Lucky in Love (4 page)

“Hi, my name is Tony.  I'd shake your hand, but my hands sweat when I get nervous.” He shrugged his shoulders apologetically and gave me a surprisingly confident smile, as though that would make his lack of cleanliness acceptable.

“Hi, Tony.  I'm Georgia.” I opted for the Deep South this time. Then, just as sweet as pie, I continued, “And don't worry about it, my butt cheeks do the same thing when I'm nervous.  And let me tell you Tony, I am really nervous right now!” I sat back and watched as the look of horror and immense discomfort spread across his face. Hey, fair is fair.

Meanwhile, Tara was having a much better time of it than I was. In fact, while I was busy disgusting “Stinky Tony”, she was sitting across from Jason. A view I was all too familiar with and had rather enjoyed over the years.

Tara looked over at him in anticipation of what he might say, now that his golden opportunity had finally arrived, but instead of saying anything, he just sat there grinning at her.

“Oh my God, she told you!” she gasped.

“Who told me what?” he asked innocently, but it was too late.

“I can tell!  I know Lucky told you, you have that annoying satisfied grin on your face!” She was pointing her finger at him in a most accusing manner.

“Oh, you mean the part about how you think I'm hot, yeah, she told me that.  So, what?” He waved his hand dismissively as if to say that it was no big deal. Only it was a big deal to Tara.

“It's embarrassing!” She was having a hard time demonstrating her outrage while trying to keep her voice down at the same time.

Jason laughed. Then he leaned over and quietly said, “Tara, I've been hitting on you for months, putting myself out there over and over again and every time you shot me down.  Don't you think that if anyone should be embarrassed, it should be me?”

“I don't want you to feel embarrassed,” she replied with sudden concern.

“Oh, I don't.  Which is why you shouldn't feel that way either.  Now, I'm glad we are finally out together, but I kind of pictured our first date without all these people.” While he was talking, Jason reached out and took Tara’s hand and held it gently in his. Without her even noticing he had made his move.

“You pictured our first date?  What did you have in mind?” she asked curiously.

“Well, I can't tell you that, but I will say that it would be far more romantic than this.” He was certain that he had her hooked. Before she had a chance to respond, the bell rang again indicating that it was time for another switch. Jason however, had no intention of switching with anyone, so he simply sat there trying to ignore the guy standing beside their table waiting for his chance to have a seat with Tara.

“Um, excuse me.  Your time is up, it's my turn,” he said, motioning for Jason to move.

“Yeah, I don't think so.  Just go around me.” Jason hardly looked up at him as he pointed over to the next table, which now had an empty chair at it, but the guy wasn’t interested.

“But, that's not how this is supposed to work.” He appeared to be moments away from a tantrum.

Jason looked at the guy and then looked at Tara.

“Fine, I got a better idea.  Tara you want to get out of here?”

“We can't just leave Lucky,” she pointed out.

“We won't leave, we'll just go sit at the bar.  That way we can talk without the stupid bell.”

Tara smiled.

“Sounds perfect.”

Still holding Tara’s hand, Jason stood up and led her out of the room, leaving behind a particularly disgruntled speed dater, who promptly marched over to the hostess to complain.

By now, I was on to date number three and since I was no longer frightened by the thought of encountering a possible love connection with the fish in this pond, I was relaxed and sipping ever so happily on my second martini. With my face down in my glass, I caught sight of number three’s belt buckle. I set my drink back down and looked up.

“Hi, I'm Trevor.  Nice to meet you,” he said quietly, his raspy voice oozing with charm. If the sound of him was great, the sight was even better. Trevor was tall and lean, with broad shoulders and nice arms. His hair was short and styled perfectly without any signs of grease or excess oils of any kind. He had a goatee on an otherwise clean shaven face and a smile that made me want to come out of my own skin and jump into his.

“Hi, Trevor. My name is Lucky. It's nice to meet you, too.” And just like that, my luck had changed.

Gabe The Babe

By the
time I finally left the near speed dating disaster, it was after midnight and Jason and Tara were nowhere in sight. Since I had spent the last thirty minutes at the bar talking to Trevor, I was still in too good of a mood to be aggravated about being ditched. That feeling rapidly began to fade, however, as I made my way across the street and into the dark parking garage where I had parked my car, and on the top floor no less. This hadn’t seemed like nearly as bad an idea when I had thought I would be walking back there in a small group and accompanied by a male.

Now that it was late, pitch black out and I was all alone, I was having second thoughts on where I'd parked. The dimly lit stairway I had to climb due to the elevator being out of order, didn’t exactly make me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside either.

I pulled my phone out and began to call Jason for what was now the fifth time since leaving the bar. Yet again, it went straight to voice mail.

“Jason, why is your phone still off??  Where are you guys?  Call me!”

Finally, I reached the top floor and quickly walked towards the second row where I had parked my car. As I was walking I fumbled around in my purse, eager to have the keys out and ready once I was close enough to jump in the driver’s seat.

“This is great, just great,” I mumbled to myself, as I reached the driver’s side door and unlocked it. As soon as I pulled the door open, I instantly wished I hadn’t. There, in the backseat of my SUV, were Tara and Jason, completely entangled in each other making sounds and exposing body parts one usually only encounters whilst watching X-rated entertainment.

“Oh, sorry!” I stammered, as they jumped apart glaring at me with what I could only describe as “angry deer in the headlight” expressions on their faces. I quickly slammed the door shut and turned to walk away as quickly as I had walked towards it, only moments before.

“Gross.”

I shuddered, as the visual flashed in my head once more. Since I was now in need of an alternate ride home, I reached back into my bag to retrieve my phone. There was only one person I could call and I hoped with all my might that he would pick up.

“Hello?” Gabe’s voice was groggy as he answered the phone, but at least he had answered.

