“Thank you,” he said, grinning and wiping his hands like he’d completed his task.
And just like that, I had the beginnings of a starry-eyed crush on one very cute and very entertaining Southern California beach boy. Before I’m judged too harshly for my insta-infatuation, it might be worth repeating that I’ve lived in a small town all my life. That, in and of itself, wasn’t notable, but the even smaller percentage of qualified men who lived there sure was. And when I saidqualifiedI didn’t mean rich, handsome, or successful men. I just meant living, breathing ones. At this point, even guys with a spotty dental history weren’t off the table.
In fact, the most noteworthy guy I’d been on a date with in the past year had to remove the pizza sign off the roof of his mom’s car before coming to pick me up. His idea of a fun date was the .99 Taco Tuesday at Mario’s Taco Shack followed by a stimulating game of Mortal Kombat, where I got to marvel at how well my date beheaded and slaughtered his innocent victims.
It seemed all the men in my rather broad ‘eighteen to dead’ age range had already gotten married or had beaten their hasty retreat out of town years ago. Quality males in my neck of the woods were as much an endangered species as Bigfoot. So I was to be forgiven for my instalove approach towards Kyle. In my world, he was the shiniest of new toys, and I wanted to play.
It wasn’t just the fact that he was breathing and had a full set of teeth that drew me to him. If possible, there was an even more superficial reason for my infatuation. Simply put, Kyle was easy on my pining eyes. The entire way to the watering hole, I stole glances at the man walking beside me. If I had to be honest, it wasn’t the first time today he’d caught my eye, and that didn’t include the unfortunate incident on the boat, of which I’d decided to never speak of again. In fact, the minute Kyle had come on board the vessel earlier in the day, my interest was piqued. He wasn’t over-the-top gorgeous, like Bobby, but he wasn’t cocky and off-putting either. Kyle was handsome but not overly polished, edgy but not dangerously so, and sexy in a dorky kind of way. Add his vibrant, forgiving personality into the mix, and you had the ingredients for my ideal man.
Making a real effort not to act like the male-deprived female I was, I kept my budding libido under wraps. This was certainly not the ideal reality show for a love connection. In a matter of days, I would deteriorate into a foul-smelling, stubbly, emotional beatnik. And what made it worse, I just knew the other women had come onto the show prepared for any scenario. I could only imagine the procedures they’d had done to remain attractive for the entirety of the filming. Laser hair removal, waxing, whitening, cosmetic tattooing – you name it, I was sure most of these ladies had done it. I would have too, had my hometown beauty shop offered more than just lip wax services, but as it was, the ‘ladies from the eighties’ who worked there hadn’t even heard of laser hair removal or teeth bleaching. Hell, I’d have even settled for a Brazilian wax and Crest Teeth Whitening Strips, but those appeared to be foreign concepts as well. I sighed. It was time to face the facts: any chance I’d had at impressing Kyle with my homegrown, ‘Pot Capital of the World’ beauty had surely already passed.
It’s not that I considered myself ugly; in fact, people often told me I had a pretty face, although I wasn’t sure if that was code for ‘That’s the only thing you’ve got going for you.’ And it didn’t help my cause that my eyes were larger than seemed necessary. They weren’t bulging out of my skull or anything, but they were big and expressive, so that I often resembled a deer in the headlights.
On the short side at five foot four, with a solid sporty body, I certainly wasn’t the delicate-looking waif that most guys tended to favor. I was a runner and kept myself in good shape, despite the fact that my boobs occasionally got in the way of a good workout. I was fairly busty for a girl my height. In the bra-size arena, I considered myself a respectable 32C; however, on a recent visit to Victoria Secret in a neighboring town, a well-meaning yet highly suspect salesgirl tried to convince me, in her itty bitty little voice, that I was actually a 34D. The memory still pissed me off. And every time I shoved my ample boobs into my little bra, I cursed the gall of that woman.
