Chapter 02 MARLO
I fucking trip.
I do not trip.
I am a graceful motherfucker with bendy joints and an ease that moves me. Not the other way around. But this fuggin’ rug just reached up and snatched my foot right as I’m spinning to look.
This is a fucking blind date and everything! Or, well, a blind photoshoot thing that I signed up for back in March.
Sadie, the photographer, tries to hide her snort behind her camera as I collide with my partner for the evening but it’s useless. I hear it. He hears it.
And now I’m face first in a stranger's chest with my hands alllll over his stomach like a real creep, and, Jesus Christ, she’s still taking pics. The shutter is capturing my every move and goddammit, I missed my mark.
When I signed up for this thing, it felt like a crap shoot (pun now intended). That finding love reflected in the lens of a camera would be sweet and cool and life altering.
Amazing, if it were possible.
Who else had a meet-cute story like that? No one. It’s unique as fuck.
Yet all I’ve managed to do is make myself look like a fool.
Groaning, I take full advantage of my position and push off this guy to right myself. I’m not even looking at him. God, no wonder my exes have all said I’m self centered.
“That was terrible. Can I redo?“
I beg, hopeful to get this right.
My hands are still on him even though I’m upright, and I’m still looking at Sadie, and she is stilllll clicking away behind the camera. This is a disaster. It’s not even my angle. Or my good side. Ugh.
“I think it was perfect.”
Hoooooly momma.
That voice has me snapping my attention up—and upppp—only to squeak.
Slutty. Fucking. Glasses.
I’m certain I look like a guppy eating air, staring at this beautiful human and drooling. He’s wearing a button down, a dusting of chest hair peeking out from the undone buttons and smooth skin covering his Adam’s apple. His cheeks are pink, and his fucking glasses are those professor ones with thick, black frames that sit on his nose just right to make his green eyes look sparkly behind them. But there’s no way he’s a professor. He’s too young. And his hair is the wavy kind that falls over his brow, curling around his ears, and looks unkempt in the intentional way.
Oh, shit. I’m still touching him.
He’s got one of those bellies that feels mostly flat but not hard beneath my hands. Like there’s no challah bread under his shirt but instead is a warm place I could comfortably lay my head. Soft and strong simultaneously.
Why am I already thinking of lying on him?
I snap my grubby little mitts back and adjust my crop top, grinning at the prize that I’ve won. Even if this is just a few hours and already a terrible disaster, at least I’ll have some hot ass pics to display.
Where the hell did Sadie find this guy?