Free His For Christmas by Kinsley Gibb

me—“
    “Forget it Charlie.” She glared at her
loving but bossy friend and massaged her stiff neck. “I’m glad your
social life is hopping but that’s what’s great about this Cupid’s
Match thing. I can do it at my own pace. The thought of cruising
bars is horrifying.” Anabelle shuddered and Charlie grinned. “I’m
dipping my toes into this dating thing, which you’ve harassed me to
do for a while, so you need to back off.”
    Charlie held her hands up. “Alright,
alright… pax .” She bit into a cookie. “Mmmm…these are good.
But you have to text me photos, descriptions, addresses and any
relevant information before any date.” She grimaced. “You know…in
case.”
    “Of course.” Crime shows were their guilty
pleasure.
    “Good.” She beamed. “You’ve been sitting on
the sidelines for too long.”
    Anabelle shook her head and grinned because
it was hard to stay irritated with someone so concerned with her
best interest, even if that someone had steamrolling down to a
science. An inherent danger of being best friends with a genius
level type A was dealing with the ultimate know-it-all.
    “Thanks. Uploading my profile is a huge step for me. Major . So big that it may be the only step if you start pushing.”
    Head down in submission mode, her friend
appeared duly chastised but one never really knew with Charlie. She
had the come back quality of a rubber band. When you thought you
had it were you wanted it, it would snap back and sting you. Hard.
It paid to be aware around Charlie.
    “Damn Gavin,” Charlie growled. “I’m all for
celebrating same love but jeez…he really fucked up.”
    Anabelle shrugged, accustomed to her
friend’s rant. “What can you do?” She gave up pretending to work
and opened a new window to browse for possible matches.
    She clicked on a prospect. “This one’s cute.
He has a Ryan Gosling thing going. A little young though.”
    “Let me see.” Charlie elbowed close. “Not
bad.”
    Anabelle read the bio and sighed. “Nope. He
smokes and I’m not interested in kissing a cigarette every
day.”
    “True. How about that one?”
    Anabelle dutifully selected TallDH10 for
Charlie. “It’s strange scanning for men like this.” She was an old
fashioned girl. Some would say boring but when she’d married, she’d
thought it would be forever. Turned out, her forever was eight
years. “Looks a little slick doesn’t he?”
    Charlie grimaced. “Welcome to the modern age
of dating. Scan, discard or keep.”
    “Pretty superficial, like you’re judging a
book by its cover. You know, the thing we aren’t supposed to
do?”
    “True, but it’s reality. Photos have a
maximum of ten seconds to make a good impression.”
    “What if you aren’t photogenic?”
    “Then it sucks for that person. But
fortunately you are, so that’s one less thing to worry
about.”
    She made a face. Yeah. One less thing.
Considering how out of practice she was, things could get tricky.
She’d met Gavin straight out of grad school. Before then, she’d
kept busy with school and a variety of goals. All worthwhile
accomplishments except there hadn’t been time for a social life or
even a hint of rebellion.
    According to Aunt Martha, Anabelle was
thirty-eight, with no prospects in sight and practically petrified
on the shelf.
    The thought of dying without experiencing a
male induced orgasm was depressing. The sheets hadn’t burned
between her and Gavin, hadn’t remotely sizzled and she was late
with her sexual revolution. But hopefully it wasn’t too late.
    If she had to dance naked under a full moon
to break her dry spell she was going to get laid and have a damn
fine time doing it because she’d made a list. If there was one
thing Anabelle was good at, it was making list…attack list, things
to do list, go to list. She was armed and dangerous.
    “Let’s add a filter,” Charlie said after the
fifth page of possibilities.
    “How’s that?”
    “Here, you can filter by height,