Chapter 3

Jenny snuggled into the couch with her laptop and a cup of green tea. She logged into her game center and played all her moves within ten minutes. None of her book club buddies were online to return the favor—they were not like her. They had their own lives after sundown. Saturday night television sucked. She could watch a movie, or but had watched all the romantic movies available on Netflix.

She drummed her nails on the side of the computer.

“This takes pathetic and desperate to a new low.” She keyed in the address one of her pals had forwarded.

‘Online games for the friendly and the flirtatious,’ the website’s banner bragged. Ha! ‘Online games for the homely and pathetic’ was probably closer to the truth. And she was one of them.

“Please, Lord, I’m so tired of being alone,” she whispered.

Jenny set up a user ID and entered a bunch of profile information. A few clicks later, a list of open games popped up. Lots of animated avatars with big eyes and bigger boobs stared out from the screen.

“Ugh, lame,” she muttered.

A cute manly black rose icon caught her attention, the perfect counter to her red sparkly one.

‘Liam —male, twenty-seven, single, heterosexual, located in Tacoma’, it read.

“Works for me,” she murmured to herself.

Whatever Liam might be like in real life, he was an aggressive Scrabble player. Jenny respected that. Halfway through their game he played ‘quartz’ for one hundred forty-five points. She’d been playing Scrabble since the third grade, probably had thousands of games under her belt, but she’d never scored that high with a single word. The move was smoking, whether Liam was or not.

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. To chat, or not to chat. Might as well ... she was supposed to be friendly and flirtatious, right?

Smiling to herself, she typed her message in the chat pane and hit the send key before she could regret it.

“You’re kicking my ass.”

A reply popped up immediately. Jenny almost spilled her tea all over the screen as she laughed.

“Want me to kiss it better?”

His comment shouldn’t have come as a surprise. The site was for playing games of the social kind, not just the wordy kind. Truth was, she’d been hoping for something more exciting than triple-word scores and bingos. Something dawned on her—he was flirting with her, and she kind of liked it.

“Ah, a sense of humor, too. I can get on board with that,” she said aloud.

“Maybe. Depends on what type of kisser you are.”

His reply came immediately.

“One who pays attention to the woman I’m kissing.”

Jenny didn’t need any fingers to count the number of guys Jenny had kissed since her accident.

“Then you have a very lucky girlfriend.”

“Not currently. What I have are lonely lips.”

His humor was kind of cute. Liam probably had a great personality and mutt-ugly looks, a diamond inside a lump of coal. Otherwise, why would he be hanging out online on a Saturday night? Playing Scrabble, no less.

She typed in her message with a smile on her face.

“Nice girls don’t kiss on the first game board.”

“That wasn’t exactly a no. How many games do we have to play before I can kiss you?”

Jenny couldn’t help but laugh. Liam was sassy.

“Don’t worry, I’m clean. No viruses here. Your hard drive is safe.”

“Very witty. I like smart men.”

“What a coincidence! I like smart girls.” Liam’s message popped up quickly, as the others had, and made her blush.

She should be feeling desperate to be chatting like this with a complete stranger. But she was having fun for the first time in a long time.

She could play the game and be flirty. Even if it went against her nature. “My thighs are hot ... from the laptop. Does that count?”

“Definitely, my hot-thighed girl. Do you wear glasses?”

Because all nerds wore glasses, is that what he thought? She tsked at the screen while hitting Enter. “Only safety glasses.”

“Interesting. I’m picturing you as a sexy construction worker of some kind.”