Second Chance with Love (2 page)

"Well, you did just say not to look. Now you want me to pay attention? What's so important?” Hilda started to look around.

"No." Melanie shrieked, pulling Hilda's shoulder. Catching herself before her voice traveled, Melanie said, “He’ll see us looking."

Hilda signed. “Melanie, you were enthusiastic about coming here, so you can't be nervous now. Just walk up to him and introduce yourself."

"I can't do that, he's so handsome." Melanie's tone become a childlike sort of whine.

Hilda slowly peered up at Melanie while the other girl was distracted. She covertly glanced towards the far corner of the room and caught a glimpse of two guys seated by a window.

"Which—?” Hilda began.

"Don't be so obvious!" Melanie snagged Hilda's attention in her alarmed cry. "Here's what we're going to do...”

Hilda peered down at her book, Irving Stone's
The Agony And The Ecstasy
. Was not wanting to enjoy a social event really so odd? She wanted to read the sweet comforting words of the letter she hidden inside the book. What she wanted most of all was to escape the whole overblown dating scene.

"Hilda, are you listening to me?" Melanie delivered a wide eyed look. "You're blocking me out again."

"Sorry—”

"Never mind, he's just walked by our table and you missed it. He's standing at the counter now." Melanie bounced in her seat.

"Did he look at you?” Looking up as she said this, Hilda saw a man in sunglasses standing at the counter. "Mel, he's wearing glasses." Hilda frowned and looked back and forth from her friend to the stranger.

"I know. A bit mysterious, but I like it." Melanie said, straining a glance from her peripherals.

"Did he even see you?"

"I'm going to speak to him." Melanie shot up and grabbed her bag.

"What am I supposed to do, Mel?" asked Hilda, suddenly feeling the room closing in on her.

"Hilda, I know you're still having trouble getting comfortable with the idea, but this is a singles club. you are single. I also know it has escaped your attention that the moment you walked in here the jaws of several guys dropped."

"Well that-" Hilda began.

Melanie raised her hand. “You've been gifted with natural beauty. Trust me, you'll be okay. When a guy approaches you, just listen to what he has to say. You feel too nervous to speak? Then don't. He’ll do all the talking. Trust me on this. You’ll be fine, okay?” And with that she spun on her heel and made a beeline to where the man stood.

Hilda felt her shoulders raising and her neck sink. Knowing that guys might have set their sights on her only added to her discomfort. She scanned the room, careful not to catch the eyes of guys who may have faced her direction.

If you get the offer, then you know they’ll want you down in New York, right?

Nathan groaned and set his phone back onto the table. A twitch of nerves took root in his stomach. They were not only going to fund his charity organization, but there was also an offer to work in the biggest venture capital firm in New York.

He sat in the easy chair by the window, staring into the middle distance, and he thought about his mother for the first time that day. He had shut the gentle-hearted woman from his mind to create a space for his life's ambition – leaving Tuscaloosa, his home, to pursue the opportunity of a lifetime, working under Gerald Grady. Leaving friends and family he loved with all his heart. And who loved him. The thought made him uneasy. His heart pounded deep and his breathing grew thready; he became a conscious participant in his respiratory process.
Just breathe, Nate.

In

Out

In

Out

The choice placed him midpoint between two paths. He was at a crossroads.

All about him swirled the low rhythmic murmur of chatter and cheer, laughter and conversation. With his body tensed into the chair, he needed to draw his mind away from the physiological angst that raged within, to extrovert his attention away from his internal discord, away from indecision, from the torment.

He looked out at the vibrant city to see crowds of people moving along to coagulate in chunks and blocks, only to eventually break apart and melt into a fluid rush, separating, disappearing into bars, around corners. The streets first darkened and then shined shimmering from, what seemed to Nathan, to be a cleansing rain. The rain cleared up quickly and light illuminated the streets, creating a spectrum of color.

"Is that a wig, bud?"

"Huh?"

"You're pulling on your hair."

Nathan released his grip on his hair and stared into the smirking face of Scott. He brushed his hair back and mirrored Scott's infectious smile, which the man was known for.

"Hey, what's up bud?" Nathan looked at Scott, who held two cups of coffee.

"Me? You’re like Mr. Moody over here. Either that or you should've taken me up on my offer to go out for a few drinks before we came here. Loosen up. Can't you at least pretend to smile? You'll frighten every girl off who looks this way. And, you know, this is a singles bar." Scott slumped into the chair opposite Nathan and fixed a warm smile on his friend. In Scott's 25 years, he'd seen and experienced a lot as an entrepreneur and a venture capitalist, which always led Nathan to wonder how his friend could be so carefree after making the decisions he recently made. To leave the world of business for teaching. Nathan always thought Scott, a traditional venture capitalist, was ruthless in negotiating and an aggressive businessman. But since leaving finance, the hard side of Scott disappeared.

Nathan raised an eyebrow at Scott, who wore black shades.

"It's that bright in here?" Nathan leans back and rested his hands behind his head. "Or are you going to impressive chick with your accolades. Scott Thompson, former venture partner for the great Gerald Grady.

A decade his senior, Scott Russell, former music executive, was one of the few people Nathan considered a friend.

Scott removed his shades and dipped his head.

"About that. There were a few obstacles on my way here." He lifted his face to flash a megawatt smile at Nathan who, in turn, flinched.

"Good gravy, what happened to your eye? It's bloodshot red."

Scott sighed. "Allergies and bad timing. But no way I'm letting a small thing like that stop us." He pulled the sunglasses back down over his eyes. "I at least want a fighting chance to speak to a girl by not having her run for the hills first.”

