Cinderella Screwed Me Over by Cindi Madsen Read Free Book Online

broken up.
    Drew showed up a few minutes after six and announced he was starving. I grabbed all my take-out menus from the kitchen drawer, flopped onto the couch, and handed them to him.
    He started flipping through the stack. “I’m surprised you don’t want to go to Blue.”
    “I’m sick of eating there,” I said. “Now, tell me what happened with Michelle.”
    “You know I’m not a girl, right? I don’t need to talk it out.” He glanced at me. “Besides, this is a good thing for you, remember? You need me to stay single forever, because you’re obviously not having any luck.”
    My mouth dropped open. I smacked him across the chest with the back of my hand. “Thanks for rubbing it in, but we’re not close enough to our fifties to decide that yet.”
    Drew and I had both had a string of failed relationships. One night, we’d made a pact. If we hit our fifties and were still single, we’d get a big place together. We’d be kind of like Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert in Anne of Green Gables. Except we wouldn’t adopt an orphan; we’d hire someone to do the chores instead.
    Drew rubbed the place where I’d smacked him. “Jeez.”
    “Like it really hurt. Spill it.”
    “I told Dad and Janet that Michelle and I broke up because she wanted to get more serious than I did, which I’m sure she probably did. Really, she was just irritating me more and more by the day. I started wondering if her voice had always sounded so nasally—”
    “She does kind of have an annoying voice,” I said.
    “And she’d call, like, every hour and ask what I was doing. I wanted to shout, ‘I’m working. Some of us work.’”
    I leaned back on the couch. “You always attract clingy girls.”
    Drew shrugged. “I guess I should start trying relationships with women I don’t think are my type.”
    I swiped a hand through the air. “I tried that before. I hunted out guys I’d never usually go for, but all I got were several short relationships with noncompatible people.”
    “I’m not looking for anything serious right now, anyway.”
    I shook my head at him. “Typical guy.”
    He huffed and shoved my knee. “Like you’re any better. You don’t even believe in long-term relationships.”
    “I don’t believe in short-term flings, either.” I knew this conversation would only get us arguing about women and men, so I grabbed the menu for the Yellow Dragon out of his hands and pointed at the chicken lo mein. “This is what I’m getting. What do you want?”
    Drew pointed out the orange chicken and the Szechuan beef. “I’ll eat the leftovers tomorrow morning.”
    “Ew. You can’t eat Chinese leftovers for breakfast .”
    “Fine. I’ll eat them for lunch. What time do you have to go in tomorrow?”
    “I can slide in a little late.”
    “Okay, then!” Drew tossed the rest of the menus onto my glass coffee table. “Chinese food, then we go find us some insignificant others for the night.”
    “You know, you really are a bad influence.” I grinned at him. “You should come over more often.”
    …
    The Wagon Wheel, a rustic bar with a jukebox full of country music, seemed like a good place to take Drew. I didn’t think the girls there would mind that he was a full-on cowboy, even though he didn’t so much look the part in his T-shirt and loose-fitting jeans. Plus, it was a nice break from the norm for me. Stephanie’s fiancé, Anthony, always insisted on going to the nightclub hot spots. Which meant my options were hanging out alone at home or being a third wheel. Neither was all that great.
    “Now that’s more like it,” Drew said, eyeing a couple of girls who sat down at the opposite end of the bar.
    “Which one?” I asked.
    “The redhead with the—” Drew froze, cupped hands out in front of his chest. He dropped them. “Who looks like she’s really smart.”
    I’d gone off before about him looking at girls like they were pieces of meat. At least he’d tried to edit this time. Drew was very