I would go out by myself to bars and see which boys had the balls to flirt with me. Most would get discouraged. Except for one. That one night.
What was his name? Our night was so perfect together, I knew it couldn’t be topped. Every time I tried to push him away, he came back ten times stronger and wouldn’t stop. In one night, he said he loved me and wanted to marry me. And I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.
As I lay there, a pool of lazy post-sex ecstasy, I watched him sleep, and I knew he couldn’t be serious. Not me. Not a man who oozed the sex appeal, confidence, and had the skills in bed this one did.
Any man who fucked me like he did on the first night was too good to be true. So, I did the smart thing for a woman who wasextra protective of her feelings: I wrote out a note on a napkin that said ‘Love you too, always,’ signed it with a ruby red lipstick kiss, and sneaked out of his room before he knew I was gone.
Then I blocked his face and his name—Duke—out of my mind for good.
I wondered why this story was flooding back to me now, but I thought it might be an omen, so as I kneeled with my eyes closed, I decided to say a prayer for him.
“Dear Lord or God, I hope Duke, wherever he is, has found peace and I hope that I didn’t mess him up too bad from sleeping with him. Amen.” I let my arms fall to my sides, and stayed kneeling for a few more moments.
I felt his presence before he touched me.
The luscious lips I remembered only by how they felt on mine: like a lock and key.
Cold, hard lips pressed against mine as I knelt, and a strong palm wrapped behind my head to steady me.
I didn’t dare open my eyes. Because this was all a dream. It had to be. I moaned, and the lips felt so damn familiar, the stubble was two days old, by my calculations.
Finally, our lips separated. “Duke?” I said.
The voice whispered in my ear. “Fio, you’ve got some fuc—I mean,freaking—explaining to do. Sorry about the F word, big guy. Not in your house, I know.”
A bewildered smile crossed over my face and I opened my eyes to see Dustin LeBlanc leaned over into my pew in the front, his face inches from mine. On the scale of likeliness, Dustin LeBlanc appearing at my local church and finding me, in my hometown, two days after hockey playoffs had ended, was so close to zero, it was hard to process.
But this was happening. And he had heard me praying.
My heart beat so fast I thought it might explode.
“D-Duke isn’t someone I was cheating on you with. It was?—”
“Me. Duke was my college nickname,” he said.
My heart dropped to my stomach as I tried to process the facts put in front of us.
“Duke? Why?”
He snorted. “Because I hated Duke.”
“You ... hated them, so that became your nickname?”
“Hey, I don’t get college dorm room buddy logic, either. So the first chance I had after college, I killed the nickname.” He leaned in. “And who the hell—I mean H. E. double hockey sticks, sorry again, big guy—is Fio?”
I swallowed. “Fio was my secret mission name.”
“And was your secret mission that night to break a guy’s heart?”
I stood up from kneeling, and looked Dustin his gorgeous blue eyes, and started walking away, out from the pew. I didn’t know where I was going or running to, but the feeling of stress percolating in my stomach was too much for me to take. I felt Dustin behind me, saying something, but the words sounded all clouded.
It didn’t make sense.
“How did you figure it out?”
He locked his eyes on me. “Turns out I had an old college video from that night. You looked a lot different back then, but I still recognized you. I think I had blocked you out of my mind after that night.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat, my eyes unfocusing.
