“Of course not,” Naomi said without thinking. “You have to enter your credit card number online for that.”

The caller, who had been elbowing his buddy a moment ago, fell back into his seat.

She crumpled the paper in her fist. Since when did she start anything slow and easy? Her strategy, the only one she’d ever trusted, was to throw everything she had at a problem. To run so fast and so far that she couldn’t remember where she’d been. These people had seen Naomi Grant on the door. No one here had signed up for toothless anecdotes.

“How many of you are single?” The question shot naked across the room. No preamble. No polite warm-up. Begin as you mean to go on.

For a moment, no one did anything. Naomi became very aware of her own heartbeat.

Then, almost every hand in the room was raised.

That was something, at least. Common ground for their discussion.

Cassidy had once told her, in her thick Texas drawl, “The audience doesn’t get to read the script; as long as you sell it, you can go off book and no one will ever know.”

Her notes were already toast. She could hardly smooth out the sheet and start again. Naomi didn’t want to talk at these people, she realized. Shameless fulfilled her desire to send a one-way message. The reason she’d pursued a classroom was that she wanted a dialogue. To understand individual experiences, to create connections, to be able to adapt her curriculum based on the needs of her students.

“How many of you are currently dating?”

About half as many hands went up.

“Okay, so why not?”

After a beat of heavy silence and empty air, Ethan raised his hand. “Occupational hazard.”

The room tittered, and Naomi rolled her shoulders away from her ears, a little lighter. Even if it was a reminder about why he was off-limits, it was also a reminder she wasn’t in this alone.

Naomi locked eyes with a pretty blonde wearing a denim jacket, the collar tagged with an enamel pin that read Feminist Killjoy. “How about you?”

The girl looked mildly harassed. “Men are pigs?”

The woman next to her offered a commiserating nod, and afterward the blonde sat a little straighter in her chair.

“Not just men, unfortunately.” Naomi had earned her share of disappointment from across the gender spectrum. “What else?”

A hand went up toward the back. “Dating apps suck. Everyone’s constantly swiping for upgrades.”

“Ah yes, it’s easy to gorge yourself at the digital dating buffet. We’ve gamified our mating rituals.” She scanned the room. “Good. Who’s next?”

Slowly, and then all at once, more and more people volunteered answers, until the conference room was littered with the woes of modern dating. Los Angeles was vapid. All the good ones were taken. Dating was expensive. Dating was exhausting. Half the people on the market only wanted to hook up. And the sex was terrible. She made a mental note to hand that last woman a Shameless business card. The list went on and on. Together they were exorcising dating demons, and the room was getting looser with each confession.

Naomi had her work cut out for her. Seven weeks of lectures might not be enough. These people were tired of suffering in silence. They were here because they wanted a public pyre for their grievances.

“All right.” She called for attention, bringing the room back from the side conversations of commiseration they’d descended into. “Before we go any further, I want you to give yourself permission to fail.” As the words left her mouth, they stirred up Naomi’s own insecurities and mistakes.

She wasn’t a fraud, exactly, acting as an authority on this quicksand-filled subject. She’d worked hard to gain credibility in the space of emotional and physical intimacy. Her entire career was based on understanding the intersections. But writing the syllabus for a healthy relationship was one thing. Following it was another story entirely.

“Love or intimacy, together or separate, I can’t guarantee you’ll find them as a result of this seminar. I can’t even promise you’ll ever find someone—or multiple people, if that’s your thing—who can tolerate you, even most of the time. Compatibility, trust, sex, none of the stuff we’ll talk about in this seminar is scientific.”

Naomi’s eyes found Ethan. He sat straight in his chair, legs spread, hands linked in his lap. She didn’t have time to worry about whether her style of lecture met his approval. The only thing she knew how to trust was her own instincts. An unreliable north star, perhaps, but the one available at the moment. “Maybe that’s why intimacy pairs so well with religion. The best we can do is show up and try to be worthy.”

A woman with dark braids raised her hand.

“Yeah?” Naomi placed both hands on the lectern, a little dazed.

“So what I’m hearing you say is that the dating equivalent of ‘dress for the job you want’ is ‘dress for the dick of your dreams’?”

Naomi let out a sharp, grateful laugh. And just like that, she knew she could do this. “I mean, if you’re fishing for dick, sure. But keep in mind that it’s not in short supply.” She picked up a whiteboard marker and scrawled out a sentence. If you don’t know what you want, you shouldn’t be dating.

“You can thank my therapist for that one—it’s a direct quote.”