I wondered what type of girl Kyle liked. Selfishly, I hoped it was sweet, homemade girls like myself whose thighs enthusiastically high-fived one another as they met, but something told me that wasn’t Kyle. He seemed the type of guy who had his pick of the litter and never chose runts. Still, a girl could dream big, delusional dreams. And with that in mind, I hastily ran my fingers through my mousy brown, shoulder length ‘The Rachel’ haircut. Where I came from, being fifteen years behind the trends was actually considered stylish. The moment my hand touched my tresses, I knew I was in trouble. Humidity had taken its nasty toll. My normally straight layers had skipped over the frizzy stage and gone directly for the helmet of fuzz. I let out an audible squeak of alarm.
Luckily Kyle was otherwise occupied with some lively story about Pop Tarts and didn’t seem to pick up on my obvious distress. Frantically, I attempted to smooth out my wooly mammoth ‘do. Maybe he hadn’t noticed. But when my fingers took a swipe under my eyes for smeared mascara, I was even more horrified to discover black smudges coating my fingertips.Oh, yeah, he noticed.How long had I been walking around looking like a furry, wide-eyed raccoon? And why had I thought mascara would be a good idea when I was getting ready this morning? I was going to an island, not a rave.
I’d learned some tricks over the years to diminish the appearance of my honking big blue eyes – left alone, they made me look perpetually flabbergasted. Make-up was a beautiful thing, until it was running down your face in hundred-degree weather.
I continued wiping under my lashes until my fingers came out clean. I didn’t know why I even bothered trying to freshen myself up. After all, he’d already seen, and conversed with, my alter ego. The damage had already been done. Regardless, vanity kept me trying to improve my overall appearance just in case the hot guy in question might want to take a second look.
He didn’t.
It was then that I accepted that my less-than-dazzling island beauty would never sway Kyle. My chances of getting with a guy like him were about as low as snapping a selfie of me hugging it out with Sasquatch. It just wasn’t going to happen. Once I recognized that fact, I became a completely normal human being again. I allowed myself to relax and just enjoy Kyle’s company. And my god, was that boy entertaining! Kyle liked talking, and I welcomed it. He seemed to be able to find the fun in everything. The truth was, I’d always been attracted to guys with big personalities. They just never liked me back.
Listening to him talk sent happy flutters dancing through me. It had been a long time since I’d felt the excitement of being around someone as engaging as Kyle. I found myself giggling at everything he said, which just egged him on. The more I laughed, the livelier he got. A guy like this was just the type I needed to pull myself out of my funk. I was a chameleon of sorts. Put me in a room full of dull, dreary people, and I’d morph into Kristen Stewart with ease. But let me mingle with some entertaining, outgoing characters, and I might actually have something clever to say.
So wrapped up was I in my fantasy land that I didn’t realize Kyle had asked me a question.
“Sorry, what?”
“I asked if you’d noticed that the popular kids were already pairing up.”
“Oh, yeah, I noticed it. Why aren’t you part of the clique?”
“I wasn’t invited… maybe because I was covered in puke when they were picking the teams.”
Shame immediately colored my cheeks. Kyle saw my horrified expression and backtracked. “I was kidding! Is it too soon to make throw up jokes?”
“It will always be too soon,” I replied miserably.
“If you’re going to hang around me, you’ll have to grow a backbone. In my family, you get a twenty-four hour reprieve from mortal embarrassment… after that, you better just own it because it’s going to be smeared in your face relentlessly.”
“Charming.”
“Yep.”
“Okay, if that’s the rule, then you at least have to give me the twenty-four hours,” I bargained.
“I can honor that.”
We walked on. I had a smile on my face, and as I glanced over at him, his expression mirrored mine. Dang, he was a cutie.
“Well, if it makes you feel any better,” I said. “I would have picked you first.”
There was a pleased expression on his face before he scrunched his brows and said, “Liar. You would have picked Carl first, and you know it.”
