Settling Up Read Free

ridden in on a hulking motorcycle, taken his helmet off, and shaken his head to right his wheat-colored locks. And his eyes were that steel-blue ala Redford or McQueen (I know they weren’t exactly from the same era of classic movies, but there weren’t a ton of blondes back then, so I had to improvise). You know, the kind of eyes that make you feel like maybe bad boys have a softer side under that manly, car-racing, sinewy, studly exterior. They were piercing.
    In fact, almost too piercing. Narrowing at me, to be exact. Looking worried.
    “You ready?” Mack’s eyebrows shifted together as he frowned and pointed to the cards he’d placed on the table.
    Oh goodness! Blackjack! I had yet to look at the cards he’d dealt. Holy hell, I was officially becoming some drooling idiot version of myself over this man.
    Pull yourself together, Lauren! I scolded myself.
    I looked down. In front of me sat a four and a seven. His up-card was a two. I normally would’ve doubled down on an eleven, but my brain was feeling too foggy to trust myself at that moment. So I tapped the table with my finger, doing my part in the whole exchange, finally. He put down another card. A five.
    I tried to calculate the remaining probability in my head as I always did, but there was something getting in the way (other than the fact that not doubling down was going to ruin the rest of my odds). It was as if a fog had crept into my mind, and my regular thought processes were lost.
    I blinked and pulled in a deep breath.
    “Um… stay.” I sliced the air horizontally with my hand.
    He squinted slightly in a twitch and he flipped over his other card. It was a queen, so he took another, an eight. Crap. Twenty. That definitely beat my sixteen. Why had I stayed at sixteen? I felt my heart rate rise; I was almost sure my neck was turning red again. Great. This damn game, even without the wise advice from Rachel, was supposed to calm me down, not fluster me even more!
    I bit my lip and tried to focus as I put out a new chip to replace the one he’d taken. Mack’s hands flipped and flew across the table as he discarded the last set. He was good. Not the skilled master Rachel was, but the woman had a good twenty years on him. The fact that Mack was so good, however, brought something interesting to mind. If he was this good with his hands, that meant he had been doing this whole dealer thing for a while. Which meant that he most definitely did not meet the career checkoff on my list.
    I should probably explain the list…
    A lot of women I know have lists stored safely in their head about the kind of man they’re looking for. I had lists for just about every decision I made. They were as long and specific as I could possibly make them and were weighted with differing percentages based on the importance of each stipulation (I even organized my shopping list in the order the items best fit into the cart). My Finding the Right Man list was my longest and most specific yet.
    I had always felt that these unfailingly high expectations spoke to my rationality and my unwillingness to settle for someone who wasn’t right. Others seemed to have a very different reaction to it, so I kept the list to myself mostly. But it helped me stay on track, helped me focus on finding someone who I was not only attracted to, but with whom I could grow old with, travel the world, spend Sunday mornings reading and discussing the newspaper. Plus, it gave me the power of numbers, facts, to help control a situation which was so often fogged up by emotion.
    It usually took about three dates for me to decide whether or not a person possessed the majority of the favorable characteristics I required in a man. However, there had been certain special circumstances in which I was able to tell right away.
    I won’t bore you with the whole list (at the time, it stood at nineteen — a prime number!), but to give you an idea, here were my top seven:
    1. He must be physically attractive. (I