"I couldn't agree more." Nathan took a sip of his coffee.

"So, how are things getting along?" Scott stirred his own.

"Still nothing. Things aren't easy. The meeting was last week. Mr. Grady is a real pain. He was more interested in debating my faith rather than the funding." Nathan frowned. "When I walked out, I just knew they weren't interested in funding the Good Hope charity organization."

“Tough break, man. But then again, these things are trials to test us.”

Nathan looked at his cell. A message was waiting.

"You need to check the pair sitting over there. I wonder what church they're with?" Nathan mumbled while looking at his phone.

Scott leaned forward to get a better view.

Nathan typed, each button that he pushed seemed immovable and his hand felt as heavy as lead:

Do you think they'll take me on?

"Nate, you going to press your nose to that phone all day, or are you actually going to make a little effort? One of them is a redhead. What’d you say to a redhead, Nate?"

"I'd say that my closest and dearest friend has known me all this time and still doesn't know my preferences. Sorry, no redheads."

"On second thought, forget you, man. You could find a future wife in here, but you’re too busy playing on your phone to care. I'm going for it, man." And with that, Scott left Nathan.

Nathan smiled at his friend's vitality. There were three new messages on his cell, and Nathan felt his body tense before he switched it off. His eyes swept the room and he saw Christian couples engaged in conversation, some nervous, some lively. Many looked carefree and jovial. Mulling over the text, Nathan felt a shadow castes itself over him. How could he find a partner he could trust when he couldn't even trust himself to do what he knew was right? He had to reject Mr. Grady’s offer. The man’s values weren't charitable or Christian in the least.

The offer itself was enough to salivate over. But was it his passion to help people? Plus, Scott dragged him to the Christian singles event because he said Nathan, with his looks, could act as a beacon and have girls sailing over to speak with them.

People often told him he inherited his mother's fine bone structure and had adopted his father's athletic build of broad shoulders and tallness. No one could deny the perfect symmetry of his face, and the movie star looks. Nathan never let how he looked and how people treated him because of his good looks define him; he tried to project his personality through his actions, which were always kind and helpful.

The other side to Nathan's character was his desire to get ahead in life. His father worked mall security for most of his life and always had money worries or stress from the management. When his dad found a security job he was comfortable with, he got laid off. Eventually his dad settled for whatever he could get. After seeing his father feel inadequate about being unable to provide for his family, Nathan vowed to never end up like him.

This meant he never had time for relationships, and barely made it to church on Sundays.

And here he was in a place where he was supposed meet a girl. Nathan sat by the window in a room of fellow Christians, and yet he felt alone. But this feeling only camouflaged a deeper need. The need to connect to someone. He felt it now more than ever. His eyes traveled the room. A jangle of voices. The particular bar served non-alcoholic beverages. Men and women who looked jovial, some in mixed groups as if double dating, some sitting as couples, some secluded in corners alone on their cells. Laughing, back slapping, and chatter permeated the air, bar staff sauntered around causally or wiped counters, wiped tables, and cleared tables.

Then he saw her.

Nathan gasped.

Opening her book to the folded letter inside, Hilda felt it necessary to go into self-preservation mode: eyes on the letter, the words were almost poetic. One look around the room spiked her nerves. She spotted two, maybe three guys looking in her direction. It irritated her to no end because she had so little experience in talking to guys. She regretted that she couldn't be as confident as Melanie. Melanie wasn't the most confident of girls, but she had no problems speaking with guys. Hilda’s insides became a bundle of nerves whenever she had to speak with a guy who had his eye on her. All she could do to alleviate her nerves was to open her book and read the letter. When she was a child, her mother said she was too dependent on the letter, that she lived most of her life on the page.

Hilda decided that once Melanie returned, she’d let her friend know that she wanted to leave. As for right now, the most important thing was to pretend not to notice the looks.

Even though she settled into nonchalance, the wrenching feeling of eyes watching her was enough to distract her from the letter.

Hilda mentally swiped away the tingling sensation of eyes on her. She went back to reading the letter:

You don't fall in love, you rise in love.

Hilda agreed wholeheartedly with the statement written by her father. She felt it must be ridiculous to fall in love, since a fall represents losing yourself.

Eventually, curiosity got the better of her. Hilda looked up. A guy caught her attention. It was the man by the window. He was watching her.

Their eyes locked.

In that instant she knew – she had fallen.

Unable to avert her gaze, each breath stuttered, ebbed, and labored to achieve the rise and fall of her chest. Hilda had never felt this way before.

"Hey, do you mind if I have a seat?" The voice sent a jolt through Hilda, shifting her attention. A tall slim man stood next to her table.

Hilda fiddled with the dog-eared pages of her book for a moment before assenting with a nod.

She wanted to see if the guy by the window was still watching her.
Who is he
? she wondered. However, not wanting to be rude to the gentleman at her table, she dared not look at the man by the window any longer. Smiling at the man now across from her, she hoped he hadn't noticed her lapse in attention.

The guy spoke in-between nervous mumbles. Hilda felt he was very sweet, if a bit nervous. But she had already been captivated by the eyes of another.

The guy's name was David, and he said he had spotted Hilda the moment she walked into the bar. She blushed as he told her that she was beautiful. Other than this, she didn't know how to react. He spoke mostly about himself and his job.

"So at the moment, I'm just a chef but I don't want to stop there," he said. Hilda listened to him describe how he intended to create his own business, a chain of restaurants, that would eventually free him from the nightmare of having to slave for a boss. He described his family, his student years, and his personal preference when it came to a woman's behavior. Hilda listened with keen interest.