A Girl Like You by vinnie Kinsella (good books to read for 12 year olds .TXT) 📕

“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” I said, feeling like that wasn’t quite the right thing to say, but again, I came up empty. “And good luck with that syrup production!”

We parted ways, and when I looked back, Larry had the posture of someone exhausted and beaten down. Poor guy.

The kids and I doused pancakes with the amber syrup for days. It was overly sweet and delicious.

“He had a Mercedes and horses?” Ian asked, chewing and pouring more syrup on his pancakes. “Geez, you kind of struck out there.”

* * *

GoodSoul’s photo on Fish showed a cute, buttoned-up type with scholarly-looking glasses. His profile paragraph had flawless grammar and spelling, a major plus in my book.

“Let’s go feed the ducks at Kelly Park on Saturday,” Mr.GoodSoul messaged me. “I’ll bring the bread.”

It was mid-February, but the cold had given us a reprieve. Temps were in the mid-40s and winds had lost their ferocity. We met at a park bench. I liked Mr.GoodSoul’s bookish vibe, sort of college prof mixed with lab scientist. His real name was Gordon, and he brought gluten-free, organic Ancient Grains bread that he tore into small, perfectly square pieces before dropping them at the ducks’ feet. It looked as if he’d been doing it all his life. I imagined him meeting a different woman every weekend, tossing pumpernickel with PleasantlyPlump, seedless rye with TinyandTrim, baguette with BigandBeautiful.

“I used to take my kids here when they were young,” I said, remembering them chasing and trying to catch the ducks.

“Kids? You have kids?”

“Yeah, well, they’re adults now. Madison’s twenty-four and Ian is twenty-one.”

“Hm. I don’t have children.” Gordon frowned at his handful of bread. “I don’t recall seeing that detail in your profile.”

“Well, you must have nieces and nephews that you spoil,” I said, blowing on my hands because I’d been optimistic about the weather and hadn’t brought my gloves.

“None, actually. Kids were never a priority.”

The conversation pretty much went flat after that, and soon the bread was reduced to tiny crumbs. The ducks were pissed. They started squawking, waddling their way out of the pond toward us. They looked aggressive and determined, as if we were deliberately withholding bread scraps. I was laughing, but Gordon turned and started striding quickly away.

The angry ducks chased us, right on our heels, using their crazy flapping wings as weapons. You never know the wrath of a duck until you’ve been flapped by one. I started laughing so hard I almost peed, but Gordon wasn’t pleased.

“It was nice meeting you, Jessica,” he said, holding out his hand stiffly.

“You too, Gordy,” I said, just to see how he’d react to not being called his formal name.

He shuddered, then put on sunglasses. “Right-oh,” he said before turning away, not even bothering to walk me to my car.

* * *

StarPlayer’s photo on the dating site was so fuzzy I could only tell he was wearing hockey skates and waving at someone. With my expectations as low as they could get, I agreed to meet Mr. Star for morning bagels. When I got to the coffee shop, a short man I didn’t recognize stood up and waved his arms to catch my attention.

StarPlayer, real name Eric, was at least ten years older than the Fish hockey photo (if the photo was even him), and the hair he’d described as “thinning” was bald on the top, long and stringy in the back. I’ll take a good shaved head any day. This guy hadn’t seen shampoo in a week.

We stood in line silently to order coffee. I got a plain bagel and a small chai tea. Eric ordered basically everything in the display case: an oversized cinnamon bun, a huge chunk of coffee cake, a cheese Danish, and a bran muffin.

“Hungry?” I asked him.

“Yeah, a little,” he said, counting out exact change at the register. “I’m going running later and I need my carbs. Training for a marathon, actually.”

“Really? Which one?”

“Ah, not sure yet,” Eric’s face reddened visibly. “Gotta start small.”

“Oh yeah, sure.”

We carried our tray to a small round table and pulled up wicker chairs.

Then I felt something brush up against my ankle. Through the glass-topped table, I could see that Eric had slipped off his moccasin (no running shoes for him), and was stroking me with his foot, wearing white tube socks that had seen better days. I jerked my leg away, spilling my tea.

“Whoa there, clumsy,” Eric said, patting at the table with his napkin. “Don’t get too excited; there’s no rush.”

“What?” I choked a little.

“I mean don’t be so antsy. We’ve got plenty of time. Let me dig into my food and then we can get outta here.”

“Are you thinking I liked your little game of footsie?”

“I know women like you,” Eric said calmly, bits of cheese Danish stuck to the sides of his mouth. “You haven’t been touched in a very, very long time, so when a man makes a move, you really dig it.”

“Have a nice day,” I said, standing quickly and moving to the door.

“Hey, what about your bagel?” Eric called after me.

“Help yourself!”

As I ran by the window outside, I saw him lean over and take the bagel off my plate.

“This isn’t going well,” I texted Eddie. “I feel like an idiot.”

“Give it some time.”

“I’ve given it lots of time! Enough for me to see how random this all is. Some of the profiles sound great, but when you see them in person, no thank you. Worse, the ghosting makes me feel ridiculous and rejected.”

“How can they reject you when they don’t even know you?”

“Yeah, that’s what Ian says, but when you message for a week then he drops off the face of the earth, it’s not exactly a confidence-builder.”

“Ya gotta just keep trying.”

“I don’t think you understand how awful it is, Eddie. One guy messaged me sixteen times in two hours! Another one said he wanted to name his cat after me. Another guy asked if he could bring his