Free Getting to Third Date by Kelly McClymer

reliable. If you could just loosen up a little, everything would be great.”
    â€œI have no intention of loosening up my common sense. If you don’t want me to continue with the column, fine. Then just tell me so and I’ll be happy to stop writing this stupid thing and hearing all the half-baked gripings of a group who wouldn’t know love if it bit them on the butt.”
    â€œOkay.” For a minute I thought we were done. Really done. But then he put on his concerned editor’s face again. “If you’ve ever been in a real relationship.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?” I tried to bluff, but my voice shook a little. I hadn’t expected the question.
    â€œHave you?”
    â€œHave I what?” Lame, I know. But I do have that hopeful streak, and it was praying I could put off answering until a meteor struck the earth and obliterated us all.
    He stood his ground, though. “Have you ever been on a third date before Looking For a Mom?”

Eight
    Once, long ago, my sixth-grade gym teacher, who had a gorilla-size chip on her shoulder, gave us girls two pieces of advice: The best defense is a good offense, and never let a guy tower over you in an argument—it gives him the psychological advantage. She was fired shortly after that, for tipping our principal, Mr. Mandis, into a Dumpster, so the advice really stuck in my mind.
    I stood up, put my backpack on the table, and faced Tyler down. Maybe not such a good idea, since my knees, I discovered, were shaking. Where was a good shot of adrenaline when I needed it?
    He laughed. “It’s not a hard question, Katelyn.” Apparently, Tyler found my refusal to answer funny. “Yes. No. No big deal if you’re the pickiest dater on the planet. It would explain a lot of this wacko Mother Hubbard advice you’ve been giving, to tell the truth.”
    Turns out, anger is a good source of adrenaline. “You didn’t know me in high school. You haven’t known me very long. So what if I haven’t rushed into a relationship? I have classes to study for and a career to plan. How dare you assume I’ve never been on a third date?” Another plus to anger is that the truth is easy to hide behind outrage. Like, I wasted four years in high school hanging out with a guy who wasn’t ever going to like me like I liked him. There had been some guys who might have liked me. But I hadn’t really given them a chance. Which didn’t really mean my three-date rule was dumb. Just that I hadn’t practiced it on enough guys. Yet.
    He stepped back, as if he thought I might morph into vampire girl and bite his throat out. “True. I haven’t known you very long. Maybe you were homecoming queen and planning to marry the homecoming king until he dumped you for your English teacher.”
    He’d come a little too close to the truth. But I could see it was by accident. He had no clue who David Morse was—let alone that he was indeed homecoming king. The smile on his face had slid sideways and he looked a little sick. I realized he was sorry he’d insulted me, and my own anger started to slip away.
    Too soon, it turned out, because he continued, “But I think I should be the one to pick the next two guys you go out on a third date with.”
    â€œI’ve already got one picked out.” The perfect one to make my case to the campus. Slacker Dude. No way was Tyler taking him away from me. No one would expect me to go on a fourth date with a guy who had an imaginary friend who’d come to college with him to “make sure I study hard and make my parents proud.”
    â€œIs he someone Sophia would date?”
    â€œWho cares?”
    â€œThe readers care. So, is he someone Sophia would date?”
    Never in a million years. “How would I know?” I asked that with a straight face because I was certain Tyler had no idea that when Slacker Dude had come to the room