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cat?”
    “Here we go,” Max muttered under his breath, taking a long sip of his drink.
    Riley was well into her third week of “power dating”, though she had yet to have any luck with the string of eligible bachelors with whom Max and Evan had set her up. Her second, and final, meeting with Brendan had been a disaster, ending with him chastising her in front of a crowd of onlookers for not comprehending the sheer brilliance of Roy Lichtenstein or Mark Rothko’s works.
    Then there had been Kenneth, a stern-faced dweeb who had been aghast at the fact that she had yet to take an upper division computer programming course, after whom came Trent, a steroid-pumped adrenaline junkie who texted her selfies that he had taken via the mirror at the gym. Stoner Mike had dozed off mid-conversation not once, but three times, during their short-lived pizza date, while Elliott, an opinionated political science major with a bad case of onion bagel breath, had chatted her ear off for the entirety of the movie they had watched together.
    Rounding out the pack were Jason, a slightly awkward resident advisor who had the misfortune of having been born with the smile of an overeager predator, and Dave, a blank-faced surfer boy who had exhibited no signs of having an actual personality.
    After surviving such crippling dating disasters, Riley had assumed that Lucky #8 couldn’t be any worse than the seven bachelors that had preceded him. Vowing not to let this one end like the others before it, Riley had approached the date with a determined attitude and a comprehensive game plan.
    In fact, she had spent the good part of an hour compiling a list of guy-approved topics from which she could draw should the conversation head south at any point during their date. She had even prepared the perfect line with which to charm him: “Did you know that ‘dog food lid’ spelled backwards is ‘dildo of God’?” He’s going to think I’m so chill, Riley had thought to herself with a proud smile upon arriving at the restaurant.
    Much to her dismay, however, newly heartbroken Nick had babbled about nothing other than the topic of his ex-girlfriend, even going so far as to ask Riley for advice on how to get the love of his life back.
    Once she had sent a teary-eyed Nick on his way to the florist, Riley had shut her eyes tightly and demanded that Max join her for a much-needed de-briefing at a nearby bar. At least there’s one guy I can always count on, she had grumbled to herself as she ordered a vodka tonic and got a head start on raising her blood alcohol levels.
    “I could name the others Jasmine and Violet. What else? Poppy? Petunia? Marigold?”
    “Marigold?”
    “Maybe I’ll even adopt a Chrysanthemum!”
    “That’s quite the distinguished name for a cat,” Max mused with a lazy smile.
    “Oh! And Tulip. I’ve got to get a Tulip,” Riley gushed, her cheeks getting pinker with each sip of her drink that she took.
    “Are you planning on collecting them...?”
    “What am I going to do, Max?” she asked, a desperate look on her face. “I’m going to end up becoming that crazy cat lady at the end of the street who gives her cats human names in place of the kids she never had.”
    “You’d name your kid Petunia?” Max joked, scrunching his nose in disapproval.
    “My cat child, yes,” she replied matter-of-factly.
    “So you had another bad date,” Max began, feigning being supportive as he held back another one of his pleased smiles. “It’s not the end of the world, you know.”
    “It wasn’t just bad,” Riley insisted with a roll of her eyes. “It was horrible! Why the hell did Evan think that I’d want to spend my Saturday night counseling some brokenhearted sophomore who was interested in nothing other than going on and on about his ex-girlfriend?”
    Max couldn’t help but snicker as he imagined what Riley’s face must have looked like during Nick’s melancholic soliloquy.
    “Even the couple at the next table over