Chapter One of The Boyfriend Variables

“Excuse me, do you know how much a polar bear weighs?”

A whole-body cringe rolls through me as I pray that the corny pickup line wasn’t directed at me. But a quick glance out my peripherals tells me I’m the only one sitting on a frozen stone bench in the courtyard outside my sister’s wedding reception. Fifteen minutes before midnight. On New Year’s Eve.

I only wanted to take a few minutes to myself and send some work emails while I wait for the ball to drop. Watching all of your friends and family kiss their significant others while you’ve never been in a long-term relationship isn’t cute anymore. Plus, there’s a bobby pin wedged directly into my brain and I lost sensation in my toes hours ago. I’m not in the mood to get hit on by some rando looking for a hookup right now.

But, no.

It must be the gold sequin bridesmaid dress. It’s like a neon sign flashing above my head, screaming Hit on Harper! She’s available! And desperate!

Although the available part is true, I wouldn’t consider myself desperate enough to fall for a line like that—yet.

Research shows if you’re not married by the age of thirty-five, there’s only a twenty-five percent chance you’ll be married by sixty, so that gives me another two years. I’ve budgeted one year to find the perfect man—who would never stoop to using a cheesy pickup line—and one year for the engagement, which I think is sufficient. Making partner at my mother’s political consulting firm is the next step of my Perfect Life Plan, but only if I focus.

And get this email out.

After hitting send, I finally raise my eyes to see a tall, sandy-haired Captain America-type standing in front of me. Since he didn’t take the hint and wander away already, I guess I’ll play the gracious hostess my mother raised me to be.

Everything needs to be perfect for my sister’s big day. Big night. Big New Year’s Eve. Whatever.

I sit up, straighten my shoulders, and put on a polite(ish) smile. At least he’s cute. “No, I don’t know how much a polar bear weighs, but I assume you’re about to tell me?”

“Actually, I don’t know either, but it sure breaks the ice.” He grins and holds out his hand for a shake. “I’m Evan. Evan Lockwood.”

I blink a few times while I let his hand hang in the space between us. He has light green eyes and an air of boyish charm, like a kid caught raiding the cookie jar. But when I stare at him, he doesn’t shrink or turn back. He only smiles bigger and keeps going for that cookie. “And you are?” he presses, earning himself a smidge of my begrudging respect.

Eventually, I remember my manners. Sort of. “Does that line actually work for you?” I ask. “I’m intrigued by your confidence here.”

Evan’s hand finally retreats from our shared space and goes into his pocket. He shrugs, like my brush-off doesn’t phase him in the least. “That line has an eighty-eight percent success rate. I’m surprised you don’t like it. Most women find it charming.”

My eyes narrow at his retort. Although statistics and behavioral science are two of my love languages, I’m caught off guard hearing them from the Calvin Klein underwear model in front of me. Besides, what kind of guy measures the efficacy of his pickup lines?

The kind of guy who never goes on second dates, that’s who.

No, thank you.

I’ve dated my share of commitment-phobes and I know better, now—so even though that line was pretty charming, I can’t give him the satisfaction of admitting it. “Eighty-eight percent? Impressive. How unfortunate for womankind, though. I thought we were smarter than that. Or at least had better taste.”

“Hmm. Only twelve percent of you, I guess,” he says, his eyes crinkling at me with some sort of shared knowledge, like he’s in on the joke. Like he sees my rejection coming and politely declines. He’s challenging me. It’s annoying. He’s annoying.

But it’s also kind of hot, which is its own kind of annoying.

“So, what do you do?” he asks, invoking the informal motto of Washington, D.C.

I brush a lock of blonde hair over my shoulder. “I’m a political data scientist, specializing in polling predictions. You?”

He looks vaguely familiar, so I expect him to say he’s a Capitol Hill staffer or one of my father’s doctoral students from Georgetown. Someone I would have seen milling around my parents’ exclusive cocktail parties, hobnobbing with the beltway elite.

“I’m a wanderer,” he says, instead, upending all my expectations with a hint of a smirk. “I used to be in software development, but now I mostly spend my time traveling the world.”

“Wow. That sounds… exhausting,” I say, truthfully. It makes me wonder how he ended up at my sister’s wedding, but he must be a friend of my father’s. As a professor of International Relations, Dad collects members of the global community like trading cards—I think he’s trying to have one from each country, eventually. “Doesn’t that get lonely?”

“I make sure I don’t spend many nights alone.” He winks at me and a vision forms in my head, of Evan fucking his way across the globe. I imagine most women probably fall for this romantic wanderlust act, but I’m determined to not be another one of his casual hookups.

