Hard and Fast (Fast Track #2)(35)
Author: Erin McCarthy

Suzanne looked like she could care less about that. “So when are you seeing him again? Are you just going to his place to do the nasty or what?”

“He’s taking me camping on Monday.”

“Camping? That sounds like fun. I like camping.”

“I don’t,” Imogen said. “At least, I don’t think I do. I’ve never been in a tent in my life, unless it was the catering tent at a garden party.”

“So why are you going, then?” Tamara asked.

“We made a deal. I’ll go camping if he reads Much Ado About Nothing.”

“And he agreed to that?” Suzanne asked skeptically. “I’d watch him, if I were you. He’ll haul your ass out into the woods and never pick up that play and read it. You get play payment up-front.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Imogen protested. “Would he?”

“I think it sounds kind of, I don’t know, romantic,” Tamara said. “Like he’s trying really hard to impress you and to find common ground with you.”

Suzanne’s opinion of that was clear from the height of her eyebrows. They had disappeared under her side-swept blond bangs.

But Imogen was inclined to agree with Tamara. At least that’s what the soft and foolish pounding mass in her chest wanted to believe. It was stupid, she knew that. She was, to be highly over-dramatic, which she never was but for once just needed to be, at risk for having Ty drive his race car over her heart and grind her into the asphalt.

The knowledge of that didn’t seem to be stopping her.

“Aside from all of that, which is confusing enough, I have thoroughly ruined my thesis,” Imogen said. “I was supposed to be following the Six Steps, or at least attempting the initial steps to see if I could secure interest from a driver.”

“I think you secured interest all right.”

That was true. “Yeah, but that wasn’t from following the rules. I think I’ve broken about every single one with Ty.”

“And the goal with Ty isn’t to marry him,” Tamara said.

True, but did she have to point it out so baldly?

“Of course not.”

“What are these stupid six steps anyway?” Suzanne asked. “I’ve been sweating my ass off at the gym with you and I haven’t even heard the rest of them. If they’re cracked, I’m not doing them.”

“Okay, well, Step One is getting date ready. Step Two is meeting him. Step Three is your first date. Four is getting in good with his friends and maintaining your own life. Five is adding intimacy and becoming exclusive. Six is letting him know he can’t live without you.”

Tamara and Suzanne both stared at her. “That’s it?” Suzanne asked. “That’s supposed to snag you a husband?”

“That sounds sort of like how every relationship goes to me,” Tamara added. “Those aren’t steps you can control either, I might add.”

While Imogen agreed that the whole concept of a dating manual securing any woman eternal bliss in marriage was far-fetched, she did think that at least the steps were practical. “Of course you can. I think that is actually the success of the book. These are all normal dating and mating behavior patterns, but this book gives women control, whether it’s an illusion or not. Before you even meet him, you diet and exercise, check your wardrobe, etc. You learn about stock car racing, which is both his passion and his career. You learn about him. So when you do finally have the chance to meet him, it’s allowing you to put your best foot forward to secure his interest.”

“You didn’t do that with Ty?”

“Not so much,” Imogen admitted.

“Yeah, but he’s digging you.”

“I don’t think that’s my point,” Imogen said, feeling a little exasperated with her whole thesis in general, men in particular. “My point is perhaps that the success rate is higher if you go into a relationship more methodically than impulsively. So I slept with Ty. That is not going to result in marrying him. If I had done it per these directives, maybe I would be at some point.” Saying that out loud made her a little hot in weird places, and she instantly regretted those words coming out of her mouth.

But her friends didn’t seem to think it was odd. They both just looked puzzled and unsure.

“I don’t know . . .” Tamara said. “I met Elec by accident, when I was tipsy drunk on a date with another man, frantic because I’d lost my purse. Not exactly my best foot forward, and yet we had sex that first night, again not following these rules, and we’re doing just fine, thank you very much.”

“And I would argue that Ryder and I followed those rules to the letter and we’re divorced, so go figure.”

“Which all really means that my thesis just sucks,” Imogen said, feeling torn between wanting to scream and wanting to burst into tears. “It’s a big, complicated mess and I don’t know how to fix it.” She had never screwed up a paper or project so badly in her entire academic career, and to do it now, with the mother of all projects, her thesis, was inconceivable.

“Well,” Tamara said. “I think part of the problem is there is no way to accumulate enough data to prove or disprove your theory if you’re the only one attempting to follow the rules. I think you need to approach it from a different angle. You need to become the Myth Buster of Sociology and question, is this true or not true?”

Given that Tamara already had her master’s degree in sociology, Imogen was eager to listen to any advice she could give. “I guess that was my intent originally, but I’m no longer certain how to do that.”

Tamara sipped her margarita. “You interview as many driver’s wives as you can. If you interview fifty wives, you can ask pointed questions that determine if their path to marriage even remotely resembled the rules in that book. If you develop questions regarding their previous knowledge of stock car racing, whether their meeting was accidental or intentional, their first date, how long they dated before getting engaged, etc., you can classify them as having followed the rules or not. Check your percentages of rule followers versus non-rule followers and call it good.”

There was some merit to Tamara’s suggestion. It was certainly more logical than running around trying to flirt with men she wasn’t interested in. “Except how can I argue that the book works or doesn’t work when none of the subjects were aware of its rules to follow them or not follow them?”