Love Bites. Rachel Burke K

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

       I shrugged. “Nothing to talk about, really. He took me out to dinner, kissed me, then proceeded to tell me he was married like it was the most natural thing in the world.”

       “Hmm, let me guess. Makes a lot of money… drives a flashy car…”

       I nodded.

       “Typical. So what did you do?”

       “Ordered the most expensive bottle of champagne, a 32-ounce steak, then told him I was going to the bathroom and snuck out the back.” I grinned proudly.

       “Nicely done.” David looked like he was impressed. “Well, on that note, I say we go make a few more of these.” He took the martini glass from my grasp.

       I followed David into the kitchen, happy he’d come to my rescue. This was exactly what Renee would’ve done. She would’ve turned the unfortunate situation into a party.

       “There’s only one problem,” I admitted, as David passed me a glass.

       “What’s that?”

       “He’s my boss. Does that mean I have to quit?”

       “Absolutely not.” His tone was so matter-of-fact, like he’d majored in corporate adultery. “Here’s what you do. You walk into work on Monday like nothing ever happened. If he tries to bring it up, you casually tell him that you think you should keep your relationship strictly professional.” He paused, taking a sip of the martini. His face puckered from the taste, and he took a straight shot from the vodka bottle instead. “The guy isn’t going to say shit. If he’s your boss, he could lose his job for pulling something like that.”

       Hmm. He had a point.

       “But seriously, though, why the tears?” He cocked his head to the side. “I know I shouldn’t be saying this, since you’re Renee’s best friend and all, but Justine, you’re gorgeous. You could have anyone you want. Was this guy really that great?”

       I thought back to all the days I had spent with Vincent, joking around in his office, flirting at happy hours. We shared the same sense of humor, I admired his intelligence, and I was crazy attracted to him. He was definitely part of the reason I was upset, but it was more than that.

       I was sick of the Vincents of the world. Sick of disappointing my parents. Sick of envying my best friend for having a great guy and wondering if my turn would ever come.

       In short, I was lonely.

       “I did like him,” I said. “I’ve dated a lot since I moved here, and I really thought that this time it was going to work out.”

       “LA’s a different scene, that’s for sure. But, like anywhere, you have to take the good with the bad. On the downside, there are a lot of douches on the dating market. On the upside, it’s 75 degrees year-round.” His eyes lit up. “Speaking of, I have an idea. You have a pool here, right?”

       I nodded. The pool was our apartment’s greatest selling point. It was heated, secluded, and open 24 hours.

       “I say we go for a swim and exchange worst-date-ever stories.” He tossed me a knowing look. “If anything will cheer you up, it’s the David Whitman dating rolodex.”

       I looked down at my outfit hesitantly. After the night I’d had, even the thought of selecting a bikini seemed exhausting. But David’s damn puppy eyes and taunting dimples were impossible to resist.

       “Fine,” I surrendered. “But you’d better have some damn good stories.”

       The pool was exactly what I needed. The warm water on my skin made my experience with Vincent seem like it was nonexistent. I felt like a kid again.

       When I was in the third grade, my father lost his job and we had to live with his parents for a year until he and my mother got back on their feet. While my parents were devastated, I was elated because my grandparents had a giant built-in pool in their backyard.

       I always remember that summer being the best of my childhood. My friends from school would come over and we’d swim all day. Sometimes we’d play games (“The Little Mermaid” had made its debut the year prior), and other times we’d just hang out on the blow-up rafts. But I’ll never forget the feeling of happiness that came from the water.

       That was exactly how I felt right now, swimming around in my pink-and-white-striped bikini. I’d chosen a girl-next-door type of suit, as I didn’t want to bust out the thong bikini and give David the wrong idea. David seemed to sense my ease once we started splashing around. He kept looking at me with a proud-dad smile, like he was happy he’d made the suggestion.

       The great thing about our pool was its seclusion. It wasn’t connected to our apartment building at all. You had to walk through the parking area to get to it, and even then it was fenced in, so you couldn’t see in from the outside. Luckily, our apartment management was very low-key and didn’t close it at a certain time. The glowing blue pool lights stayed on all night, unlike a lot of other buildings that closed the swim area at ten.

       “Okay,” David said, resting his arm on the ledge. “Worst date ever. Go.”

       I had to pick just one? This could take a while…

       “I met a guy at the W hotel last year, who introduced himself as D.X.X.” I used hand quotations as I said the acronym. “I refused to call him this idiotic term, but he insisted it was his name.”

       David was already laughing. “Don’t you love how no one in Hollywood uses their real name? It’s like, if they tell people their name is John Smith, they’re destined for career failure.”

       “Yeah, well, he was cute, and I was drunk, so I agreed to go out with him.” I sighed, partly wishing I hadn’t agreed to divulge this horribly embarrassing story to a gorgeous guy. “I met him at Katana, that sushi place on Sunset, the next night and he tells me that if I want to have a few drinks, I can stay at his place since he lives right next door. He promised to be a perfect gentleman.”

       “Famous last words,” David joked.

       “Well he was, at first. We both fell asleep shortly after we got to his house. But then I woke up in the middle of the night because I heard a weird noise and I look over, and the guy is kneeling above me on the bed, jerking himself off.”

       “While you were sleeping?” David threw his head back and laughed loudly. “That’s got to be illegal somehow.”

       I lowered my head, mortified.

       He waved his hands in front of him like he was surrendering. “Okay, I’m starting to understand the martini pity-party.” He swam closer to me. “I went home with a girl once, after our first date. We were taking our clothes off, having a good time, and then she tells me that I don’t have to use a condom. Because she’s already pregnant.”

       I was feeling better already.

       “I went out with an actor once,” I said. “And I asked him what he did when he wasn’t shooting. He started running his hands over his body and said ‘well, not to be cheesy, but my job is to maintain this’.”

       “Stop it.”

       “That wasn’t even the bad part. The bad part was that my gorgeous classmate showed up at the same restaurant we were at, and he immediately