The Dating Intervention: Book 1 in the Intervention Series Read Online Free Page A

the punch? She wouldn’t have done either, she knew. Especially because she hadn’t yet replenished her back-ups after Mark and Zachary ended things. And so it probably all would have played out the same way. In the end, she would still have ended up alone and lonely, the dating system she’d designed as fail-proof having failed. Completely.  
    After storming away from The Zachary Scene, she called Xander to see if he wanted to go rock climbing or kayaking. No answer. That should have been her first clue, since he almost always picked up, but she persisted.  
    Finally, after she worked out, called Xander, showered, called Xander and ate a container of leftover cashew chicken from Red Lantern, she tried him again.  
    He finally answered.
    “Hey,” Delaney said. “You sound tired.”
    “What’s up?”  
    “Oh. Okay,” Delaney said, suddenly feeling awkward. She got off the couch and went to the kitchen to finish cleaning up the cartons from her lunch. “Well, I was calling to see if you wanted to go climbing out at the dells today, maybe after I drop Summer’s kids off?”  
    “I can’t today.”  
    “Oh. Okay. Big plans on your day off?”  
    “We need to talk.”  
    Dread, which had appeared at the murky bottom of her consciousness at the start of this phone call, came clawing its way to the surface. Delaney stopped cleaning and plopped down on the ottoman.  
    Maybe I should just hang up now. Pretend I lost the connection.  
    “Seriously?”  
    “Uh. Yeah, Delaney. Seriously. We need to talk.”  
    She closed her eyes. Swallowed. Put a hand over her mouth to stifle a groan.
    “Okay. Lay it on me.”  
    She flopped onto her back so her head hung off one end of the ottoman and her legs off the other.  
    “When we’re together, we have so much fun. You know? I love the climbing, the kayaking, the camping. Hell, I love the grocery shopping. Everything with you is an adventure.”  
    That doesn’t sound so bad.
    “So …” she said.  
    “So,” he repeated. “Everything is an adventure. Except the sex. I know you’re with me, here. We like, barely ever have sex.”  
    It was true. She just wasn’t that attracted to him. Tall, thin, bordering on gangly, Xander probably weighed a buck fifty soaking wet and carrying a dumbbell or two. A large nose, small jaw, and grimy fingernails made him look like a caricature of himself.
    “I mean,” he continued, “can you remember the last time we did it?”  
    She thought back. “Oh! Yeah, I can. It was that time we went to the hot springs and you attacked me under that waterfall down the path.”  
    “Do you remember when we went there? It was the weekend after Labor Day. We waited the extra weekend so we wouldn’t have to deal with the crowds.”  
    “Labor Day,” she repeated in a wooden-sounding voice, calculating the time that had passed since then.
    “Five months. A man can’t go that long on a regular basis.”  
    “I could do better,” she lied, grimacing even as she said it.
    “No, you couldn’t. And neither could I. I think we both know we’re more like brother and sister than we are like lovers.”  
    She never considered that Xander felt the same way she did. She always figured he just wasn’t that sexual, and that was only when she thought about it. Mark had sated her needs at least once every week. Maybe that was why she hadn’t even considered Xander’s needs.
    “Could we still hang out? As friends?”  
    “No. We can’t. I’m seeing someone else.”
    “Why didn’t you say so?”  
    “You know I really like you. But I think it’s time you started being honest with yourself.”  
    What was this, The Delaney Life Review?
    “Honest with myself?”  
    “Yeah. You don’t want to be with me any more than you want to go to the dentist every six months. And I know I’m not the only thing in your life you feel that way about. Honesty, Delaney. It’s the new black.”  

    ***
    Time marches on, Delaney