How To Bring Your Love Life Back From The Dead

How to Bring Your Love Life Back from the Dead

Wendy Sparrow

This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is
coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Wendy Sparrow

Cover and internal design © 2013 by Cerridwyn
Publishing, LLC.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may
be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any
information storage retrieval system without the written permission
of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles and reviews.

The author acknowledges the trademark status
and trademark owners of various products or copyrighted material
used throughout this work of fiction, including the following:
iPod, I Will Survive, Oreos, Fire and Ice, Sherlock, M&Ms,
Gollum, Han Solo, Hoover, Harley, Jaws, Leia, Star Wars, Bluetooth,
and Catcher in the Rye. The publication/use of these trademarks is
not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark
owners.

Cerridwyn Publishing, LLC.

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America

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Gradh is an imprint of Cerridwyn Publishing,
LLC.

Cerridwyn Gradh Smashwords edition October
2013

To my siblings, David, Adam, Heidi,
and Jaime: You made Halloween scary good fun.

She wasn’t actually going to grab
the magazine from the library, not where everyone could see her
doing it, not just for that article—especially since it was more
than likely available online. Everything was online these
days.

Lauren wasn’t desperate, and
borrowing an entire magazine of dating advice was a little over the
top. She was, however, dateless for the annual Halloween party with
her friends, which would make her the laughingstock among them
after she’d goaded Tammy into trying a dating agency. Tammy had
found someone immediately. They were head over heels for each
other. Of course they were. They made it look so easy, so
simple.

So, Lauren had tried that same
agency…and failed—failed so completely they’d not only quietly and
privately refunded her money, but they’d made it into a police
report. It wasn’t that she hadn’t garnered dates. Her dates had
just turned out to be raging psychopaths. Something about her
profile had brought only very deeply disturbed people.

The first date, a man named Roger,
she’d assumed was talking on his Bluetooth for the first twenty
minutes—intermittently—which was rude in and of itself. It wasn’t
until the gazillionth time he’d addressed Jerry that she’d asked
him in a polite voice who his friend Jerry was.

“Jerry is the man who lives in my
head. He doesn’t like you very much.”

She’d laughed…and then realized he
was serious. She’d gotten the hell out of there.

The second date was a guy named Carl
who’d seemed normal enough—until he started telling her about all
the things he’d made with human hair. It was amazing and disturbing
how much you could make out of hair. Even two weeks later, she
still sometimes woke up in a cold sweat after dreaming about it.
Also, she couldn’t even look at anything knitted without a shudder.
Carl had been wearing a hair shirt after all. An actual hair shirt.
This was going to be a cold winter without any sweaters around to
warm her, but she couldn’t bring herself to even look at them. Her
brown sweater might be permanently dead to her.

She was getting ready for her third
date when Roger showed up—with Jerry in tow. They’d taken a bat to
her car while she stayed inside and called the police while
cancelling her third date via text. Her third date had seemed
normal, but she didn’t trust her instincts anymore.

Then, since she’d definitely never
given either Roger or his alter ego her home address, she’d
contacted the dating agency, and “oops” there’d been a mistake with
her profile. Her full name, address, and phone number had splashed
up on the dating site for a few minutes earlier that day. Not to
worry they’d told her—it had been fixed. The sirens had arrived
around then.

So, here she was, in the library,
intending to pick up a book on pumpkin carving for her nieces, and
her eyes had been drawn to a small heading on the Halloween edition
of a woman’s magazine that was riddled with advice. The small black
print said, “How to Bring Your Love Life Back From the Dead in Ten
Easy Steps.” She’d opened it—after glancing around surreptitiously.
The ten steps did seem easy and straightforward. There was a step
and then an explanation underneath.

She could do that.

The first step was logical. It made
sense that you’d be able to find who you wanted if you knew what
you wanted. Plus, making a list of your ideal qualities in a mate
should be fun—in theory.

She’d picked up the pumpkin carving
book and hurried home. A web search pulled up the article which had
been picked up by a few dating sites too, including the one she’d
used—which almost made her change her mind. No, it was solid
advice. Even if it was written by someone identified only as a
relationship expert. It couldn’t possibly go any worse than her
brush with Jerry, who should have been listed in the police report
since that bastard apparently had it out for her…even if he was
just a figment of someone’s imagination.

Sitting down, she tackled number one
by making a list.

Things she wanted in a
mate….

Things…she wanted…in a
mate….

Well, she knew what she didn’t want,
but listing “Jerry” might be too specific, and how many men really
heard voices? Hopefully not many, but, if there were, she would
have met every last one in the greater Portland area with that
dating site profile.

Her pen bled through the page before
she could move it into words.

What did she want in a man? Besides
being of the male persuasion and having only one
personality.

Maybe that was part of her problem.
Maybe that was why she was still single at thirty-one. She’d always
thought it was because she hadn’t met the right person, but maybe
she wouldn’t have recognized him even if she had met
him.

Well, hell. She tossed her
pen.

Then, she retrieved it.

She could do this.

If you’d asked her ten years ago,
when she’d been twenty-one, her list would have been so idealistic
that it would make the thirty-one year old version of herself roll
her eyes and possibly vomit in her mouth just a bit.

Twenty-one year old Lauren would
have wanted him interested in saving the environment. That was a
big deal to her. It was still important, but if he didn’t
recycle—well, she could teach him. Any relationship where you let
paper or plastic come between you wouldn’t have survived
anyway.

Twenty-one year old Lauren also
would have listed that he should love animals and kids.

A sense of humor was a must. She’d
always gone for funny guys. He should make her laugh and not make
her cry.

What else? Physical stuff…she’d have
had physical requirements, but not too many because she didn’t
really have a type. He should be in good shape, but not super
muscular. She’d already been in the process of getting a degree in
Health and Physical Education, so health-conscious and fit would
have made the list.

Then, because she was a bit of a
dork at twenty-one, she’d have insisted he be intelligent, possibly
with a degree in some esoteric subject like Medieval Studies. Of
course, thirty-one year old Lauren would rather a guy have a job
than a useless degree.

Finally, her twenty-one year old
self would have insisted he be romantic—sweep a girl off her feet
romantic. She’d been heavy into romances at that time, and it may
have colored her vision of reality. Maybe that’s where she’d gone
so wrong. Maybe there weren’t guys out there like that. If there
were, maybe they were a figment of someone’s imagination. Who
knows? Maybe if she and Jerry had hit it off better….

Oh for hell’s sake.

Thirty-one year old Lauren tapped
her pen on the notebook paper and stared at it and stared and then
stared some more. She might make fun of twenty-one year old Lauren,
but at least she’d known what she wanted. Thirty-one year old
Lauren would settle for a guy who didn’t talk to voices in his head
and never made anything out of hair.