Marriage (Red, White &) Blues (Unexpectedly Married #2)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

“ B ye,” I called out to Pen and Ant, who stood in their doorway waving goodbye to me. They had that ridiculously gorgeous, ridiculously cute couple thing going on. Given the breeze tonight, Pen’s chestnut brown ponytail kept whipping him in the face, while his dark hair had just enough length to ripple like water. I laughed, taking them in because Ant kept swiping her hair from his mouth as they stood out on their stoop waiting for me to reach my car. Our other best friend Sierra already made it to hers.

Although Ant and Pen lived in a highbrow neighborhood in Grosse Pointe Shores, they always stood out on their stoop until Sierra and I made it to our cars and locked the doors. I never understood why. They lived in one of the safest neighborhoods in Michigan. In this case, money equaled security. And let me just say, they had a lot of… security .

Please don’t take me wrong, no sour grapes on my part. I loved my friends and wished them nothing but the best. Just—sometimes it hit me how different our lives were and I felt like by this point in my life, I should’ve somehow been further ahead in everything like my career, romance, and travel. Having a roof over my head, and food on the table every night courtesy of my stable job, I had a lot. I gave thanks to the universe nightly for all my blessings. Just… having my best friends come from the kind of money that most of us only dreamed about sometimes got to me. It made me sound whiny and ungrateful. I got it. But we all had character flaws and this happened to be mine. For instance, I wanted to be a part of the cool car club.

Ant drove a Jag.

Pen drove a Merc.

Sierra drove an Audi.

I drove a Subaru Outback. Yes, a Subaru happened to be a perfectly acceptable car. Yet, one of the first times I’d driven in this neighborhood, a neighbor stopped me to find out my reason for being there. Pen and Ant were furious when they’d found out but furious or not, it didn’t change the fact that one of us didn’t belong here—guess which one? They never tried to make me feel inferior. My friends were all great people. It just came along with always being the poor friend. The girl who usually tried to back out of events due to lack of funds, but ended up going because friends paid my way. They insisted, I swear .

A little backstory: We’d met at a private school I’d thankfully been smart enough to get scholarships to attend. Then Pen and Ant had gone to Brown after high school. Sierra had flown off to Princeton. I’d gone the U of M route. A great school that again, I’d earned a full ride to attend. Unfortunately, even with a U of M degree under my belt, I didn’t earn enough to buy a Jag, a Merc, or an Audi.

My job was okay. I worked in HR for the Social Security Administration. That meant I didn’t have to deal with angry customers, only angry employees.

I drove the thirty minutes back home, where I lived with my mother in a modest home in Beverly Hills—the Michigan town, not the star-studded California odyssey.

When the garage door opened, I found the garage empty. Mom should’ve been home this time of night. Since Dad passed from cancer right after I’d graduated high school, she rarely left the house for anything other than work or grocery shopping, despite how often I tried to get her to go out with her old friends. That was the whole reason I’d stayed in Michigan and gone to U of M instead of attending the myriad of other prestigious schools that wanted me out of state. I’d received full-ride offers all over the country. But Mom needed me close. Could she have finally taken my advice or did I need to panic?

After parking and exiting my car, I walked into the house through the utility room.

“Mom?” I shouted, just in case she’d taken her SUV to the shop or something. Hmm… no answer.

I pulled my phone from my purse to call her because what if she needed me? But before I pressed her contact button, I found an unread text from her from earlier this evening.

Mom: Gloria, I finally took your advice and am out with a friend from work tonight. Have fun with Sierra and Penelope.

Wait— what ? Talk about being gobsmacked. My mom had actually taken my advice and gone out with a friend from work again. I hoped this meant she finally started healing.

A couple of hours of watching Netflix passed when I decided to go to bed. Tomorrow, being Saturday, meant a busy day volunteering down at the animal shelter. To be nice, I left one light on for my mom so she didn’t walk into complete darkness when she came home.

The next morning, I showered and dressed, then went down to the kitchen to grab a bite to eat before heading to the shelter. Mom forgot to turn the kitchen light off. Mom forgot to turn the light off ? She never forgot. She must’ve had a good time last night for that to happen. I switched it off for her, then went to the garage… which still only housed my car.

Maybe she’d had too much to drink and a friend drove her home? But surely if my mom had been drunk last night, she’d have woken me up from all the noise she made trying to be quiet on her way up to her room. The woman rarely drank more than a glass of wine on a holiday thus, she could not handle her liquor. So, if not too drunk to drive home, then where in the hell was my mother?

Cue the panic. Five… Four… Three… Two… And now . I raced back inside the house up to my mom’s room, throwing open the door to be met by an empty bed. One that clearly hadn’t been slept in.

