Naughty Resolution - Cassie Cole Page 0,3

are, buddy.”

He shook his head. “No. I mean about the new year. We’re all going to meet our future wives. I can feel it in my bones.”

“Bones, plural?” Quinn asked. “Or one specific bone?”

Dante blew air out his lips. He was slurring his words now. “This isn’t about sex, broseidon. This is about love. We should all jump on that online dating app and say yes to the first girl that agrees to go out with us.”

“Okay, buddy,” I said. “We can talk about it tomorrow.”

“I want to talk about it now. Why can’t we talk about it now?”

“You’ve had too much to drink.”

Dante reached past me to grab a shot of brown liquor from the bar. “No way, Abroham Lincoln. I’ve had the perfect amount to drink. I’m seeing clearly for the first time. No more one-night stands or random hookups. I want to find the one. My soulmate.”

Quinn took the shot out of his fingers. “You won’t find your soulmate at the bottom of this shot glass.”

“You don’t know that,” Dante joked. “Maybe my soulmate is small. Like Tinker Bell.”

“I doubt Tinker Bell is your soulmate,” Quinn said.

Dante smiled that big smile of his. “Why not? She’s got it going on with that cute little skirt.”

“I don’t even want to know the sexual logistics involved with that,” I said.

We all laughed, but then Dante slowly shook his head. For a few seconds, there was sober clarity in his gaze.

“Let’s make a bro-pact,” he said. “To try to find our future wives this year. Do it with me so I don’t feel like such a dork. Please?”

I thought about what he was suggesting. Of course I wanted to find the perfect woman, a special girl to spend the rest of my life with. What guy didn’t want that? I had been so busy with work at Gateway Construction. My love life hadn’t been a priority in a long time.

But maybe this was the push I needed. I had just turned thirty. Time felt like it was running out.

“Okay, I’m in,” I said. “But only because I’d hate for you to look like a dork.”

Dante clapped me on the shoulder, then looked at Quinn. “Come on, Obi-wan Kenbrobi.”

“Brobi-wan would have worked better,” Quinn said.

“Shit,” Dante said. “Maybe I have had too much to drink.”

Quinn sighed. “Sure. I’m in. Bro-pact.”

“Yeah!” Dante cheered. “Bro-pact! We need some drinks to commemorate the bro-pact. Bartender! What drink best represents a bro-pact?”

While he and the bartender discussed drink options, I thought about the pact. It wasn’t like there were any rules. It was just a vague agreement to look for our future wives this year. To put ourselves out there more than before, to login to the online dating app, and to go on a date with the first girl who agreed. The pact was essentially meaningless.

But it kind of felt good to agree to something, no matter how vague it was. I had always meandered through life, taking things as they came. Seeing what happened and reacting.

It felt good to have a plan.

3

Laura

I always had a plan. By the time I was ten years old I had mapped out my entire life, down to the smallest detail.

Married by age twenty-five.

Our dream house a year later: five bedrooms, three-and-a-half baths.

A perfectly trained Golden Retriever by age twenty-six.

Two kids, a boy and a girl, by age thirty.

An empty house by the time I was fifty. Then my husband and I could relax, retire, and coast into the sunset.

Planning was easy when you were young. It was much harder to implement.

I drove home, showered, and then put on comfortable clothes. I wanted to relax on my day off. It was cold outside. I was still mildly hungover. I didn’t want to go back out.

Yet as I snuggled up on the couch and turned on the TV, I thought about my plan. I still wanted all those things. A husband. A family. A dog. A perfect house with a white picket fence. But I was no closer to those goals than I was when I was a silly ten-year-old girl.

If I wanted those things, I needed to prioritize them.

And it all started by finding the right guy.

I watched TV and eyed the dating messages I had exchanged last night. All three of the guys seemed nice. And they were all incredibly sexy, too. Each of them was an opportunity, and I didn’t want to let them go to waste.

By the time my hangover disappeared, I had convinced myself.

“I’m