Chasing the Dream: Dream Series, Book 3 Read Online Free PDF Page A

of legal age—but we wouldn’t be able to go to bars for another two years.
    I had to chuckle at the irony. Last month I had—um, dated?—Phoebe’s mother. Liz broke up with me because I was too young for her. Her reasoning was sound, and yes, I did want children. It would have been a huge sacrifice for me to give up the dream of being a dad one day. I also knew I was up against stiff competition by the name of Jack Stevens…wealthy…successful…very handsome. But having seen the two together at Ed Scott’s many times since then, they were really a good fit for one another. I was happy that she was happy.
    I actually learned a lot about myself while dating Liz. I realized why my relationships with the girls I’d dated hadn’t been a good match for me. They had all been much younger than me. Turned out, dating Elizabeth, I liked the confidence of an older woman, a woman who knew who she was, or was willing to explore. My past relationships were with girls and it was clear that they let their relationship status dictate who they were. It was a lot of pressure.
    My eyes had been opened… and they settled on one Shelby O’Sullivan, the bartender at Ed Scott’s.

CHAPTER 4

    T he weekend, my first whole weekend in New York on my own, wasn’t as exciting as I had hoped it would be. Saturday, Kevin took me for a run in Central Park. I loved that all the female, and even several male, runners were checking him out, but he was running with me . Saturday afternoon was spent “vegging out” watching TV, a John Hughes movie marathon. Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, and Some Kind of Wonderful. Out of nostalgia, my mother bought me the whole collection for my sixteenth birthday, and despite my wanting to not love the old movies, I adored every one of them. It didn’t matter that the movies were made some twenty or thirty years ago, the message was the same as today. Every time I saw them airing on TV, I watched.
    Sunday I decided to lay low. I put in a call to Lucy. She said that Danny stopped by on Friday and wanted to say ‘good-bye’ to me. She said he seemed kinda remorseful that he’d been such a jerk. Apparently he wasn’t seeing anyone these days. I told her all about my past couple of days, and Kevin. She demanded that I send her a picture, and I promised I would in the next couple of days. I asked if she was ready for her trip to Africa, and she was. She said she’d started to look into opportunities to stay in Africa and take a year off her studies. She was thinking that two months wasn’t going to be nearly long enough to make a significant difference. She went on about immunization missions, and agri-science programs, and refugee missions that were available. She truly amazed me at her drive to ‘save the world’ and her perpetual ‘glass half full’ mentality.
    After I got off the phone with Lucy, I decided to bake some ‘A-Z Muffins,’ which had everything from Applesauce to Zucchini. I loved baking; it was something that made sense to me. It was like science. Unfortunately, when I went to the store to buy all the ingredients, I forgot about baking powder. I rolled the dice and knocked on Mrs. Hanlon’s door to see if she had any, and thankfully she did, although it would “cost me” a few muffins for her, which of course I was happy to give.
    Sunday night, Kevin texted me. Eagerly I opened the text.
    6:42pm
    I have a pizza and a movie.
    Want to come down and
    help me eat it? The movie
    won an Oscar.
    I dressed up probably a little more than I should have in a skirt and tank top that spelled out “dance” in sparkly rhinestones across the chest, but he’d invited me “out” and I was hopeful that it was a loaded invitation. Maybe we were getting along better than I’d hoped and maybe he’d changed his mind about this other woman. I even brought a couple of muffins over for dessert, showing off my talents as a homemaker.
    However, what I hoped was an invitation to get closer, turned out