Honeys, yesterday I learned that many people weren`t receiving new chapter alerts, PMs came through incomplete, and personally I never got some of your review alerts (but they are on the site, which is great!). This story is updated daily, so if it happens that you don`t get an alert, please check the page, the chapter may be already here. And if you got a nonsensically looking message from me in the last few days, with words scattered all over the place, it wasn`t me, it was a glitch in the system! I received a few funny looking ones from some of you as well ; -)

Chapter 29

Bella

"Alice, you`re going to be the most beautiful bride in town," I say to future Mrs. Whitlock.

"And the happiest!" She exclaims. "Thank you, Bella. I can`t believe it`s so soon, just a couple of months and I`ll be a wife."

"I`m very excited for you, honey."

"So am I. Are you coming on your own or with a date?"

"I`m planning on bringing a date, of course."

"Yes!" She claps her hands and a wide smile stretches her face. "Do I know him?"

"No, not yet. We`ve only met recently."

"And you didn't tell me? Bella!"

"It`s a very fresh thing, Ali," I try to explain myself, as if it was going to make my friend go any easier on me.

"Who is he? What`s his name? What does he do? How did you meet? Do you have a picture of him?"

"Okay, alright," I gesture for her to sit down beside me. "His name is Jake, he`s thirty and works as a personal trainer."

"At your gym?" Alice throws in impatiently.

"No, he works with private clients, mostly big corporate fish who have gym rooms in their offices and train first thing in the morning or pay Jake for being their jogging buddy."

"I see. So, does he work for your boss as well? Is this how you met?"

"No, Jake and I met… online," I squirm a little.

Alice cocks her head to the side. "Online? What do you mean? You were buying or selling sports equipment or something?"

"No," I giggle. "I mean online dating."

"Online dating? Wow, who would have thought? When did this happen?"

"In January."

"In January?! Bella, you met a guy two months ago and I didn`t know about it? How on Earth did you manage to keep it a secret for so long?!"

"Slow down, honey," I say calmly. "I wasn`t exactly going to shout from the rooftops that I resorted to looking for a man on the Internet. Besides, Jake and I mailed and chatted online for two months, getting to know each other, and we only went out for dinner last week."

"How did it go?"

"We had a great time and I really like him. He`s a good looking guy with a sense of humor and obviously a body to be envied. I had met someone else before him and it was a bit of a mishap, so I was quite apprehensive about going out with Jacob. Half of me worried that he`d be all muscle and no brain, but he`s fun and educated and smart…"

"Tell me you`re going to see him again," Alice folds the palms of her hands in a pleading gesture.

"I am," I confirm.

"Yay!"

"I have to tell you though, I`ve been sort of writing and flirting with someone else on the site, too."

"Tell me more."

"It`s hard to say much about this person, actually. He didn`t post a profile photo and I have a picture of Richard on my profile, so we have no idea what we look like and who we are. All I can say is that I have the time of my life chatting with him, we joke, we banter, we tease and I love it. He seems genuine, but for all I know, he could be absolutely anybody. He could be some con pretending to be interested in me, or even an elderly woman doing it for kicks, you know?"

"A picture wouldn`t necessarily tell you a lot more about him, but I know what you mean. Just be careful, Bella. Don`t ever talk about your money or where you work or live with a faceless person. I`d say enjoy Jake, get closer to him and bring him over one day so I can meet him, too."