learn to swim.”

  We’d just made it to the counter when a different employee moved into the cashier spot. Quinn had been in the middle of adjusting her bra strap when she saw him. When he saw her too.

  Our favorite crack cocaine dealer—also known as Justin the Jacked—cracked a smile that made the planet tip on its
axis for half a second. He had the height of a basketball player, the beef of a football player, and the face of one of those Norse gods. He stuck out in a café filled with sweets and women, although I was confident half of the women who visited Flour Power every morning came for his buns, not the flaky kind Amie baked fresh every morning.

  Quinn had to grab my arm for support when his flashing green eyes landed on her. As if a guy like him needed to have twinkling eyes to top off the man sundae already layered in his dish.

  “Love the shirt today.” Justin’s eyes dipped to the faded logo on Quinn’s shirt.

  Quinn was struck mute. Only her eyelids were moving.

  Justin rang in our orders without asking. “Damn shame the Sonics aren’t around anymore. Best team in the NBA.”

  Quinn said? Nothing.

  I drove my elbow into her ribs when he reached inside the case to grab our croissants.

  “I love you.” It burst out of her mouth loud enough that half the cafe heard it.

  “I mean, I love them. The Sonics.” She pointed at her chest before covering the Super Sonics logo with her hands. Which more looked like she was cupping her breasts.

  The croissant Justin had just snagged from the display fell out of his tongs. “Shit.” He dug back into the display, his gaze still aimed at the inadvertent boob squeezer.

  “Stop groping yourself in front of the person responsible for serving our breakfast,” I whispered to her. “He drops one more and we’re going to have to go halfsies on the last one.”

  When Quinn glanced down and saw the positioning of her hands, not even her flawless brown skin could conceal the blush that flamed into her face.

  He managed to get two chocolate croissants tucked into paper sacks, safe and sound, before making our coffees. As he stirred cream and sugar into mine and milk into Quinn’s, he glanced at Super Sonic Squeezer.

  “I managed to snag a couple of tickets to the Knicks game this weekend.” He swallowed, his big hands having a difficult time fastening the lids on our coffee cups. “It’s not the Sonics, but I have an extra if you know of anyone who might want to tag along with me.”

  Quinn was staring at his hands, probably wondering what every woman in here was—were all of his appendages as massive? Another elbow to the ribcage broke her from her reverie. “I can’t think of anyone, but if I do, I’ll make sure to let you know.”

  My eyes closed as I resisted the urge to beat my head against the glass display. Quinn had the flirting IQ of an amoeba. Not that I was a whiz in that category either, but good grief, the guy with ginormous body parts was asking her on a date.

  Justin’s forehead wrinkled as he slid our coffees across the counter. “Okay.

  Thanks?” He actually looked dejected as he made our change, those green orbs not nearly so sparkly when we said goodbye.

  As we wove through the line of women toward the door, I leaned in. “You should probably spend more time reading my column. He just asked you on a date and you responded by offering to find someone else to go in your place.”

  “What? He didn’t ask me out.” She shoved through the door, picking an end off of her croissant. “Guys never ask me out.”

  “That one just did. The very one you’ve been crushing on hard the past year.” I checked my watch to see if we could walk to work or if we had to jog to it. It was a walk day. I motioned at her with my coffee cup. She’d been one of my best friends since I’d moved to the city, and was amazing in every way. “And what do you mean guys never ask you out? You’re brilliant and beautiful. Witty and fun. The total package. What guy wouldn’t want to go out with you?”

  “I’m a sports writer. I have short hair. And I wear sneakers.” She held up her foot. “Girls ask me out, not guys.”

  “People don’t automatically assume you’re a lesbian because you like sports and sneakers.”

  She huffed. “My parents think I’m a lesbian.”

  We shared a sigh as we milled down the busy sidewalks of New York. Not even the buttery, sugary goodness of our morning tradition could lift our moods.

  We commiserated our lacking love lives in silence together for a few minutes, and then Quinn gave me a serious look. “Okay, so after today, no more of this wishing and waiting you’ve been doing the past month. Deal?”

  “What wishing and waiting?” I asked, playing clueless.

  She rolled her eyes. “If he doesn’t call you or try to make contact today, he’s gone. His file goes into the trash and you empty that puppy, got it?”

  “Already done.” My eyes crossed when I checked the tip of my nose. Still the same size.

  “Just write it off as an experience-gainer and keep moving forward. He’s not the only hot stranger you’ll run into in the middle of a snowstorm, Hannah.”

