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began to enthusiastically babble on about her new dating strategies. If all of these assholes haven’t turned her off of dating, then how will she realize that I’m better than them? And why is she even in such a hurry to meet someone new, anyway? Is she that desperate?
    Would she be desperate enough to even consider being with me ? his inner voice continued as he stared across the table, a discouraged feeling filling his chest. Does she even think of me as a guy? What would she say if I told her everything?
    Yea, right. Like that’d ever happen. What would you even say, Fletcher?
    “I took a statistics class last quarter, you know,” Riley was telling him, leaning forward across the table with a knowing smirk on her face. “If I just power through my dates with all of these assholes and losers, odds are that I’ll eventually come across a good catch.”
    “You learned that in statistics?”
    “What I’m trying to say, Max, is that good things come to those who wait,” Riley explained matter-of-factly, grabbing for Max’s glass and finishing off the rest of his whiskey.
    Do they? he couldn’t help but miserably think to himself as he watched Riley break into a fit of coughing. Do they really?
    “Or you can just wait patiently,” Max reminded her with a crooked smile. “There’s no need for titanium balls, you know.”
    “I’ve been out of practice too long,” Riley said, shaking her head defiantly. “So bring them on. Bring them all on,” she added as an unamused expression clouded Max’s face.
    “No way,” he muttered dismissively. “I don’t have the time or energy for de-briefings like this every time you go on a shitty date.”
    “You won’t have to worry about that, because I won’t be requiring them. Nothing can faze me now,” she said with a determined nod. “Nothing.”
    “Uh-huh,” Max replied, staring down at the row of empty cocktail glasses that Riley had amassed. “So this right now is you unfazed?”
    “Today doesn’t count,” she snapped back. “But, from this point onward, I won’t be fazed.”
    “Sure.”
    “I’m going to be cool, calm and collected,” Riley announced, shooting Max a triumphant grin. “I’m going to be unfazeable .”
    “That’s not a word,” Max glumly commented.
    “The unfazeable Riley Benson,” she continued, choosing to ignore Max’s unsupportive response. “Just watch me.”

Eight
    ––––––––
    “R iley, what the fuck are you doing?”
    At the sound of Liz’s voice, Riley lifted her head up from her pillow, hastily wiping at the bottoms of her eyes with the back of her hand. Not wanting her roommate to see how pathetic her wallowing session had really been, she quickly slid the most incriminating evidence underneath her comforter and sat herself upright while pasting a weak smile on her face.
    “Hey.”
    “What is that?” Liz asked as she craned her neck in the direction of Riley’s laptop to take a better listen. “Are you listening to Michelle Branch?”
    “She was a great singer-songwriter,” Riley whispered back defensively as she shut her Macbook closed. “I just hadn’t listened to her songs for a while, that’s all.”
    Narrowing her eyes suspiciously at her mess of a best friend, Liz marched towards Riley’s bed and pulled back the covers. “Are you kidding me?” she barked out as a bottle of Burberry Touch and a half-empty bag of Kettle Corn fell from the tangle of blankets. “I thought you said you were over him. That you were going to forget everything?”
    “All right, I didn’t forget,” Riley hissed back as she attempted to wrestle the glass bottle of Noah-scented cologne away from Liz’s grasp. When she failed to pry it away due to her roommate’s hulk-like strength, she resorted to hugging her pillow to her chest and taking a deep sniff, inhaling all of the five hundred sprays from earlier that afternoon. “I never forget. I can’t forget!”
    “Riley, you’re better than