I do as told.
“Repeat after me. I solemnly swear, under penalty of breaking the girlfriend code that I will not date a man older than me.”
I repeat her words.
“Because you are the poster child for this movement, and you are getting back on the goddamn dating wagon and finding yourself a much younger, much hotter, much more fun man. Like Dave Dybdahl. Because Dave Dybdahl wants you, Dave Dybdahl asked you out, Dave Dybdahl wants you to call him right now.”
Julia whips out her cell phone from her back pocket and plunks it onto the table. “I have speaker phone and I’m not afraid to use it. So get out your little camera because I know this is going to be a blog entry tomorrow on how to dress for a date with a hot young thing.”
Hayden flashes me a contrite look when Julia mentions the camera, but I give her a reassuring wave, as I stand up and run next door to grab my computer and shoot on the iCam. Then in true junior high sleepover style – we might as well be in our jammies giggling and munching on popcorn all night long – I call Dave Dybdahl and ask him out, the computer cam capturing only my end of the call since he’s still the innocent.
And the innocent says yes.
Chapter Three
“Have you played the newest Halo?”
Before I can even turn around to see where the voice comes from, I laugh.
“Have I played the newest Halo?” I repeat as I consider the video game shelves at the electronics store on Lombard Street where I’ve been contemplating buying Modern Warfare, which is next to Halo. “Am I breathing? Am I a sentient human being? I played it and saved the world from destruction in twenty-five hours, thank you very much.”
Then I turn to my questioner and Holy Mary Mother of Hotness.
I drop the Modern Warfare box along with the camera box, and my jaw might have fallen to the floor too. I contemplate reaching down to the floor to pick it up so I don’t die from the embarrassment of checking him out. Because my questioner is tall, trim, with light brown hair, kind of surfer boy length, and these crazy green eyes, the sort of green that’s like the color of the sea, if the sea were green, only really it’s blue. But you get the idea. His eyes are like Hawaii. He’s wearing cargo shorts, flip flops, and a black Nor-Cal tee-shirt that shows off the right amount of tanned, toned arms. He’s so cool and casual, and it’s completely my favorite look for a guy.
He hands me the boxes I just dropped. “Here you go,” he says, and I wish his fingers had just brushed mine. I’d take any sort of contact from him, even the barest trace of an accidental one.
“Thank you.”
He smiles back at me immediately and then makes a little bow. “Twenty-five hours. Wow.”
I’m a tad competitive so I can’t not ask how he did. Plus, I’m totally digging his nearness to me right now. He’s too hot to let walk away. Translation: he’s blazingly beautiful and I want to keep looking at him. “Okay, I’ll take the bait. What about you? How many hours?”
He waves a hand in the air.
“Oh c’mon,” I persist. “I told you.”
“Fine,” he says, then lowers his voice to a whisper. “Seven hours.”
My eyes go wide. “Get out of here,” I say, and give him a quick push on the shoulder, like a teenage girl would do. Oh, those are nice sturdy shoulders. Too bad I’m not smooth enough to let my hand linger on his shoulders, or drop down to his chest. Right, yeah, because that would work — feeling him up in the middle of the electronics store. But still, it’s a nice image to tuck away in the mental files.
He just shrugs casually.
I shake my head. “No, that’s not how it works,” I say playfully, enjoying the exchange with the perfectly handsome stranger behind the warm green eyes. “You can’t just drop a little nugget like that and not give me the goods. Tell me how you got past the Forerunner Mission, because I was stuck there for hours, getting killed over and over.”
I listen intently as Video Game Guy begins detailing his tactics, talking with his hands, moving his body back and forth a bit to simulate Master Chief’s movements, the main character in Halo. He has a nice body. Wait, he has a fantastic body. He has the kind of body that women driving cars slow down for. He has the kind of physique that turns a gal into a gawker. The way his tee-shirt falls just so tells me all I need to know about the flatness that lies beneath.
Then I remind myself to pay attention and focus, because it’s rude to just stare at his belly instead of his face, especially when his face is so very lovely too. So I nod as he shares his gaming secrets.
I wasn’t always into video games. In fact, it’s not really accurate to say I’m “into” video games, per se. I’m not a gamer geek, though I did have a fondness for retro games growing up, since my parents used to take Julia and me bowling on Saturday and the Silverspinner Lanes boasted all the original arcade games like Qbert, Frogger, and, of course, both Pac-Mans. It’s just that, well, I developed a particular predilection for shooter games after Todd left. I know – probably just a completely random little coincidence. And, to be fair, the video game habit didn’t kick in the second he dropped his Vegas voicemail bombshell.
The first few months, all I did was cry at night in Ms. Pac-Man’s fur, asking myself what I could have done differently, what had gone wrong, how I’d let him slip away. Was I not adventurous enough? Interesting enough? Pretty enough? Young enough? But it wasn’t until I showed up for a Fashion Hound shoot in jeans and a wife beater tee, that I knew something needed to change. My videographer, Andy, took one look at me, and said, “We need a change, and we need a change fast. I have never seen you in monochromatic clothes before and your nails aren’t even polished. You’re a damn fashion blogger.”