No, no, no… Scenes from horror movies started playing out in my head. Irrational? Possibly—but this was my one remaining parent. I couldn’t lose her too. I checked my phone for eerie voicemails or ransom calls—yes, I realized no one would kidnap my mother for ransom but remember, panic. Sure enough, I found another text from her.

Mom: Gloria, sweetheart. I won’t be home tonight. Carl asked me to go home with him… and I agreed. I’m so nervous. Love you, sweetheart.

Carl? My mom’s “friend from work” was named Carl, and he’d asked her home and she’d felt comfortable enough to say yes ? Just how long had Carl been a friend?

Still feeling upset by the whole situation, I hopped in my Outback to head to the only place that I knew would make me feel better.

As always, it worked, taking my mind off my troubles for several blissful hours.

After spending the day taking care of all things furry—young and old—I went home, walking in to find out my mother and Carl had apparently been close friends for a while. I mean, if the way they were making out like teenagers on the sofa meant anything.

“Gloria?” My mom startled. Uh, I lived here, so I couldn’t see getting so surprised. A tall, broad-shouldered African-American man pushed up off my mom, and when he turned around—whoa! Carl was hot, to boot. Go, Mom!

“Gloria,” Carl said, approaching me with his hand out. “It’s good to finally meet you. I’ve been trying to get your mom to introduce us for the last year.”

I’m sorry, did he say the last year ?

“You two… have been friends for the last year ?” My voice might have risen at the end there, but I had the presence of mind to shake his hand. Carl looked concerned. Mom just looked guilty. “Look, Mom, you’re an adult. You don’t have to report to me, but it would’ve been nice to know you’d met someone. This is huge and you didn’t think to tell me?”

The three of us stood there in this sort of standstill and as I took her in, I realized that I didn’t know her anymore. We didn’t look alike. With her trimmer figure, cute brown bob, and hazel eyes, when people who didn’t know us saw us together, they thought we were friends. Now, I didn’t even feel like a friend.

“I just wanted?—”

I held my hand up. Hurt didn’t begin to cover how I felt about this situation. “It’s very nice to meet you, Carl. I hope you’ll come around more often now. I’m heading up to my room.” Then over my shoulder, I threw out a, “Carry on.”

It wasn’t my proudest moment. I ran up the stairs with tears in my eyes like a damn teenager. Talk about the drama! But I couldn’t help it. As I reached my room, I called Sierra—or I tried to call Sierra. When she didn’t answer, I looked at the time because girl shouldn’t have still been sleeping unless she had a headache or kept a really late night and I already knew that wasn’t the case. I called again, worried about her now.

This time, she answered. “Gloria, hey, sweetie. This isn’t a good time.”

“Oh, okay. Are you on a date?”

“No. I’m at the movies with Beth from work. We’re watching that new comedy She Shed .” She Shed ? My stomach sank, sank right to the damn floor. Sierra and I were supposed to go see that together. “I’ll let you know how it is.”

“Yeah, okay… sure. Have fun.” I disconnected the call determined not to cry and then immediately pressed Pen’s contact.

She answered on the first ring. “Hey, Gloria…” She giggled.

“Hey, Gloria,” Ant said in the background. “Pen’s going to have to call you back. She’s about ready to be very distracted.”

“ Ant ,” Pen admonished him.

“It’s okay. Don’t behave,” I said, laughing, although I really didn’t feel it.

“Don’t plan on it,” he said right before I hung up.

Good. Great. Okay. My mother lied to me for a year, Sierra broke plans with me to hang out with a different friend and Pen was too wrapped up in marital bliss to bother with me. So what? I was an independent woman. The time had come for me to start acting like it.

While I sat in my room alone, I opened my laptop and pulled up a blank Word doc. At the top, I typed: Change Gloria’s Life . For the next hour I planned on how to make that happen. Mom had a new man. Maybe I needed a man. Sierra had new friends. Maybe I needed new friends, too. Pen and Ant had loads of sex. No maybe about this one. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d sweated in the sheets from more than the flu.

Everything sort of went by in a blur from that night on.

I checked my bank account to see about my savings. Then I applied for a passport and got that expedited to me. Even expedited, it took a while to arrive, which gave me more time to save up money. Finally, I quit my job. Yeah, I quit my job. Why? Because backpacking across Europe ! Yes, me. It was number four on the Change Gloria’s Life document—you know, behind a new man, new friends, and loads of sex.