“I need you to come and get me, please,” I pleaded.

“Are you alright?” he asked with sudden concern.

“Oh yeah, I'm fine.  I just need a ride,” I assured him.

“Of course. Where's your date?” And there it was, the reason I had called him and not Noah. At least, Gabe would be easier to live with once he knew the truth. Although, I wasn’t looking forward to telling him.

“He already left. Just get here and I'll explain.  I'm in the downtown parking garage on Main Street,”  I sputtered, sincerely hoping he wouldn’t press me for any more information until  after he arrived.

“I'm on my way.”

“Thank you.” I let out a sigh of relief as I hung up the phone and began to put it back into my purse. Then on second thought, it seemed to be a good idea to keep it handy as long as I was going to be wandering around in the dark downtown all by myself. I began to walk back over to the staircase to start my long climb back down to the bottom, when I remembered something. I spun around on the heel of my foot and jogged back over to my car. Without looking in, I pulled the driver’s side door open and tossed in the keys.

“I'm not looking, I swear.  Gabe's coming to get me.  You guys can just drive the car home.  Be safe...with the car… and the sex.” Before either of them had a chance to respond or react in any way, I quickly retreated and closed the door again.

As I returned to the staircase, I glanced at my phone. It would be at least another fifteen minutes before Gabe would be there. Torn between wanting to take my time and wanting to get the dark stairwell over with as quickly as possible, I opted for a separate option altogether. Since time was a non-issue and the lighting was far better in the actual parking garage, I decided to simply walk down the same slopes the cars took as they drove in and out of the building. At that time of night, traffic wasn’t exactly an issue, and what activity there was, seemed far safer and more reassuring than anything I might have encountered taking the stairs.

***

The next morning while Gabe and I were going for an early morning run, he still hadn’t gotten over the previous night’s events.

“Speed dating!” he spouted out of nowhere.

“I thought we were done talking about that.” I rolled my eyes as I prepared for what was going to be round seven of Gabe making fun of my pathetic social life, or lack thereof.

“We were...but the words ‘speed dating’ just keep flashing in my head!” A grin spread across his face as he no doubt continued to repeat the words to himself in his head.

“Look not all of us can be in love with our high school sweethearts.  Some of us have to push ourselves out there and force love into our lives!” I was beginning to wave my arms around expressively as I always did whenever my emotions became heightened.

“Yeah, that sounds romantic,” he replied sarcastically. He had a point.

“I’ll give ya that, romantic it was not.  But, I did meet one guy I liked.” Just the thought of him, brought an instant smile to my face.

“That's good.  Did you tell him about your living situation?” Gabe asked probingly.

“We had a 5 minute date, it didn't come up.” I had no idea why he thought my living arrangements would have been pertinent first date chatter. Which apparently he didn’t. Quite the contrary in fact.

“I'm just saying, you may want to wait a while before you bring it up,” he replied as nonchalantly as possible.

“Why?” I crinkled my face, something I did automatically whenever I was confused and immediately regretted moments later when thinking about the possibilities of the early onset of wrinkles.

“It's a guy thing.  It's just going to come across weird that you live with three men and you are the only girl,” he explained, rather condescendingly. As though being only a girl would somehow make it impossible for me to understand.

“Three men?  Gabe, the babe, thinks of himself as a man now? And how come I'm a girl and not a woman?  I'm three years older than you!” My arms were flying all over the place now.

“Fine, you're a woman.  Just shut up about the Gabe the babe stuff.  It's embarrassing.” Having realized his mistake too late, Gabe was now suffering the consequences of his actions and poorly chosen words.

“Gabe the babe, Gabe the babe, Gabe the babe!” I taunted him.

Without saying a word, he glared at me and began to speed up, but attempting to outrun me only fueled my need to show him up and put him back in his place.

“What, you think you can outrun me, Gabe the babe?  I don't think so!” I shouted, loud enough for anyone within a fifty foot radius to hear. Then I dug in my heels and sped up, catching up to him moments later. From then on, both of our competitive instincts went into overdrive as we continued to push ourselves faster and faster, until we finally arrived back at the house, exhausted and ready to pass out. We finished our run in record time that day.

The Rules Of Saturday Brunch

It had
been two days since the speed dating, and much to my satisfaction, Noah had not caught wind of any details surrounding my alleged date that night. While he had continued to press the issue at first, he soon grew bored and moved on to other things. Mainly other
female
things. Jason had kept mum about the night as well, mostly because he was still reeling from the rather embarrassing encounter we had all shared in my SUV that evening, and while I had half expected Gabe to continue to mutter the words “speed dating” under his breath every time he passed me, he opted for grinning and giving me a knowing wink each time instead.

Now that Saturday morning had rolled around, everyone’s focus had shifted to one thing and one thing alone, our weekly Saturday morning brunch. It had started one Saturday many years ago as a result of depression and excess energy, combined with the intense burning desire to stuff my face and suffocate my sorrows. At the time, I had ended a relationship that in truth had been ending longer than it had been good, and it was all I could do to stay busy to keep from falling apart. At the end of that very unhealthy relationship, the thing that had finally broken the camel’s back as well as my heart, had been finding out that he had been seeing someone else for the greater part of our relationship. Back then, Jason, Noah and I had already been living together for quite some time, but Gabe had just recently joined our little family. Not knowing that my sudden urge to cook had merely been the manifestation of heartache and a desperate need for sugar and distraction, he had come to expect a feast on every Saturday that followed. Given that I had plenty of hurt to spare, I was happy to oblige until it became so routine that we all not only expected it, but actually looked forward to it. These days, we treat Saturday Brunch with the highest regard as a time for us to come together once a week and catch up and be reminded that in the end what mattered was family, and a family we were.