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Signing off from the front lines of the war on love!
As I stand under the blazing sun, its intense heat warms my face. The refreshing, salty-smelling breeze from the ocean slightly tempers the unbearable heat. With a scrumptious drink made inside the husk of a pineapple and my flirty little polka-dot bikini, I can feel the soft sand beneath me, the warmth of the sun on my skin as I hear the laughter of fellow beachgoers. It’s the perfect beach day.
Well, almost. Something is missing. I can’t quite put my finger on just what it is, though. Before I can deliberate too much, something in the distance instantly captures my focus.
It’s a man. A beautiful, sculpted masterpiece of a man with long luscious locks of hair that he flips back, droplets of salt water artfully arching back with it, almost as if the water itself is reluctant to leave such perfection. He was submerged in the water up to his shoulders, but at the sight of me, he began gradually walking toward the beach.
I feel a little like a voyeur as my eyes track every stray droplet of water that falls down his newly exposed chest. Heat flushes my cheeks when he steps out far enough to expose the carved ‘V’ and chiseled abs. Holy smokes, this man is gorgeous. Using the hand that isn’t clutching my drink, I fan my face. Where is that breeze when I need it?
In the blink of an eye, he materializes right in front of me. Right there. I can reach out and touch him. He’s that close. Only now the long hair looks different. It’s still longer than traditional standards, almost falling over his eyes, but nowhere near as long as it appeared from a distance. Actually, now that he’s close, he looks familiar. I swear I know him from somewhere, but I can’t place him. With that jaw, those warm brown eyes, and the muscular body covered in tattoos, I’m certain I would remember him if I had ever seen him. This isn’t the kind of man a girl could easily forget.
He finally speaks, but his words don’t make sense. “Are you okay?”
I feel my eyebrows scrunch up as I try to figure out why he’s asking that. What does he mean? Of course, I’m okay. I’m at the beach on a beautiful sunny day with a drink in my hand and this gorgeous man in front of me. What could possibly be wrong?
A tickle in my throat alerts me to the sudden dryness of it. I long for a sip of something cold, but my pineapple beverage seems to have vanished into thin air. I don’t have a chance to solve that mystery before the man speaks again, only his voice is different. Feminine, even.
“Charley! Will you wake up already?” Millie’s annoyed voice startles me awake.
It takes me a minute to untangle the threads of reality and fiction in my mind. The sights and sounds around me only add to my confusion. Okay, so the beach, with its salty breeze and endless horizon, had been a mere figment of my imagination. But what am I doing sprawled in the back of Millie’s station wagon like hurriedly tossed luggage?
I make an effort to ask exactly that, but my mouth feels as dry as a desert. My tongue is overly large in my mouth and my words come out in slurred grunts. Thankfully, that’s all the help Millie needs to carry on a conversation.
“Oh! Thank God! I was thinking I would have to drag you inside. How are you feeling?”
I grunt eloquently in response.
Millie’s face comes into focus, concern shining from her eyes as she says, “That good, huh? Let’s get you inside. You can bunk on my couch until you’re feeling better. Todd won’t mind. Do you think you can walk?”
I lift my head this time; the movement causing a sharp, throbbing pain to resonate through my entire skull. Closing my eyes for a moment seems to help, and the next time I open them, I can clearly see the sidewalk outside of Millie’s two bedroom walk up. It isn’t a large distance, but in my current condition, it looks darn near insurmountable. I stand slowly and say, “Yeah. I can walk. What happened?”
I try wracking my brain to remember how I ended up here, but the last thing I remember is being at the bar with Adam.
Millie’s fingers wrap tightly around my arm as she guides me up the worn steps, her grip providing a comforting reassurance. “Oh, Charley girl.” Oh, great. She’s using her patented motherly tone. I must be in trouble. “I’m still trying to piece together most of what happened. But I can tell the date didn’t go well based on the fact that you vomited all over my brother when you tried to leave.”
With the deadpan way she speaks, it takes me a minute to understand her words. Her brother? Cash? I didn’t see him last night. I grab my head like that might somehow help me piece together the missing details. I remember Adam being a jerk. TJ behind the bar serving our drinks. Me trying to make it to the bathroom but nearly falling. He caught me. But it wasn’t Cash. Bits and pieces of my dream come back to me, and I plop gracelessly down onto the couch as the horror settles over me. The gorgeous man from my dream. He’s the man I vomited all over.
Something still doesn’t make sense, though. “No, it wasn’t Cash, Mil.”
Millie helps me get comfortable on the couch, pulling a blanket from the back of the couch to drape over me before she responds. “No, it wasn’t Cash. My older brother. Emmett. You’ve met him, but it’s been years. He’s been back for months now, I’m kind of surprised you haven’t run into him before now.”
Oh God. Of all the random beautiful men in the world that I could have vomited all over, why does it have to be my best friend’s brother? At least if it were a stranger, I’d be able to avoid ever seeing him again. I would never live this one down. I groan and bury myself down into the couch.
seven
What do spa days and genital road rash have in common?
Dear Charley,
It’s definitely not easy out there. But I have faith you’ll find your perfect match just as you helped me find mine. I think the most important thing your blog helped to teach me was to have confidence. Sometimes, especially in the midst of a bad date streak, it was easy to lose my confidence in myself. Maybe I was the problem. Maybe I was just unlovable. Either that or maybe true love didn’t exist. Not like it does in romance novels and movies. They made it look so easy. What was wrong with me that it was so hard?
In my lowest moments, I stumbled across your blog. Your optimism practically radiated from the page, and it helped me find my own belief again. Maybe fairy tales don’t exist in real life, but love does. Thanks to your words, I risked putting myself back out there. And, after a few hiccups, I stumbled across the man I firmly believe was tailor made for me.
So, my advice is to dust yourself off and get back out there. Be confident. Know who you are and what you’re looking for, and never settle for anything less.
Good Luck!