  “Absolutely not. I’m sure I’ll find myself stranded in Chicago after all the flights are canceled, subsequently leading to all of the nearby hotels being fully booked, and forced to spend the night on the snowy streets, when I bump into a man who makes ovaries and other parts throb. We share a few drinks and laughs, before he gives me the best three orgasms of my whole life.” I took a breath. “Totally the kind of thing that happens every few months.”

  Quinn slung her arm around my shoulder as we moved inside of the building the World Times was housed in. “Why is it so hard to find a good guy these days?”

  “Are you asking Ms. Romance the journalist or Hannah Arden your friend?”

  “You say that like they have differing views on the subject.”

  “They don’t. I’ll just be sure to end my response with an XOXO, Ms. Romance if you want the journalist response.”

  Quinn groaned as she punched the up elevator button. “You hopeless romantics make me nauseous.”

  “Hopeful romantics,” I clarified again, trying to discreetly tug on the elastic waist of my tights. They were doing the slow creep down my ass, and if I didn’t do the regular yanking and wrangling, they’d be down to my knees by lunch. I didn’t know why they bothered with making them in different sizes. The Cs felt as snug as the As, managing to cut a purple indentation into my waist every single day.

  I wasn’t overweight according to my physician and BMI calculations, but I was practically obese by Manhattan standards. In this city, a size ten was considered chunky on a leggy, tall woman, and I had to stretch my neck to hit five-four. I liked my body though, and I knew that was what mattered. But sometimes I wished other women liked their bodies enough to actually nourish them so I didn’t look like the abnormality in a nightclub.

  “Do you smell that?” Quinn sniffed the air when the doors closed, once the elevator was packed to capacity.

  “Body odor?”

  “Promotion. I can smell it from forty floors away.” She took another whiff, giving me an excited look.

  “I don’t want to jinx it.” I took a slow breath, feeling that bubble of excitement in my stomach when I imagined Mr. Conrad sitting me down in the conference room and offering me the head of the Life and Style department. I’d been waiting for this day since I decided in middle school that I was going to become a journalist. I didn’t think this opportunity would come my way until I’d reached my forties at least, but the position was opening up and my column was the top read and commented on online article every week.

  At least, the top read and commented regular contributor.

  “What time are we celebrating tonight?” Quinn asked.

  “And by celebrating, you mean what time are we all meeting at my place to watch Pride and Prejudice, Colin Firth edition, and wonder how much longer our own Mr. Darcy will take to enter the scene?”

  “It’s P&P night? I might have to take a pass. Last time we watched that, half the women started crying. Before the movie started.” Quinn cringed. “I’m waiting for all of your periods to sync. Any day now. You’re all a cult.”

  “It’s okay. We love you despite you being a reluctant romantic. We accept you as you are.”

  “I’m not the
reluctant one. It’s the men of the world who are. Specifically, when it comes to me.” Quinn scanned the elevator, her gaze lingering on the subjects of the male species, more captivated by their phones than the woman who had just grabbed her boobs. After a couple of seconds of going unnoticed, Quinn gave up with a sigh. “Why couldn’t I have been born with the wiring that dug chicks? My love life would be so much more gratifying. Not to mention existent.”

  I fought a smile as we shoved through the mob of bodies when the elevator doors sprang open on the fortieth floor. “There’s one perfect someone for everyone. Forget about the rest.”

  Quinn’s snort wasn’t soft. “Peddle your lies someplace else.”

  My shoulder lifted, as I was used to the barrage of criticism I took for being one of those rare types who still believed in happy endings and soul mates. “I’m looking forward to the day you meet him and realize I’ve been right this whole time. I accept apologies both in written and verbal forms.”

  As we whisked through the doors of the World Times, I felt something different in the air. That hint of anticipation—both nervous and excited—settled around me as I moved past the front desk toward the conference room.

  “And I only accept one kind of apology when we’re old spinsters on our death beds and you realize it was me who was right all along.”

  “What kind of apology is that?” I asked, chucking my empty coffee cup inside the garbage can as we passed it. I missed. I should have known better than to assume I had the athletic talent necessary to get a small cup inside a large hole from two feet away. Gym class had been my own personal hell on earth, my gym teachers spawns of Satan himself.

  Quinn shook her head as I crouched to retrieve my cup from the floor and try for the garbage can again. She was one of those sporty types who could lob a carton of milk from twenty yards back and sink it in every time. “The kind that involves lots of shameless groveling.”

  “You’re impossible.”

  Instead of detouring to her cubicle, she stayed with me until we were outside the conference room. “You’re impossibler.”

  “That’s not a word.”