Nothing was keeping me here. Mom spent most nights with Carl now that they’d broken the seal on that one. We went from talking every day to radio silence unless I texted her. I saw my friends occasionally. And by friends, I meant Pen and Ant. I wasn’t ready to forgive Sierra. I didn’t care that she went to a movie with a different friend. But we’d already planned to see that together and she disregarded me and my feelings. And then to say ‘ she’d tell me how it was ’ as if I’d go see it alone? My friends had lives to live—I got that. But now I did too. I didn’t tell even one of them about leaving. Why would I? None of them bothered to keep me in their life loops. Gone were the days of reliable Gloria, always around when or if they decided to call.

Once I landed in France, if one of them called, then I’d tell them. “Sorry, I can’t go to your BBQ. I’m in France.” Petty? Probably. But I got tired of being ignored. The afterthought.

Finally, the night of my big trip arrived. I flew coach. Part of me wanted that first-class experience like Pen had on her honeymoon, but my bank account outright laughed at me, stating that was a truly bad idea if I planned to stay as long as I hoped to.

After hours of being stuck between a loud snorer and a man-spreader, of continually being kicked in the back of my seat, of listening to a colicky baby cry, we landed in Paris. Paris . As in Paris, France.

Despite being dog-ass tired and looking a mess, I smiled all the way to customs. As I planned to backpack, I’d only brought a carry-on with me—the bag all the traveler blogs said you just ‘ had to have’ when embarking on this kind of adventure.

Outside the airport, I flagged down a taxi. Thankfully, I’d taken four years of French in high school and minored in it in college.

The sun had barely cracked the sky. Welcome to the first stop on my adventure. But being awake at dawn in the city of love made being awake at dawn that much nicer.

My phone rang.

Sierra.

Did I even want to talk to her? “Hello?” I answered because I decided yes. I wanted her to know I currently stood in Paris freaking France .

“Gloria, girl… where are you? Your mom said she went to the house and you were gone. Your note said something about a new life? What in the hell is going on?”

“Exactly like my note said. My mom spends every night with Carl. You and Pen are busy living your lives. So, I decided to start living mine.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m in Paris.”

“ Paris . Kentucky?”

“Nope.”

“Texas?”

“Wrong again.”

“You don’t mean France,” she said. Oh, I sure as heck did.

“That’s exactly where I am. I’m headed for my hostel right now.”

“ Gloria… ” she sounded sad. “When will you be home?”

“Don’t know. I quit my job. I’m single. I’m free, and I have a whole continent to navigate.”

“Are you with anyone? That’s not safe.”

“Please, I fade into the background. No one knew I was making plans. No one knew I left. Nothing will happen to me.”

“Gloria—”

“Listen, we just pulled up in front of the hostel. I have to go. But I’ll try to call when I get the chance.”

“Okay,” she said. “Be careful.”

Be careful? No —not this time. Not that I planned to take ridiculous chances, but I wanted this one time in my life to forget about being the responsible one. To chuck responsibility out the window and live life for me . I paid the taxi driver and went inside. White plaster walls, and thick, exposed beams on the ceiling greeted visitors. Some beautiful dried lavender in vases sat on small wooden tables scattered about the space. The place looked clean and the woman at the check-in smiled. Although simple, I loved everything about this hostel.

I’d reserved a private room because I adventured in baby steps. Dorm rooms filled with loud, partying strangers—best to leave that for the eighteen-year-olds. Even still, a one-person room only cost me about $45 a night. Much cheaper than a hotel.

After checking in, I crashed on my bed. I’d heard about jet lag but never experienced it before. Flying from Detroit to Paris made me feel a hundred years old. The rest turned out to be exactly what the doctor would’ve ordered. Post my nice long nap, I showered, then dressed for the day in a cute, fitted pair of cropped jeans with folded cuffs; a pretty, sagey-green, flowy, blouse; and a pair of comfortable walking sandals. A little fresh makeup and my hair in a messy braid later, I slung my crossbody bag with my money and passport over my shoulders heading out to see what kind of trouble I could find.

As soon as I hit the pavement outside, my tummy started to grumble. Food. I needed food. Stat.

Although I’d intended to try out one of their cafés, I walked past an outdoor market and was drawn in by the smell of fresh bread. That had to be up there as one of the world’s greatest smells, along with coffee, vanilla, oranges and brownies. Any one of those heady scents gave cause to abruptly change your plans. I bought a crusty baguette, then I passed a cheese vendor and left with a beautiful, creamy brie and a Bleu de Saint-Jean, a kind of hard blue cheese. Well, if I bought the bread and cheese, then I had to get meat. I settled on a Jambon de Bayonne, which happened to be a very thinly sliced ham, much like prosciutto.

