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Surprise cakes over my face. “You volunteer with not just animals but children as well?”

“Weekly, which contributes to the conflicting schedule issues we’ve been having but asking a woman to come down to a local battered family shelter and listen to you readPirates Don’t Change Diapersbefore offering free medical exams doesn’t exactly make for the greatest first date.”

Swooning should be stopped yet can’t be.

God, can Mr. Perfect For Me really get any more perfect for me?!

“Maybe for our next date we could hit up a local bookstore?” His fingers that are dangling near mine lightly brush them. “You could recommend me some librarian approved reads to add to my shelves?”

The idea alone should fill me with inexplicable joy.

I mean that’s like…an ideal dateright there.

What woman in her right mind wouldn’t want to go to the bookstore?!

It’s just that…I knowhe’snot the one I want to go to the bookstore with.

He’s not the one whose spine I want to touch.

Pun so intended. And let me just say, touching it in my fantasies at night is so not enough. Oh, don’t get me wrong…It’senough.Size. Shape. The way it strokes at just the right speed so that I always get off. No, I mean not getting to experience the real thing is torture. Not nearly as much torture as falling for someone that you’re pretty sure has no interest in ever seeing you as anything other than a friend. A non-naked friend at that. A non-naked friend who happens to tell you her shameful secrets and guilty pleasures and the things she’s read about sex in romance novels but hasn’t ever had the courage to try. A non-naked friend who you cook for and tuck in on the couch when she falls asleep during a TV show and who you bring hot chocolate to while discussing the choices for next month’s book club with her. Look, I’m really happy to have Archer in my life. I am! It just sucks a teeny tiny bit that I can’t have him in the one way my heart keeps telling me I should. You can’t make someone want you. Trust me. I spent way too much time trying that shit in the past.

All of sudden, the tip of his finger is lifting my chin up that I didn’t even realize had fallen. “Why do I get the feeling you want that date, just not with me?”

I helplessly cringe. “Dmitri-”

“It’s okay.” His hand lifts to politely stop the sentence in its tracks. “I knew it was a long shot that I hadn’t missed my chance.”

The words slip free at a muted tone. “I didn’t think you had.”

“But now youknowI have?”

Garbled words clump together forming an incoherent slew for an answer.

He lightly chuckles, lifts his hand for the check, and teases, “How about in English, next?”

Embarrassed snickers proceed a more understandable response. “It’s complicated.”

“Why?”

“He’s my roommate.”

“You have a roommate?”

“Housemate?” Realizing that doesn’t sound much better has me rushing to explain. “He’s a friend that fell on hard times, and I moved him in to my garage to help get him back on his feet – only because he didn’t wanna live in the house – and we’ve grown close-” Dmitri shoots me an incredulous stare in the middle of my rambling. “Okay.Fine.We’ve grownreallyclose. So close that we’re practically dating, but we aren’t actually dating, which is why it’s okay I go on other dates with other people because we’re not dating no matter how much I wish we were dating, and the truth is we will probably never date, so it’s all really just a moot point.”

Dmitri offers a nod of thanks to the bartender for the bill before inquiring to me, “As the weird consolation prize in this whole thing, can I offer you some advice?”

Ohmygod he is, isn’t he? The like ‘Thank You for Trying to Date Normal’ giftbag from the ‘My Mother Won’t Stop Setting Me Up Gala’.

“Sorry,” I whisper on an awkward cringe. “I didn’t mean for that to come out that way. That’s not what I wanted my words to infer.”

He fishes his wallet of his suit pocket, smile never wavering. “First off, there are worse things to be than some sexy librarian’s second choice in dates, Jaye.”

Am I sexy? I thought I might be in this shorter than normal purple plaid winter mini dress and these brown thigh high boots, but I didn’t know I wasthathot in it. Score for me!

“And second, instead of just assuming this guy is not interested, how about you tell him how you feel?” The debit card lands on the receipt. “I’ll be honest. Most of us out here are…pretty fucking dense when it comes to women or what they want. Some of us are just better at faking that shit than others.”

Both hands cup my mouth to keep in the giggle.