“But I can’t find one!”
“Have you been looking?” Daniela asked in a reasonable tone.
But Chloe was in no mood to be reasonable, not after the night she’d had. “Of course I have!” she snapped, and then ranted for a solid five minutes, filling her friend in on everything from Blair’s shitty date options to Ethan’s overprotectiveness to Theo’s spying and sabotage and even their embarrassing almost one-night stand. She finished up with, “And you want to know the worst thing?”
Her voice filled with laughter, Daniela said, “Enlighten me.”
“I wasn’t attracted to any of them.” She paused and amended, “Well, other than Theo.”
“So what’s so different about Theo?”
It was a question she hadn’t considered. What was different about Theo? He was handsome, but Mr. Dental Commercial, Blake, Logan, and even Darius were handsome and she hadn’t felt a thing for them. She’d known him forever, but she could say the same about Blake. The thought of dating Blake made her shudder; it’d be like dating Ethan or Aiden. So why did she want to jump Theo’s bones so badly? She didn’t really have an answer so she said, “He just is. I’ve known him forever. Even when I was a kid, I had a crush on him. I used to follow him everywhere.”
“Uh-huh.” Daniela said it like a light had gone on. “Everything suddenly makes sense.”
“It does?” Chloe asked, surprised. “Then why can’t I find a husband?”
Her friend paused, and then asked, “Do you want the flippant answer or the real one?”
“Real,” she answered without hesitation.
“Because you’re not interested in finding a husband. You’re only interested in Theo.”
“Well, I can’t have him! The bro code killed that!”
“That sucks.”
“Tell me about it. So what do I do now?” Chloe practically wailed.
Daniela sighed and muttered under her breath. “You’re not going to like this, but you’re going to have to be patient.”
“I can’t be patient! I’m on a deadline.”
“Your brain might be telling you that, but your attraction doesn’t work that way. You’re going to need to become close friends, and possibly more, first.”
That made no sense, and Chloe told her so.
Sighing even louder, Daniela asked, “What do you know about demisexuality?”
“What’s that?”
“It’s on the asexuality spectrum,” Daniela answered, turning on her clinical producer voice. “It’s sometimes called single-target sexuality, but that’s not really what it is. Demisexuality is when a person is only interested in sex or romance with somebody who they already have an existing connection to. A deep emotional bond, as it were. Which in your case means Theo, and only Theo.”
Chloe rebelled at the thought. “But… I’m attracted to guys.”
“Are you? Name a celebrity that you’d want to bang.”
Chloe drew a blank. “Well that’s not a fair question!” she protested, pacing back and forth in her small living room. “I know too many celebrities, and they’re all giant pains in the arse.”
Daniela laughed. “You’re not wrong.” She stifled her giggles. “Okay. Other than Theo, tell me someone you’ve wanted to have sex with. Or even date. They can be fictional, they can be real, I don’t care. They can be the bloody Queen of England—”
“She’s dead,” Chloe interrupted. “And I’m not into women, remember?”
“So? Prince William, then,” Daniela said, exasperated. “People say he’s cute, or was, I wouldn’t know.”
Chloe struggled for a minute, racking her memories to think if there was anyone that she’d been attracted to. Again, she came up blank.
And Daniela knew it. In a smug voice, she said, “Sounds like you’ve got some research to do, and your ten minutes are almost up. Anything else I can be of assistance with?”