It was her most recent fight with Nicole, she thought, even though fights with her sister were nothing new. Maybe it was her entire lack of direction. She was twenty-two. Shouldn’t she have goals? Plans? As it was, she just sort of drifted through her days, as if waiting for something to happen. If she’d stayed in college, she would have graduated by now. Instead, she’d lasted two weeks before dropping out.

She folded the paper, straightened in her seat and tried to inspire herself to some kind of action. She couldn’t keep drifting. It wasn’t healthy and it made her crabby.

She sipped on her latte and considered possibilities. Before she could decide on one, a guy walked into the Starbucks.

Jesse was a semi-regular and knew she hadn’t seen him before. He was tall and could have been kind of cute, but everything about him was off. The haircut was a disaster, his thick glasses screamed computer nerd. His short-sleeved plaid shirt was too big and-she nearly choked on her coffee-he had an honest-to-God pocket protector. Worse, his jeans were too short and he was wearing geeky tennis shoes with white socks. Poor guy-he looked like he’d been dressed by a mother who didn’t like him very much.

She was about to return to her paper when she saw him square his shoulders in a gesture that spoke of determination. Ordering coffee wasn’t that hard.

She turned in her seat and saw two women at a table against the far wall. They were young and beautiful-the kind of women who looked like models and probably dated rock stars. He couldn’t, she thought frantically. Not them. They weren’t just out of his league, they were on another plane of reality.

She’d never lived through the phrase “train wreck” before, but she did now. He walked toward them, his hands twitching slightly. His gaze seemed to zero in on the brunette on the left. Jesse knew it was going to be a catastrophe. She should probably leave and let him crash in private. But she couldn’t seem to get up and walk away, so she slumped down in her seat and braced herself for disaster.

“Uh, Angie? Hi. I’m, um, ah, Matthew. Matt. I saw you last week at the photo shoot on campus. I kinda ran into you.”

His voice was low and had the potential to be sexy, Jesse thought. If only he weren’t mumbling. He sounded so tentative.

Angie looked at him politely as he spoke but her friend grimaced in annoyance.

“At Microsoft, you mean?” Angie asked. “That was fun.”

“You were beautiful,” Matt muttered, “in the light and stuff and I was wondering if maybe you’d like to get coffee or something and it doesn’t have to be coffee even because we could, ah, go for a walk or ah, I don’t know-”

Breathe! Jesse willed him to pause and break his conversation into sentences. Amazingly enough, Angie actually smiled. Could the geek possibly get the girl?

But Matt didn’t notice because he kept on talking.

“Or do something else. If you have a hobby or you know, something with a pet, a dog, I guess, because I like dogs. Did you know that there are more cats as pets than dogs, which doesn’t make sense because who likes cats, right? I’m allergic and they don’t do anything but shed.”

Jesse winced as Angie’s expression hardened and her friend’s face began to crumple.

“What’s wrong with you?” Angie asked, standing and glaring at poor, quivering Matt. “My friend had to put her cat to sleep yesterday. How could you say something like that? I think you should leave us alone. Now!”

Matt stared at her, wide-eyed and totally confused. He opened his mouth, then closed it. His shoulders slumped in defeat and he walked out of the Starbucks.

Jesse watched him go. He’d been close to getting the girl, she thought sadly. If he hadn’t gone on about cats. Not that it was really his fault. What were the odds?

She looked out the front window and saw him standing just outside the door. He looked stunned, as if he didn’t know what had gone wrong. Points to Angie-she’d been willing to look past the sad exterior to the guy within. If only he’d stopped talking sooner. And dressed better. Basically, the guy needed a major overhaul.

As she watched, he slowly shook his head as if accepting defeat. She knew what he was thinking-that his life would never be different, that he would never get the girl. He was trapped-just like her. Only his problem was more easily solved.

Without having any idea what she was doing, Jesse jumped up, tossed her empty coffee container in the trash and went outside. She could see Matt walking up the street.

“Wait,” she called.

He didn’t turn around. Probably because it never occurred to him that she was talking to him.

“Matt, wait.”

He stopped and glanced over his shoulder, then frowned. She hurried toward him.

“Hi,” she said, still without a plan. “How are you?”

“Do I know you?”

