“Maybe his dog died.”

“Or his dog ate his goldfish and he had to do the Heimlich maneuver.”

The waiter chuckled. “I once got stood up and he texted me to tell me that his visa had expired, and he’d left the country that day. I saw him in Andersonville two weeks later.”

“No way.”

“Yes way.”

Feeling a little better at the reminder I wasn’t the only person to have ever been stood up, I told the friendly waiter I was going to head home, and he offered me a bolstering smile as I left the restaurant.

Despite joking around about it, I felt stupid for making myself vulnerable to someone who would stand me up.

As I strode toward the L, I kept checking my phone to see if Aaron had replied, but nothing. I tried to figure out how the guy I’d spent hours talking to for four weeks could do this. If he’d changed his mind, why hadn’t he just said so? He’d seemed like the kind of guy who would just be brutally honest with me.

Not a coward.

Not a dick.

I winced.

Well, he had warned me he could be a dick.

But I’d thought it was real of him to admit that. I didn’t think beyond our cute banter and the fact that he loved Shakespeare just as much as I did. We’d discussed our favorite Shakespearean tragedies and argued over which of Shakespeare’s comedies were best. He said Two Gentlemen of Verona; I said Twelfth Night. I’d been pretty excited to find someone who enjoyed my favorite playwright so much in this day and age. On top of everything else, he really had seemed too good to be true.

It all was too good to be true, apparently.

Or . . . what if Aaron had shown, saw me, and decided I was too fat or too tall or too—

Evie, shut up! I yelled at myself.

I would not let him do this to me.

Enraged, I pulled out my phone.

ME

You at least could have had the decency to say you were no longer interested in meeting me.

My heart raced and my palms were clammy as I saw he immediately opened it.

But no reply was forthcoming.

What the hell?

Hurt, sad, angry, confused, all of it mingled as I jumped on the Blue Line to get to my tiny studio apartment in Wicker Park. All that emotion I’d kept buried at the restaurant started to flood up out of me. By the time I got into the apartment, tears were streaming down my face. I brushed them away with frustration, cursing myself not only for letting Aaron upset me but for how much of myself I’d put out there to someone I hadn’t met in person.

What a naive moron! I knew better than that.

No. I shook my head. I couldn’t do that to myself. He wasn’t worth my tears. And he didn’t get to make me feel like I’d done something wrong.

Maybe he was just another boring, judgmental jerk that was looking for the kind of woman who didn’t exist outside of movies and airbrushed magazines.

Did that sound bitter?

“That sounded bitter,” I murmured to myself.

Okay. So maybe I was a little bitter.

But this was why I avoided dating, because even in my thirties it could reduce me to feeling like a rejected sixteen-year-old.

My phone buzzed in my purse, making my heart jump into my throat. There was a text on the screen from my best friend, Greer. Disappointment filled me and then I felt instantly horrible about it. I tapped to open the message.

How did the date go? Or is it still going?

I snorted, my lips trembling as I bit back more tears and quickly texted back. He never showed. I messaged him, he opened them, but he never replied.

That rat bastard! Do you need me to come over?

She would too. I smiled through my tears but shook my head as I texted, I’m fine. He’s a dick. It’s done. I’m just going to bed. I have a big day ahead of me tomorrow.

My phone buzzed again in my hand, but this time Greer was calling. Not really in the mood to pretend I was fine during the call, I hesitated a second. But then I picked up. This was Greer. I knew she was probably worried about me.

“Hey.”

“First off,” she said, “he is a dick. Forget about him. Any guy who claims to be a Shakespeare fan but hates Romeo and Juliet isn’t worth shit. Second, yay for tomorrow! You have to call me as soon as they give you that freaking editor’s office.”

I hated that Aaron’s mixed signals had dampened what was an important time in my life. “I will.”

“And third . . . so okay, I was going to wait to meet face-to-face to tell you this, but I think you need something to cheer you up right now.”