Mr. Wrong Number (Mr. Wrong Number, #1)

by Lynn Painter

Men would never understand the utter bullshit unfairness of the fact that they’re just built stronger. Small men, tall men, lazy men, soft men; the reality was that most of them—if they wanted to—could overpower me. They’d never know what it was like to not be able to walk alone without being on watch, and knowing that always pissed me off.

wasn’t that she’d been clumsily oblivious to the glass, it was that she was so present in her own story that she hadn’t had time to notice the expensive crystal stemware that might be in the way. She was less shitshow and more about living in high-definition, wide-awake, full-on color. Or something more poetic than that. But once I’d seen it, I couldn’t unsee it. It was in everything she did, and it was why everyone was drawn to her the way they were.

There was something about the way he noticed little things—my missing tights, how early I liked to eat dinner—that made me feel like I mattered to him.

I would blow off anything to be with her, because everything was brighter when Olivia was around.

It was like that line in You’ve Got Mail. “All this nothing has meant more to me than so many somethings.”

The moment he saw me, everything else fell away. His eyes on mine—that was all that existed in the world for a long and extended second.

You aren’t a hot mess at all, Livvie. You’re just this . . . this . . . human tornado who is so alive, so filled with the energy of the moment, that there occasionally is a little collateral damage.”