Let's Be Frank Read Online Free PDF

didn’t. I didn’t even mention it or recommend some simple changes in her diet to try before taking a more drastic approach, like investing in hair plugs. I stared at her three-inch part and nearly bit through my tongue, but I didn’t say anything. And why? Because I have feelings and care about other people’s feelings.
    Anyway, the point is, this date is going much better than that one did. Frankie seems fascinated by my unmanly (or what I like to call “non-traditional”) quirks. Her intense interest encourages me to keep finding more ways to surprise and delight her, too.
    “Oh! I just thought of something else! I love chick lit!” I boom, as if it’s the most brag-worthy trait of them all.
    This revelation garners more disdainful glares from our server and rapid blinks from Frankie over the edge of her water glass.
    Sure I’ve finally said too much, I laugh nervously. “I know… one more strike against my man card.”
    She deliberately sets down her glass and narrows her eyes at me. Rubbing her chin in an exaggerated fashion, she studies my face. “Chick lit, huh? You know, you could sell a million books with that face.”
    “No, no! I’m definitely not a writer. But every time I read something from another genre—what some may say is a more gender-appropriate genre—I find myself wishing I were reading something a little funnier, a little more romantic, and a little more… hopeful, happy.”
    “How did you find this out about yourself, though? I mean, most guys wouldn’t even pick up a pastel-colored book to read the first paragraph, much less read the whole thing, to find out they enjoyed it.”
    “I was in college; it was a confusing time,” I joke. Then I say more seriously, “It was during college, though. Freshman year. I was taking a gender studies course as part of my general education requirements. One of the assignments was to read a mass market work of fiction geared toward the opposite sex. I picked up Good in Bed, by Jennifer Weiner, thinking I would at least get to read some steamy sex scenes.”
    “No steamy sex scenes,” she confirms what my initially disappointed nineteen-year-old self discovered.
    “Nope. But an addiction was born.” My face burns. I’m committed to owning this peculiarity, though. “I mean, in what other genre do nice guys more consistently get the girl?”
    She laughs and shakes her head. “The good guys always win in those action books. You know, the ones with the complex military maps inside their front covers?”
    I dismissively wave my hand in front of myself. “Bah! I didn’t say good guys. I said nice guys.”
    She squints one eye at me.
    “It’s not the same thing!” I insist. “James Bond is a ‘good guy,’ but I wouldn’t call him a ‘nice guy.’ As a matter of fact, he’s sort of a d-bag. More than ‘sort of.’”
    She nods. “Yeah, well, most love interests in chick lit start out that way, too, right? The guy’s a jerk, usually some bossy cop or ranch foreman or some other macho profession; he and the protagonist don’t get along… they’re like fire and ice, blah, blah, blah—”
    I wrinkle my nose. We may have a problem here. If she lumps all women’s fiction—including those Harlequin Romance things—under the heading, “chick lit,” that could be a deal-breaker.
    That’s one of the hundreds of reasons it never would have worked out between Heidi and me. She thought the epitome of a romantic lead was a stalker-esque, sparkly vampire with control issues. She and Nick, who probably hasn’t read a book for pleasure… ever… will make a great couple.
    “You’re describing a romance novel,” I point out. “Chick lit is not strictly about romance. You don’t read it?”
    She smiles and looks at me through her eyelashes. “Of course, I do. I just wanted to make sure you really do, that you’re not feeding me a line.”
    My relief makes me laugh louder than I probably should. “Not a line. Haven’t I given you