“So, since it seems like we’re both numerically inclined souls, could you help me with my statistics? Does the success rate on the polar bear line go up or down?”

I arch an eyebrow at him. “Depends on the measure of success. If you want me to leave with you, I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.”

“No, no. Nothing as serious as that. A successful pickup line just means I walk away with a name and a number. But just so I know—strictly for my research, of course…” A playful smile graces Evan’s face. “Why wouldn’t you want to leave with me?” He glances down at my bare ring finger with a challenge in his eyes, like he’s just daring me to lie.

And for a moment, I can’t stop my mind from filling in what it would be like to leave with Evan. His broad chest poking out of the crisp white sheets in my bed. Formal wear strewn across my hotel room floor. My pale thighs wrapped around his sun-bronzed waist.

I chase the intrusive images out of my head and force my rational brain to regain control over my cobwebby libido. Even if I was interested—which I’m not—I still have the after party to host tonight and I can’t ditch my sister for a one-night stand. Plus, I can’t let him win this little pickup game we have going.

Slowly skimming my eyes down and back up his devastatingly cut suit, I lie through my teeth. “Sorry, you’re just not my type.”

“Ah, well. That’s too bad,” Evan says, his eyes dipping to my lips like maybe he had his own fantasy running through his head. “Since you’re exactly my type.”

“What, breathing?” I smile sweetly at him.

He laughs and clutches his hand to his heart. “Ouch. My standards are a little higher than that. It also helps if she’s blonde, smarter than me, and seems to hate me,” he says—again—with the eyes. They’re outright twinkling, with a cartoon sparkle and everything.

“That should be easy enough to find.” I gesture back toward the ballroom. “Don’t let me stop you.”

“What if I’ve already found the one I want?” he says, again, with a kind of familiarity that catches my attention.

Evan gazes at me intently, silently challenging me to be the first one to break. The first one to pull away or the first one to push in—which would be winning and which would be losing?

A wave of goosebumps breaks out across my skin, like a shiver of premonition—or maybe just from the icy breeze that kicked up.

“You look cold.” He shrugs out of his jacket and offers it to me. “Mind if I sit?”

I try to seem nonchalant even though it’s freezing and I’m extremely grateful. “Be my guest.”

He sweeps it across my shoulders and I accidentally take a deep breath and inhale the aroma of his jacket. It’s warm from his body heat and his cologne somehow smells exhilarating, like open sea air and adventure. A strange feeling comes over me, as if the possibilities for Evan’s life are limitless. The antithesis of everything in my ordered, logical life. I probably smell like my daily planner and ergonomic mouse pad.

And in that second, I decide I hate everything about Evan, from his easy smiles to his numerical banter to the irresistible way his Adam’s apple bobs when he laughs—not that I’d noticed. “You know, pickup lines like that are the reason I gave up on dating.”

He raises some semi-guilty-looking eyebrows.

“Well,” I backtrack, waving my hand in the air, “that and the fact that I got tired of trying to turn Dupont dudebros into respectable boyfriends. Plus, first dates should be considered a form of cruel and unusual punishment. And I didn’t have time for it, anyway. Really, the reasons I gave up dating are multitudinous and varied, but bad pickup lines was definitely one of them.”

Half of his mouth crooks up in a tilted smile. “I’m definitely not boyfriend material, but on behalf of anyone who ever hit on you with a corny pickup line, I apologize.”

“Thank you,” I say, bowing my head sincerely. I’d say I’ve earned it.

Evan smiles the rest of the way and my heart jumps a little.

Well, that’s inconvenient.

“But wait. How could you not like first dates?”

“Easy. They’re terrible.”

“No way. That’s the best part. Meeting new people. Chemistry. Banter. Flirting. The first kiss? How could you give up a good first kiss?”

I give him an incredulous look and he tilts his head in question. “You’ve never had a magical first kiss? One that makes you feel like you’re the only two souls in the entire universe?”

“That’s not a real thing. Magical sparks and 360-degree slo-mo zooms only happen in the movies.”

He captures my gaze and holds it, dropping his voice. “It’s real. Every horrendous date you’ve ever gone on is worth it for a single magical kiss. The right kiss can stop time.”

I can’t help it—I laugh directly in his face. “Are you kidding me right now?”

He holds his hands up in surrender. “I swear, just hear me out. I’ll paint you a picture.”

I scoff and shake my head, but why not? The ball should be dropping any minute and after that, we can both go inside and I’ll forget everything this con artist says. “Sure, let’s hear it.”