The next thing I knew, I had a netted grocery bag with olives, grapes, pears, and a bottle of Pinot Grigio. The vendor even had these cute, little plastic wine glasses and a keychain corkscrew. The wine vendor’s little boy saw my bag of goodies and talked me into buying a few of his homemade poppers “to scare off the birds.”

Could the birds be that bad? Well, if they were, then I was prepared. If not, then I helped a cute, cherub-faced lad earn some cash. I could live with that.

The boy must’ve known what I planned to do. I mean, what did one do with such a bounty? If your immediate answer wasn’t picnic, then we probably couldn’t be friends. I wandered through the city passing tourists packing the bridges and benches in the grassy areas until I found a park where I could sit and eat my lunch while looking at the beautiful Seine. Oh, and I made sure to snap plenty of pictures to document my first day.

Before tearing into my food, I uncorked the wine to let it breathe while the sun shone down on my face, warming me. I still couldn’t believe I was here.

A person passed behind me and dropped down about ten feet away. A man—no, that wasn’t nearly the right descriptor. There were times in everyone’s life when they realized they stood (or in my case, sat ) in the presence of greatness. And this man had greatness written all over him in every sexy way imaginable. Let me just say, staring at him, my imagination took me in some wildly creative directions. Was it possible for me to bend that way? — stop Gloria, you’ll just embarrass yourself.

I shut that line of thinking right down because if all I got from this man was a few minutes of “ holy shitballs I can’t hold this position ” then so be it. And where did he buy his cologne, because he smelled amazing ? Seriously, he reminded me of a field of wildflowers after a rainstorm. Of course, the longer I watched him unpacking his lunch, the more he affirmed my original statement of greatness. The way the sinewy muscles in his broad shoulders bunched under his faded black T-shirt simply from pulling items out of a bag got me a little hot and bothered. Aside from his shoulders and a fine, fine ass not remotely safe from my ogling even covered by his dark blue jeans, he had an otherwise slim physique reminding me of a swimmer’s body. His short, dark-brown hair looked almost black and had these cute spiky-feathery pieces blowing around in the soft breeze. He wore a pair of aviator sunglasses that gave him an air of cool while laying out his picnic spread.

And that brought me back to reality. A gull swooped down, flying off with his loaf of bread before he could shoo it away. That gave other birds the courage to shoot their shots. Biting my lip to stifle a laugh, I threw one of the poppers and it cracked in the air, scaring off the birds. I jumped, not expecting it to be that loud. The poor man turned to me, slumping his shoulders, looking so defeated that I couldn’t hold back the laughter now if I tried. I didn’t do it to be mean. It was just… I felt his pain. I’d had those days. He needed a friend right about now, so I stood, brushing off my bottom, and picked up my bag and my wine, walking over to him.

“I have a loaf of bread I can share,” I said in perfect French, holding the bag up for him to see so he didn’t think I was some sort of weirdo.

“Je ne parle pas bien francais?” he said as a question and it was the cutest thing. He was not a native French speaker.

“English?” I asked.

He let out a slow breath. “ Yes ,” he said, looking up at the sky for a moment as if to give thanks. “I need you to know I’m actually an intelligent man. It’s just… I studied Japanese in school.”

He needed me to know? Interesting. I repeated myself, this time in English. “I have a loaf of bread I can share.”

This stranger shot me these eyes that said “ I’m really glad you offered ,” even as he actually said, “You don’t have to do that.”

“I know,” I replied, laughing yet again. “But I feel bad that you lost your lunch.”

“I see you feel very badly for me. Laughing always shows sympathy.”

I snorted. Sexy, right? But it appeared that Mr. Greatness here had some cheek to his personality. I loved cheeky comebacks. I lived for them.

“Tell you what,” he said, with the decency to not comment on my offending nose giggle. “I’ll take you up on your offer if you join me.”

Well, I thought about it for maybe a second before answering, “Why not?” We had a beautiful view by the river. And wasn’t this what I came here for? An adventure. When a beautiful, cheeky man wanted to eat lunch with me, who was I to argue? I dropped down across from him on the blanket he’d laid out.

“Are you American?” I asked. “You sound very American.”

“Yeah. I’m from the great state of Vermont.”

“Oh, I’m from Michigan.”

“I could tell by your accent.”

“ Excuse me .” I said, totally affronted. “Michiganders don’t have accents. Everyone else does.” This time he laughed at me .

“I assure you. You do.”

“Well, we’ll just have to agree to disagree on that,” I responded, though I did so smirking.

“So, what’s your name?” he asked.

“Gloria.”

“Glory, I like it.”

