A Red Hot Mess

By Kimberly Van Meter

Copyright 2011 by Kimberly Van Meter

Smashwords Edition

-Chapter 1-

If rebounding was a sport, Laurel Kenning could qualify for Olympic gold. It wasn’t that she was one of those people who “loved to be in love” but rather, she was, as her best friend Alice, put it “eternally searching for something that doesn’t exist…like the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus.”

Laurel liked to think of her dogged pursuit of true love as one who honestly believed that somewhere, out there, was her soulmate. Someone who would love her above all else — more than their Air Soft gun collection, thank you very much Brad (I hope you shoot your eye out someday); and treat her like the lady she was (burping and farting at the same time, is not a skill, and no, a Dutch oven does not put me in the mood, Richard); and shared the same life goals (no, I really don’t want to live on a leaky, smelly boat for the rest of my life, Patrick).

But, as of late, Laurel had begun to wonder if maybe Alice was right. There were no good men out there any longer. Instead of looking for Mr. Right, she ought to be looking for Mr. Right Now or maybe Mr. Yeah-You’ll-Do-In-A-Pinch because as evidenced by the fact that she’d just returned from the police station to report that her ex-boyfriend had stolen all her fine China when he adiosed from the relationship, her marriage material gauge was seriously malfunctioning.

So she’d recently come to the decision that there’d be no more looking for her one-and-only; no more clipping wedding dress photos for a wedding that would likely never happen; and definitely no hoping she’d found “the one” with each new relationship.