Free Perfect for You (Short Story) (Fire and Icing) by Jessie Evans

Chapter One
    Honk! Honk! Honk! The antique car horn blared, signaling the end of the round and summoning a wave of laughter from the sixty or so singles gathered at The Atlanta Dough Company, the scene of Dawn Fuller’s most recent dating disaster.
    She should have known better than to try Speed Dating with Doughnuts. Speed dating was speed dating. It was a miserable, dumb, embarrassing, mid-nineties way to spend a Saturday night, no matter how much fried dough and icing you added into the mix.
    But she’d been so lonely after the kids left for their first four week summer visit with her ex that she’d allowed herself to be lured in by descriptions of new friendships formed over triple chocolate doughnut holes and maple glazed crullers with bacon crumble. She’d clicked the sign up link at the bottom of her Atlanta Singles Weekly email, and now, here she was, shifting tables, preparing to meet Weirdo Number Five.
    Weirdo Number One had wiped his nose on his sleeve ten times in the five minutes they were allotted, Weirdo Number Two spent the entire time bragging about how much money he made, Weirdo Number Three smelled like sour milk and green onions and barely said a word except to ask Dawn if she was going to finish her slice of bear claw, and—after the server delivered cinnamon and chili pepper doughnut holes to table four—Weirdo Number Four had gone on and on about how cinnamon gave him a yeast infection in his mouth.
    In his mouth.
    To say her expectations were low would be an understatement.
    Her expectations were down in the hull of a ship with a bad case of seasickness, huddled in a dark corner with their head under a blanket, praying for a quick end to the suffering.
    And then her eyes met his —Weirdo Number Five—and her expectations let out a moan of anguish and hurled themselves out the porthole of the ship into the stormy sea, never to be heard from again.
    For a moment, she dared to hope that she was mistaken, that this was simply a guy who looked like Trent Baron—a man with the same sky blue eyes and jaw hacked from a hunk of solid rock, but with more tattoos and piercings than her meathead nemesis from college.
    But alas, the moment she slid into the seat across from him, the man’s eyes widened with recognition.
    “Dawn Fuller?” He blinked several times, as if hoping that might make her disappear. “What are you doing here?”
    Dawn was tempted to respond with a smartass remark—she and Trent hadn’t exchanged a civil word since Trent made the mistake of saying he thought feminist was another word for lesbian in their freshman Sociology class—but she couldn’t seem to muster up the energy.
    Instead she let out a long sigh. “I honestly don’t know. Speed dating isn’t my thing. At all.”
    Trent shook his head. “Mine either.” He waited for the server to finish dropping off their doughnut samples before adding beneath his breath, “This kind of stuff makes my skin crawl.”
    “Ditto.” Dawn reached for her slice of doughnut, a raspberry truffle with mocha glaze that she hoped would dull the pain. “At least the doughnuts are good.”
    “The doughnuts are great,” Trent agreed. “But so far the company…wasn’t what I was expecting, not in downtown Atlanta anyway.”
    “Too many feminists?” Dawn asked, with a snort. “Women who talk too much and refuse to shave their legs?”
    Trent’s lips curved wryly. “No, not too many feminists. The opposite, actually. I was hoping to meet a woman who had something on her mind aside from how much money I make, or whether I could bench press her weight at the gym, you know?”
    “Is that right?” Dawn lifted one pierced brow, noticing that Trent had three piercings of his own, lined up in a row on the outer edge of his right eyebrow. Back in school, he’d made fun of Dawn’s piercings and tattoos, swearing she’d regret them by the time she was thirty. “Changed your mind about piercings, tattoos, and feminists