“Um… actually, it’s Glor ia .” No one but my dad ever called me “Glory” and he’d died going on five years ago now, which meant no one ever called me “Glory.”

“Are you sure? From what I see, Glory just seems to fit you.” He pulled off his aviator glasses, in this slow, deliberate— whoa, sorry —I meant narrowing. Yes, he narrowed his beautifully dark eyes as if assessing me. God, any more movements like that could get me into some trouble. I almost missed him ask, “What’s your last name, Gloria?”

Uh… he thought Glory fit me? Why did I like that so much? It should’ve bothered me to hear that nickname again, but I realized I wanted nothing more than to hear this man call me Glory.

“You can call me Glory,” I offered. Then, because it hit me that he’d moved on from that part of the conversation and my gut told me that this was a good guy who wasn’t out to hurt me, I answered his question. “Kowalski. I’m part Irish”—I pointed to my red hair— “and part Polish.”

“Gloria’s Latin, did you know?”

“Yes. That’s after my Polish grandmother—her middle name. But my middle name, Brianne, is Irish, after my other grandmother. My parents weren’t very creative.”

“ Glory B !” he shouted and I bit my lip, shaking my head. “The woman I’m ready to eat lunch with.”

“No one has teased me with that in years.”

“It seemed apropos for the situation. Don’t you think?”

“ No .” I smiled. I couldn’t help it. “You’re going to run that joke into the ground now, aren’t you?”

“Possibly,” he said, “We’ll have to see how the day goes.”

I rolled my eyes. “Right. What’s your name, then?”

“Blake Parker.”

“Blake Parker?” I threw my hand to my chest. “How very boyband of you.”

“Well, my mother might’ve liked boy bands. Don’t most girls go through a boy band phase? I’ll make sure to tell her you said that next time I see her.”

His eyes twinkled and he showed off a dimple at the side of his mouth every time he smiled. I made it my goal to make him smile as much as humanly possible before we parted ways.

“I see you have a wine glass. Would you like to share a bottle?” I pointed to my Pinot Grigio. “I already popped the cork.”

“Thank you. I’d love to share a bottle. This couldn’t have turned out better for me.”

“Why is that?” I asked while pouring myself some.

“Because I saw a beautiful woman sitting by the river all alone and I knew I had to meet her. Why do you think I dropped down so close?”

“That’s a little creepy.” I poured him a glass, handing it off.

“I like to think of it as sweet. Seriously, your red hair caught my eye and then you turned your face in my direction and I sort of couldn’t breathe for a moment. That’s never happened to me before.”

His response took me so off guard that I didn’t know what to think. I was fairly certain I’d never taken a man’s breath away before. Of course, I couldn’t let him know that. As I struggled to figure out what to say, my mouth began speaking—worse, flirting —without my permission. But I never flirted. I didn’t even know how. Still, the words sounded kind of flirty.

“Aw… flattery will get you everywhere,” I said before popping a grape into my mouth.

“So, tell me, what brings a beautiful red-headed Michigander to Paris?” He sipped his drink.

“Probably the same thing that brought an utterly handsome Vermonter. It’s Paris. Does one need a specific reason?”

“For clarity, am I the handsome Vermonter in this scenario?”

“ Utterly handsome,” I reminded him, flirting again. Blake smiled at me. That meant he like it right? Ah well, in for a penny. In for a pound. “Since we’re the only ones here, it’s a safe assumption.” God, I loved this brave new Gloria. I needed to get to know her better.

The formerly christened Mr. Greatness, Blake Parker, held me enthralled as he tore off a hunk of baguette, smeared it with some brie, folded a piece of ham on top, and bit down. He chewed with purpose and that purpose seemed clearly to leave me wet and panting. If it wouldn’t have called attention to my flushed face, I’d have fanned myself. All that chewing brought attention to his mouth making me think of kissing and other such activities one might use a mouth for. Yes, it was safe to say I needed a good romp through fornication forest.

“So… tell me about yourself,” he thankfully said, helping to pull my mind out of the gutter.

I shrugged. “You first.”

When he smiled, that was all she wrote. We talked and ate until the sun looked lower in the sky and a chill drifted over the air.

“How long have we been here?” I asked, looking down at my phone.

It turned out we’d spent the last four hours talking about everything and nothing of importance at the same time. Four hours?!

“I suppose we should get going now,” Blake said and my heart sank. Even after four hours, I still felt like we deserved more time together.

He helped me clean up the trash and then stood. Blake held his hand out to me to help me up.

“Are you up for doing anything else together?” he asked.

Yes.

Yes.

All the yes.

I welcomed my next adventure.