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“No. I could tell the first time that we met that I wasn’t what you’re looking for,” he said. “There are plenty of women on this cruise. I’m sure I’ll find The One. Hope you do the same,” he said before walking away.
I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. He’d taken that very well, but then again, this cruise was about meeting people, and that meant being open to rejection as well. And that’s why I’m not getting involved in any of it.
There was no point in going back to my room with an empty stomach. I asked the hostess for a table for one. She smiled, apologized that this was a couples’ dinner only, and let me know which lounge was serving dinner.
I thanked her and turned to leave, but then I saw him staring at me. Rick.Could it be? No. Why would he slip a note under my door? And he never called me Val. He’s always called me Valentina.
I decided instantly that it didn’t matter who sent the note. There wasn’t anyone else on this ship that I wanted to have dinner with, not even the captain himself.
Rick didn’t wait for me to go to him - instead he came to me. “You look…very pretty in that dress. You remembered my favorite color.”
“Blue is my favorite color,” I corrected him.
He laughed. “My first car - blue. My bedroom paint - blue. The first flowers I brought you - blue carnations.”
He remembered.
I wasn’t expecting that. Then again, I wasn’t expecting to find him on this ship, either. I wonder what other surprises are in store. And will they all include him? I liked this kind of surprise much better than the one my friends had pulled getting me on this cruise.
“Okay, maybe blue is your favorite color, too,” I conceded. “Why don’t we get a table and see what else we can recall about each other?”
“Sounds good. But I’d rather talk about you, what I’ve missed all these years. I’m sure there’s plenty I don’t know,” he said as we sat at a vacant table.
Like that I have a daughter that I raised on my own and have never gotten over you? Yeah. I don’t think I want to talk about either of those things.
“Let’s see, I went back to college. I earned my master’s degree in education and I’m an English teacher,” I said.
His eyes widened and a grin crossed his handsome face. “Good for you. College or high school?”
“Elementary. I teach fifth grade. It’s…challenging at times. The children are so much more advanced than we were when we were young. When I was that age I thought boys smelled bad.”
He laughed. “And I thought girls were gross. Guess things have changed.”
“With the kids?”
“No. With me.” He reached across the table and covered my hand with his, then added, “I don’t find you gross at all. If anything, I’ve found you nothing but beautiful from the day we met.”
Well, that answered that, then. The spark that had always been there still existed. I didn’t pull my hand away. “Thank you. But I’m not twenty.”
“Neither am I. But you don’t look fifty, either,” he said.
My heart raced. It felt good hearing compliments from him like the old days when he used to tell me I was the sexiest woman alive. I knew then, just like now, that I wasn’t. But when he looks at me with those deep green eyes of his, he makes me almost believe I am.
Slipping my hand from beneath his, I said, “Fifty? Where has all the time gone?”
Rick didn’t reach for my hand again, but said, “Maybe we should talk about the cruise. How is the search for Mr. Right going?”
What a shitty thing to ask, when all this time he’s been Mr. Right, but also Mr. MIA. Maybe he didn’t know what he had meant to me. How much I had loved him. That no man had ever measured up to the high bar he’d set all those years ago.
And I’m not about to tell him, either.
“The cruise only started two days ago. But I’ve talked to a few men.” None that I wanted to.
“That’s good. I hear they have a lot of activities to match couples. Have you signed up for any?”
Really? We don’t talk for all these years, and you want to hear about me meeting other guys?
I didn’t want my blood to boil, but it was getting close. How much more of this could I take? I thought when he touched my hand, he’d have felt the same connection and he’d be telling me how much he regretted leaving. Or maybe how good it was to be close to me again. Something. Anything would have been better than this ‘you hoping to get lucky with any guys on the ship?’ shit.
