Chapter 3

I decided to start over with my dating profiles. None of them had worked for heterosexual relationships, so I doubted just switching the bubble to female looking for female would be beneficial. I needed to totally redesign myself and be honest about what I was after. The truth was, at this point in my life, my girlfriends were more important than dating. I valued my tried and true friendships more than money, but all I was really after was gratifying sex. I wasn't ashamed to admit that, either. I didn't want to whore myself out to the highest bidder, but I wasn't opposed to having an exclusive sexual relationship with no strings attached. In fact, I'd prefer it-I just no longer wanted to do it with men.

When I got to the questions about the physical characteristics of the partners I sought, I drew a blank. I'd always found women attractive-I could admire their beauty and praise their assets-but if I were to outline my perfect woman, I had nothing. I saved my incomplete profile and started to flip through the images of those who were now on my radar. I giggled at the names people had chosen for their profiles as I swiped left and right. It didn't take long for me to realize that my tastes in men and women didn't differ all that much. Dark hair, blue or green eyes, tan, toned. Perfection. I'd started to settle for men just to reach the infamous O, but my standards for women were impossibly high. If I were going to dive for muff, she would have to be the crème de la crème.

I glanced at the clock and realized I'd been scoping out women for far longer than intended but had only admired a handful of ladies. And it became clear, the pictures I'd used in my profile to seek men weren't going to work when trolling for honeys.

"Ronnie, I need you to come over." I'd called my bestie for reinforcements. It didn't matter that it was nearly eleven on a Monday night. My selfish streak had gotten a mile wide, and I hoped Trish understood-or at the very least, kept quiet.

"Hey, Giselle. Ronnie's in the shower." Trish sounded tired, but I never knew if it was me or her general attitude. She and Veronica had another spat over a pair of heels Ronnie had to have, and Ronnie had run to Holden's house for refuge. She'd just returned home a couple days ago, and my guess was Veronica was walking a thin line to keep her girl happy. "Everything okay?"

"Oh, hi. Yeah. How are you?"

Her clipped response instantly told me she wasn't interested in chitchatting with me. "Fine."

"Can you have her call me when she gets out?"

"I'll have her call you in the morning. She needs to get some sleep."

I bit my tongue to keep from smarting off. Veronica loved Trish, even if Trish could be unreasonable at times, but this wasn't my battle to fight. I'd let V handle her drill sergeant when I talked to her tomorrow.

"Thanks." I didn't wait for her to respond before disconnecting. I'd tried to be cordial with Trish, but my loyalty lay with Veronica. Girls had come and gone, but we were solid.

Without anyone to take strategically staged photos, I was stuck with what I had for the evening. I tried to find pictures of me with guy friends, images that highlighted my figure, flaunted my hair, and made me look delectable without appearing too straight. Tough to do when I had in fact been heterosexual for thirty-plus years. My most sexually appealing photographs were of me with my girlfriends, but I didn't know how that would look to other women. In hetero-land, if I posted a picture of me with a dude, it had better be my brother or my father-but I didn't know if the same rules applied...so I opted for a couple solo shots from Christmas events I'd attended over the holidays. Red was an alluring color, and I had been rather festive.

I closed my laptop, proud of my progress. Rome wasn't built in a day. With a mental note to talk to Ronnie, I turned off the lights and tried to sleep.