“Okay.” A dreamy smile curls up one side of Evan’s face. “If my pickup line had worked on you, I would take you out to an expensive restaurant. Something impressive and hard to get a reservation for, because I’d be trying to show off for you.”

I raise an eyebrow, but Evan only looks back at me fondly. His voice is hushed and reverent. “The waiter would give us side-eye, because we’d take so long to give up the table. We’d talk the whole time, without any awkward lulls—discovering what we had in common and trying to find out which one of us could make the other laugh harder.”

I can believe that, at least. I’ll admit that Evan is much more entertaining that I originally gave him credit for. But then his eyes crinkle and I hate him just a little more, for how much I want to fall into them.

“After dinner, I’d suggest we get cupcakes, because I wouldn’t want to take you home yet. And you might slip your hand into mine and we’d be one of those couples on the sidewalk that don’t seem to know what’s going on around them. We’d be lost in our own little world.”

I huff a small laugh, but that does sound kind of nice. I can’t remember the last time someone held my hand.

Evan leans in. “Maybe I’d whisper something in your ear, hoping that the warmth of my breath would send shivers down your spine, the way your smile sends them down mine.”

My heart races as I feel his closeness in more than just my spine. I don’t know if this is real or only part of his story, but I kind of want it to be more than a story. The crowd starts cheering inside, counting down the seconds until midnight, but I ignore it, wanting to stay in Evan’s warmth a little longer.

“And afterward, when I walked you to your front door, you might want to invite me in, but I’d decline, to make sure you thought about me until I could see you again.” He gives me a devilish grin.

Five!

“Instead, I’d ask if I could leave you with a kiss.”

Four!

“It would be tender and gentle to start, until we got past our nerves, and then a little… more.”

Three!

“I’d sink my fingers into your hair and you’d put your hands on my chest.”

Two!

“There’d be a hint of tongue—not too much—and after we’d break apart, you’d be a little dazed.”

One!

“Prove it,” my traitorous lips whisper.

Okay, fine. Maybe I do want to be kissed at midnight by a handsome stranger that I’ll never see again. There’s nothing wrong with that. I only want a taste of something magical in my methodical life for once.

Happy New Year!

He hesitates, as champagne corks and noisemakers pop off in the background. I start to think I’ve made an embarrassing mistake, until he finds something that convinces him to lean in and he kisses me exactly as he promised.

His mouth is soft and warm and he sinks his fingers into my hair, supporting the back of my neck in a way that makes me want to go limp. He cradles my jaw with his thumb, stroking it as his lips brush against mine—tender and gentle at first, like he said.

And then more.

Evan teases my bottom lip with his tongue, and I lose track of reality. There’s only here and now and this kiss.

My hand roams up his chest and over his collar, searching for the heat of his skin. His neck feels like he’s burning up as I place my chilly fingers in a mirror image of his—curled around his nape like a scarf. He gasps at the touch, stealing breath from my lungs, and pulls me closer on the bench.

God, I almost feel dizzy, like the world is spinning around me in slow motion. Is this what Evan meant about having chemistry? Now that I know what I’ve been missing, I’m not sure I can live without it.

Damn him.

But I have to remember—this isn’t real. He’s only indulging me. And anyway, Evan isn’t boyfriend material, he said so himself. I’m looking for someone who’s interested in more than just tonight. What a waste of a good first kiss.

I dimly register a drunkenly bungled version of “Auld Lang Syne” starting up from the ballroom and tiny pinpoints of ice landing on my closed eyelids.

Breaking away from Evan’s lips, I look up into the heavens to see snow flurries falling, catching on my eyelashes and cheeks. I stare into the darkness and ponder my future.

With the clock ticking on my goal of marriage before thirty-five, maybe I should take a page out of Evan’s playbook and start optimizing my love life the way I optimize political campaigns—with the power of mathematics. I don’t know exactly how, but it could be the key I’ve been missing all along. I don’t trust my own romantic instincts, but I do trust math.

I look down at Evan to thank him for showing me how good a first kiss could be, but he seems far away, pondering his own future. After a heartbeat, he realizes I’m staring at him and carefully releases me from his embrace like it wasn’t the revelatory event I experienced. I rush to do the same as he brings back his playful smile.

A conspiratorial smile to mirror Evan’s nearly slips its way past my defenses, but I keep it in check. “I’ll give you half credit on the pickup line,” I concede. “Harper Holloway. It was a pleasure meeting you.” And as I put my hand out for Evan, I’m surprised to find that I genuinely mean it.