Down and Dirty by Christine Bell Page B

thing.” He lowered the speakers, then clicked on the first message in the list. “Deedee Coruthers.”
    An image of a waifish blonde filled the screen. Cat looked at it for a long moment, lips pursed. “Hmm…don’t you think her right eye looks lazy? Like it’s not really up on what the left one’s doing, and doesn’t care much to find out?” She made her eyes go slightly crossed. “It’s off-putting in person, I bet, because you don’t know which one to look at.”
    He looked at the photo more closely, and while Deedee wasn’t a stunner, she didn’t look cross-eyed. More like tired. “I guess a little…”
    She didn’t pay him any mind, already moving along to the next one. “Let’s see, what about her? Sara Mitchell. She calls herself an artist. That probably means she doesn’t have a job. She’s also a vegan, which means you’d have to deal with her meat-shaming you.”
    He’d never been meat-shamed before. It sounded bad.
    “And she probably does macramé,” Cat continued. “So that crap will be hanging all over your house before you know it.” She x-ed out Sara and pointed to another photo a few messages down. “She looks nice.”
    “Her?” he asked incredulously, sliding the cursor to blink under a masculine face.
    “Yeppers. She’s got an honest smile. I like that.”
    “Greta Doyle,” he recited, clicking to enlarge her photo, which only succeeded in making her look even more like a man. “She likes sailing, waterskiing, and backpacking. Her favorite show is Nancy Grace , and she works as an occupational therapist.”
    “Sounds perfect for you.”
    “In what way?” he asked, openly frowning at her now.
    “You like water sports.”
    His mind was inexorably drawn back to the time he and Cat had engaged in some water sports together, and for a second, he forgot what they were talking about.
    “Shane?”
    “Right. I do like water sports, but that’s it? That’s what puts her in the keeper folder?”
    “Sure. Common interests are huge in a relationship. Otherwise one person’s always getting dragged around by the other and doing stuff they don’t want to do, you know?”
    He didn’t know, but he nodded anyway. It seemed to him more that if two people liked being together, they made compromises sometimes and the rest of the time tried to find new things both people liked to do, but there was no point in arguing. He had no interest in dating any of these women, opposite or not, so what did it matter who he corresponded with? As long as he let them know up front he was looking for friendship only, there wouldn’t be a problem. But he had to make sure some of them were attractive enough to make Cat jealous. “Okay. Maybe she’s just not photogenic. Who else you got for me?”
    She sipped her coffee and clicked on to the next one. “Courtney Lockhart DeLollis. Hmm…”
    Courtney was quite the looker. Long, honey-blond hair, wide-set hazel eyes.
    “Nope.” Cat shook her head, and moved to close the photo. He covered her hand with his to stop her.
    “What’s wrong with this one?”
    “Vapid. You can see it in the eyes. Dull. Not quite focused. If I were to guess what she was thinking right now, it would be ‘I like turtles’ or ‘I wonder what Kim Kardashian is doing right now’ or something.”
    She looked dead serious, but that couldn’t be right. “You can tell that from looking at her eyes in one picture? How is that even possible?”
    “It’s just a feeling. She looks like a nitwit. It’s your choice, though. If you want to spend an evening discussing the merits of turtles, go for it.”
    He stared at her hard, but she steadfastly ignored him. “Cat.”
    “What?” She kept her gaze locked on the monitor, but her fingers tapped a nervous beat on the desk.
    “Is this what you do?” he asked.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Don’t play dumb. Is this what you do to guys you date? Look for flaws?”
    “Oh, honestly, now you sound like Lacey. That’s not what