“Not really. I just, ah-” Now it was her turn to stammer. “I saw what happened. Talk about a nightmare.”

He shoved both hands into his jeans and ducked his head. “Thanks for the recap,” he said and kept walking.

She went after him. “I didn’t mean it like that. Obviously you’re really bad with women.”

He flushed. “Nice assessment. Is this what you do? Follow people around and point out their flaws? I’m clear on what’s wrong.”

“It’s not that. I can help.”

She had no idea where the words came from, but the second she spoke them, she knew they were true.

He barely slowed. “Go away.”

“No. Look, you have a lot of potential, but no clue. I’m a woman. I can tell you how to dress, what to say, what topics to avoid.”

He flinched. “I don’t think so.”

Suddenly this mattered. She wasn’t sure why, except maybe worrying about someone else’s problems was easier than thinking about her own. Besides, his life was fixable.

She remembered a segment she’d seen on the news a couple of weeks before. “I’m training to be a lifestyle coach. I need to practice on someone. You need help. And I won’t charge you for my time.” Mostly because she was totally making this up as she went. “I’ll teach you everything you need to know. You’ll get the girl.”

He stopped and looked at her. Even through the glasses she could see his eyes were large and dark. Bedroom eyes. Girls would go crazy for them, if they could see them.

“You’re lying,” he said flatly. “You’re not a lifestyle coach.”

“I said I was in training. I can still help. I know guys. I know what works. Look, you have no reason to believe me. But you also have nothing to lose.”

“What’s in it for you?”

She thought about the ongoing fights with her sister, the job she hated and the lack of direction in her life. She thought about how she spent every single day feeling like the biggest failure on the planet.

“I get to do something right,” she told him, speaking the truth.

He studied her for a long time. “Why should I trust you?”

“Because I’m the only one offering. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“You could drug me and ship me off to some country where my dead body will wash up on the beach.”

She laughed. “At least you have an imagination. That’s a good thing. Say yes, Matt. Take a chance on me.”

She wondered if he would. No one ever believed in her. Then he shrugged.

“What the hell.”

She grinned. “Great. Okay, first thing-” Her cell phone rang. “Sorry,” she murmured as she pulled it out of her purse. “Hello?”

“Hey, gorgeous. How are you?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Zeke, this isn’t a good time.”

“That’s not what you were saying last week. We had a great time. Sex with you is-”

“Gotta go,” she said and hung up, not wanting to hear what sex with her was like. She returned her attention to Matt. “Sorry about that. Where was I? Oh, yeah. The next step.”

She pulled her Starbucks receipt out of her back pocket, then took one of the pens sticking out of his pocket protector. After tearing the receipt in half, she wrote down her cell number on one piece and handed it to him.

He took it. “You’re giving me your number?”

“Yes. Changing you will be more challenging if we don’t get together. Now give me your number.”

He did.

She handed him back his pen. “Okay. I need a couple of days to get a plan together, then I’ll be in touch.” She smiled. “This is going to be great. Trust me.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Yes, but pretend you don’t.”

JESSE DROPPED HER heavy backpack on a chair at a table and set down her latte. She and Matt had agreed to meet at yet another Starbucks to discuss her plan.

She pulled out her list and dug through the material she’d brought for a pen, then shifted impatiently as she waited for him to arrive.

She was early. She was never early. Even more unusual, she was actually enthused about her makeover project. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been excited about anything. Not that Matt had sounded that thrilled when she’d called to set up their meeting. Still, he’d agreed.

Five minutes later he walked into the Starbucks. He was dressed just as badly as he had been the first time she’d seen him. What was with the too-short jeans? And the pocket protector? They had to go first.

He waved at her and walked up to the counter to order. Her cell phone rang.

She grabbed it. “Hello?”

“Babe. Andrew. Tonight?”

“Andrew, has it ever occurred to you that things would go more smoothly in your day if you used verbs?” She looked up and smiled as Matt approached. “I’ll just be a sec,” she whispered.

“I don’t need verbs, babe. I got the goods. So we on or what? There’s a party. We go there, come back here. Everybody wins.”

Wow-almost an entire conversation. “Tempting, but no,” she said. For once she wasn’t in the mood for Andrew and “the goods,” as he referred to his penis. Which she supposed was slightly better than naming it Andrew Junior.