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“So what you been doing, just sitting out here dreaming of the woman you left back in Thailand?”
I sip my beer, shaking my head. “Yeah, right. Our met eyes across a crowded ballroom and we fell head over heels in love. Give me a break.”
Russ chuckles. “You know, you’re one grim motherfucker sometimes. I got married. I settled down. Are you telling me it was a mistake?”
“Of course not. You have a wonderful family. I see the way you look at your wife. I’ve never felt that. I’d never say it to Natalie, of course, but I didn’t even feel that about her mother.”
“Like I said,” Russ says, placing his beer bottle down. “Grim. I thought it was bad enough you filled your house with a bunch of medieval weapons, but you’re starting to depress me.”
He laughs to take some of the edge off. Russ is the only person I can speak like this with, without worrying if we’re going to offend each other. It’s a product of the world we came up in, fighting, bleeding, struggling to make something of ourselves.
“That’s why I’ve bought you a little gift.”
I groan, but I’m unable to stop the corners of my lips from twitching. “Do I even want to know?”
He flashes his teeth as he reaches into his pocket. “Don’t be a pessimist. You might like it.”
He brings his hand out, holding an envelope, and then slides the envelope across the table.
“What’s this?” I ask.
“You’d say we’re good friends, right?”
I look closely at him. He’s got that cheeky smile on his face I remember from when we were much younger men when all we cared about was training and turning our bodies into the most dangerous weapons they could possibly be…
But always with a smile, for Russ, always with a lightheartedness I could never dream of.
“Yes. Obviously.”
“So when you open that envelope and see what it is, I want you to remember I’m asking you to do this… as your best friend. Alright?”
“So what you’re saying is, it’s going to be something I don’t want to do, but you’re going to use our friendship to emotionally blackmail me into doing it.”
He grins widely, flashing his teeth, brimming with pride. “Yeah, pretty much. You’ve hit the nail on the head.”
I chuckle grimly. “Jackass.”
I open the envelope and take out a voucher.
Mystery Couples Photography Session, the leaflet reads, and it’s covered in hearts and small photographs of people staring adoringly at each other, caught between smiles and laughter.
“Forget blind dating,” I read, shaking my head in disbelief. “This is so much more. Unleash your inner spontaneity and maybe meet the love of your life in the process… Come on, what do you have to lose?”
I place the voucher down, glancing at Russ to see if this is a joke. But he’s looking at me with something like seriousness in his eyes.
“I guess you didn’t buy this as a joke.”
“Maybe a little bit,” he says. “I wanted to see your face. But then I spoke to Lacey and she commented on how you must get so lonely sometimes. I mean, shit, Kaleb, I’ve never seen you with a woman since Jenny walked out.”
I shrug. “I just told you. I didn’t feel much for Jenny. I’m happy we met because it gave me Natalie and I love her more than anything. But we never connected. There wasn’t a spark. There wasn’t anything real.”
“Remember that time we got shitfaced on the boat?”
I groan, looking out over the city. I told Russ once about how certain I was I’d know the woman of my dreams the moment I laid eyes on her… while we were on a party boat, drunk out of our minds, standing at the railing and looking down at the water.
“I’ll know,” I told him, voice slurred in a way that makes me cringe now. We were both so young back then. “The second I see her, my whole world will change.”
“Well?” he prompts now.
“Of course I remember,” I say. “But that was over a decade ago, man. I think it’s time I accepted that I'm never going to find this mystery woman. She probably never existed and even if she did, what are the chances?”
He grins as he takes another swig from his bottle.
“That’s what always confused me about you, Kaleb. You’re one tough motherfucker. You used to destroy people in the cage. Your nickname was Animal, man. You were cold. People called you emotionless. But this side of you… it’s like you’re some hopeless romantic.”
His words move through me with an annoying resemblance of the truth. I wish I could say he was wrong, but there’s no way I could without him knowing I’m lying.
“Yeah, well. What’s your point?”
He prods the voucher against the table. “This is my point. It’s exactly the sort of stuff hopeless romantics go in for. So maybe you go there, try your luck, and see what happens. The worst case scenario is you don’t like it and leave.”
