Margaritas and Men

Sarah had her MRI Wednesday afternoon.  She got the results yesterday.  She has a tear in her labrum.  She’ll have to have surgery.  She’s meeting with her coaches and the University’s athletic doctor to discuss her options as to whether or not she can finish out the season or she needs surgery now.

Wednesday night I got home from practice before Maddie and Sarah were walking in, so I was going to help Elena get set up for dinner.  We had decided on breakfast for dinner including French toast, eggs, and bacon.  I walked in to the bedroom to throw some different clothes on, since I was all sweaty, while Elena was putting the bacon the stove.  I was just opening the bedroom door when I heard Elena start screaming.  I ran out the door to see a grease fire on the stove top and Elena opening our apartment door and yelling fire into the hallway.  It was relatively small, just surrounding the pan of bacon.  I screamed at Elena to get in to the apartment.  “Start looking for baking soda!”

I got to the stove top and turned my head away while reaching for the burner knob and turning it to “off.”  I ran to the bathroom and grabbed the first towel I could find and put it under running water and started squeezing it to eliminate as much water as I could.  I looked over and saw Elena frantically looking for baking soda in the cabinets.  “Grab the stuff in the freezer!  There’s some in there!”  She ran over to the freezer and grabbed the baking soda.  “Dump it on the flames!  Don’t get burned.”  I ran beside her and she started jerking the box back and forth to make the baking soda fall out onto the flames.  They were starting to subside, but there wasn’t enough.  I took the towel and threw it on top of the pan and burner and fire area of the stove top.  It smothered the flames.  “Come on,” I exclaimed to Elena, as I turned to run back to the bathroom.  I dampened another towel as she did the same, and we ran back to the stove and put those on top of the other towel.  We stood there, with our eyes wide, staring at the now smothered fire, surrounded by smoke and a burning smell.  Although the hood fan was going, I walked over to the bathroom and turned on that fan, and shut both bedroom doors to help eliminate any smell seeping in there.  Elena had gone to open the 2 windows in the living room.   

Our apartment door was still open.  I went to look out in the hallway and not a single person had come out!  I was shocked that people didn’t pay attention to a “fire” warning.  But I saw Sarah and Maddie coming down the hallway and Maddie wrinkled her nose and said, “What is that smell?”

“Oh, just our apartment on fire, no big deal,” I responded.

Elena sheepishly poked her head around the corner.  “Who wants margaritas and Mexican food?”

So needless to say, we went to a local, authentic Mexican restaurant, took a deck of cards with us, and sat around drinking, eating, and playing cards in the bar at the restaurant.  Looking back, we laughed, because Maddie and I both knew that Elena is incapable of cooking, yet we had put her in charge of it.  Elena had used a pancake griddle to cook bacon on.  The rest of us know that’s a bad idea.  Low sides equal grease fire.  Elena, though?  Clueless.

Sarah was appreciative of the gesture, though, and had a good time.  I think it helped take her mind off of everything that had happened.  We also got to discuss Elena’s impending nuptials a bit more.  She and Jeff are just so excited to start their lives together, they have the same goal in mind, they just want to get life started together.  Hey, if it’s the right person, why wait?  I also shared with my friends about the embarrassing day I had Wednesday morning.   They laughed.  At first I was a little upset they were laughing, but then realized, how boring and sad is life, if you can’t laugh at yourself?  And I joined in.  I probably shouldn’t have jerked away from Luke like that, I decided.  They agreed with me.  They said to apologize, and if he was a jerk and couldn’t get over that, then he wasn’t even worth a friendship anyway.

Last night was Luke night.  He had sent me a message on Facebook with his number and told me to text him to set up the details.  We had agreed to meet outside the bookstore, since he knew where that was.  I originally had told him I would meet him after practice, but I had forgotten I had a match, so we changed the time to 7:30 to meet. Me, being unable to be on-time anywhere, got there at 7:37.  His back was to me as I walked up.  I slowed my pace.  I was dressed in mass amounts of layers, due to the cold.  I didn’t know if Luke wanted shown around the city, or just campus, but I figured we could walk to my car if he wanted a tour of more than just campus.  He looked so good, standing there, looking around.  He was wearing a snow hat, scarf, a nice coat, jeans, and dress shoes.  As I approached, I could see his breath every time he exhaled.  I tried to get as quiet as possible and snuck up behind him and grabbed his arms.  He didn’t move.  My smile dropped off of my face, as I slowly walked around to his front side.  He was grinning so cheesily.

