Before I knew what was even happening, I heard Lydia's unmistakable voice getting louder as she was saying something I couldn't quite hear to the douche of a man beside her. He was raising his volume too as he stared back at her, standing up off his stool so that he towered over her small frame. "Cole," I said, hopping down off my stool and already heading in their direction. It wasn't long before their little scuffle had people from all over the bar looking at them, and I was sure it was only a matter of time before Dakota noticed us. But, none of that mattered when I saw the man reach out, shoving Lydia so hard she would have fallen down if she hadn't crashed into me. I was almost knocked down with her, but was surprised when Rory appeared behind me, stabilizing us both. I felt Lydia shaking in my arms and I could tell she was sobbing. I was quick to drag her away from the scene, making our way to the bathroom. Part of me wanted to stay and fucking unleash my wrath on that ma

After the crazy weekend I had, I was actually ready to get back to work today. It was Monday, and the last week of phase 1 of my experiment. So far, I'd met a variety of men from the office, some of which really stood out to me, and others... not so much. But, overall I figured the article was coming along as good as to be expected. Yesterday, Ellie came over to help me work out the kinks for phase 2. Clearly, there were men I was going to eliminate - starting with freaking Alan. But once I got the men narrowed down from 20 to 10, I wasn't exactly sure how to proceed. Part of me felt like one more elevator ride just wasn't going to be enough time to make an informed decision to narrow it down to only 5 men. With this in mind, Ellie and I decided that it would be best if each man rode the elevator down with me as well on their date day, instead of just going up. It made sense in theory; week 1 = 1 ride; week 2 = 2 rides, up and down. After that, 5 more will be eliminated. With 5 men l