“Gotcha!” He proudly exclaimed.

“Got me?  What are you talking about?  You know I scared you!”

“I didn’t even flinch!  And you’re late.  I thought you were blowing me off again.”

“Sorry.  I have timeliness problems.  And I didn’t blow you off before, either!  I told you I had a lot going on!”

“Okay, okay,” he responded, as if waving a white flag.  “Where to?”

“Are you wanting a campus tour, or city?”

“I actually just want to get to know you better.”

“Uh… oh.”  I didn’t know what to say.  My heart was somewhere else.  Namely, somewhere that I couldn’t see my breath right now.

“So, does that mean we could maybe go somewhere for a drink?  Or even a Starbucks would suffice.”

I tilted my head sideways and looked up at him.  I studied his face for a moment.  Probably a moment too long, actually.  “Yes,” I smiled at him.  “Let’s do that.”

“I can drive us.”

“I thought you were new here and didn’t know your way around?”

“Hey, I figured that would be the easiest way to get you to spend time with me.  I’ve been here for a couple months now.  I’ve had time to explore, myself.”

“At least you didn’t use a lame pick-up line, I guess.”

“Don’t write me off, yet!  If I need another way to try to see you, that might be the route I take!”

We ended up going to a quiet dive bar, not far off of campus.  We were there for a couple of hours.  I learned about where he grew up (Kansas), that he had played basketball at Kansas University, but decided to transfer for academic reasons, and that he saw some playing time, but sat the bench more, and knew at Nebraska he’d be able to play more, he’s an only child, and he broke up with a long term girlfriend when he came here.  Oh yeah, and I was right, he has dabbled in some modeling.  No surprise there, since he’s a beautiful man.  I told him about growing up on a “farm” where we leased out the land for other farmers to plant crops, and we just kept fields for a few horses, my brother, briefly about Derek (I didn’t mention Zach), and how I had no idea what I wanted to do when I grow up.  It turns out that Luke it a pretty down to earth guy, and while he knows he is good looking, it comes across as confidence, not cockiness.  But time will tell on that one.  We left, and he told me he wanted to see me again.  He said he’d like to take me to dinner.  I obliged.  We tentatively planned for Monday.

As he parked his car outside my apartment, I decided it was a good time to apologize to him.  “Luke, I’m really sorry for jerking away from you Wednesday.  First of all, I didn’t even know you were in class with me until right before my speech.  How lame is that?  Secondly, I was so humiliated by… you know, looking at you and talking about shafts.”  I turned my head away, because I almost started giggling out of nervousness.  I don’t like apologizing, it makes me feel vulnerable.  I straightened my face again, and turned back to him.  “Anyway, I really am sorry, it was rude, and I know you were just playing around with me.”

Luke smiled at me and leaned across his middle console and pushed his lips against mine.  I froze for a second.  Part of me didn’t want the memory of Zach kissing me tainted by someone else’s lips.  But then I thought, he’s in Arizona, and we aren’t together.  He could be doing the same thing right now.  But then thinking about that, made my stomach churn and I pushed the thought out of my mind and focused on Luke’s tongue exploring my mouth.  I pushed back against him and ran my fingers into his hair.  I noticed it was really soft.  Softer than mine, I thought.  I wondered what shampoo he uses.  Then I caught my mind wandering again, and started giggling.  Oh my goodness, why was I so unable to focus on this man and his beautiful mouth?  Luke pulled away, smiling.  “Why are you laughing?”

“Well, because I was thinking about your hair.”

“You’re telling me that I’m sitting here kissing you, thinking about how great it is, and you’re thinking about my hair.”

“Yeah, that sounds bad.”

“Was I that terrible?”  He was looking at me teasingly.  He clearly knew he was not a bad kisser.

“Oh, absolutely horrible.”

“Well then, Aleah… it looks like I’m going to have to practice some more.”  He grinned wickedly and then leaned in and kissed me again.  He had one arm back around behind the headrest of my seat, and the other hand was on my cheek.  He moved it down to my waist, and then my hip.  I wished that he would just move his hand a little more central… but then he stopped.  He sat back and smiled and said, “It seems that you know what you’re doing, as well.  Let me walk you to your door.”

We got out and started walking up to my apartment building.  He opened the door of the building and I looked at the ground, trying to hide my ear to ear grin, as I walked inside.  As soon as I looked up though, that grin was wiped completely off my face.

There, sitting on the stairs, was Derek.