1. Some Entertainment
SOME ENTERTAINMENT
Two Years Later
“Hi, I’m Jared.”
Gabriela Mills reached her hand across to the man who just sat opposite of her at the table. “Gabriela.” A dating event that one of her friends managed to talk her into months ago before she decided to move to Amore Island.
But it was only a quick ferry ride back to Boston for the night, and she’d stay in her condo after.
She was nuts. Certifiably to consider doing this. She should have just backed out and canceled.
But nothing else worked and, if anything, it’d give her some entertainment for the night.
“Do you go by Gabby?”
If she went by Gabby she would have said that. “Nope. My name is Gabriela.”
“Oh,” Jared said. “You look like a Gabby to me.”
Funny. No one had ever said that to her a day in her life. “How is that?”
No reason to ask much about Jared personally. The guy couldn’t even respect her enough to call her by her real name, so he wasn’t going to work out.
Too bad, because he was good-looking at first glance.
Until he opened his mouth.
“You’re cute. Kind of bubbly.”
She coughed on the wine she was sipping.
Not only would no one ever call her Gabby, but bubbly wasn’t in her DNA.
She didn’t do bubbly. It wasn’t a phase, a mood, or a personality trait she’d misplaced.
She was funny. Loved humor and busting on people.
That didn’t scream bubbly in the least. Bubbly to her was an airhead. Ditzy. She was a doctor!
Not that that information was shared at a place like this.
“I’m not so sure about that.”
He laughed, his hand reaching over to land on hers. “I could make you bubbly,” he said winking. “Get some giggles out of you.”
She held the gag back... barely.
Was that honestly the line he was going to use?
“The only bubbles I like are right here,” she said, holding up the glass and taking a slow sip.
“Oh, one of those,” Jared said, wiggling his eyebrows. “I can pick up a few bottles.”
When the hell was the bell going to go off so they could switch?
She almost wished this was speed dating, but it was more like “get to know each other for ten minutes” dating.
It was the only thing that appealed to her. It’d give her a bit more time to decide. In less than five minutes, anyone could come off decent.
Though Jared was proving that wrong.
Might as well humor the guy for a few more laughs. “I’ve got expensive taste,” she said.
“I’m good for twenty bucks a bottle when it comes to wine. But for you, I could up it to twenty-five.”
Oh, good lord.
“Wow, twenty-five,” she said. “I feel so special.”
“Sweetie, I aim to please.” He had his phone out. “Can I get your number?”
The bell rang. “Sorry. Time’s up.” She stood and moved to the next table before he could call her back.
He did anyway. She heard Gabby shouted, but since it wasn’t her name, she wasn’t answering.
“I’m Brian.”
“Gabriela,” she said, reaching for the new guy’s hand.
“Looks like you barely escaped the last one. There are some weird people here tonight.”
Okay. This was promising. “Tell me about it. I guess we are all weird in our own right since we’re here.”
“Good point. Why are you here?” Brian asked.
“It’s not that it sounded fun,” she said, laughing. “I’ve done it before where we have three minutes to talk to someone.”
“That’s not a lot of time. I did the same. Ten minutes helps some more,” Brian said. “But now it also drags it out to move away from someone.”
She laughed. At least they were on the same wavelength there. “That too. So yeah, it’s not that it was fun as much as, it’s my last shot to see how crazy I am. It’s not much different from meeting someone out in a bar. How about you? What brings you to this circus?”
“I needed a few laughs,” Brian said. “But I do try to take it seriously. I’m upfront about things.”
“That’s good. What is it you want to know?”
“Do you like kids?”
“I love kids,” she said. She wouldn’t volunteer that she was a pediatrician, just like she didn’t give her last name.
“Good to know. I’ve got three of them,” Brian said.
He looked a little older than her. She expected that once you were dating in your thirties, that there was bound to be baggage.
Her baggage? A demanding career most men couldn’t handle. Making more money than them. Coming from an older, established, wealthy family. So not just making more, but having more. And, sure, add in a sharp tongue wrapped in overconfident charm to the top three on the list.
Yeah, some men were turned off by that.
She knew it, but she wasn’t changing who she was.
Why should she have to?
So she wasn’t always single!
Still not doing it.
“Three kids,” she said. “Boys? Girls?”
Brian smiled like she’d just made his day by asking that. “Two girls and a boy.” He pulled his phone out and showed them off. They were cute kids.
“Let me guess their ages,” she said. She eyed them a little longer. “Eight, six and two?”
“You’re good. Close. Eight, five and just turned two.”
“I’ve got the talent,” she said. “Are you divorced?”
Please let him be divorced and not one of those, we don’t need a piece of paper type deals. Not with three kids between them.
“No. I’ve never been married.”
She kept the sigh in. “Not something you believe in?”
He laughed. “I believe in it, but I’d be divorced three times now if that were the case.”
She took another sip to cover her groan. “So... these kids all have different mothers?”
Since they all had the same brown hair, and maybe the boy’s was a bit lighter, she assumed he might have a type.
Kind of like her hair color.
“They do. I’m just unlucky in love. I want it so badly, but it’s hard,” Brian said.
“Do you want more children?” Might as well chat. He came off the list at three kids. It was wrong of her to think that, but it happened in her mind.
She wanted kids one day, but she didn’t want a basketball team of them or more in her household. Whether or not they were hers.
She didn’t even care if the guy in front of her was independently wealthy and had a nanny for each kid.
It was not how she wanted a family and not how she’d raise her kids, plus with her job, adding to three was just not feasible.
Not how she envisioned her life.
You know, like the way it was working out already.
“Definitely. I just love kids. Though my aunt told me I need to stop or I can’t stay with her.”
Her eye was twitching. It had to be. “You live with your aunt?”
“Just temporarily. She has a big house and I help care for her and the property. But the kids get on her nerves when they visit. They aren’t on the same schedule so it’s like one is always there.”
“Is she watching them for you tonight?” she asked, just not able to help herself.
“Actually, she is. My oldest. Brianna. She’s a good girl.”
The bell went off and she wanted to run out the back door rather than change seats, but there were only three more left. It couldn’t get much worse than this.
Only it did get much worse.
“Gabriela,” she said, putting her hand out.
“Joey. Nice to meet you.”
“So, what brings you here?” she asked.
“I lost a bet,” Joey said. “My sister said if I couldn’t go through the night without picking my nose, I had to come here with her. She’s over there.”
She didn’t even want to look where Joey was pointing. She dealt with enough nose pickers in her job, but to have an adult put it out there like that.
Admit that he does it in front of people? Enough to lose a bet and get caught?
There wasn’t enough wine in this room for her.
Unless he was pulling her leg and this was an icebreaker to see her sense of humor.
She’d go with that.
But she turned and saw Joey’s sister giggling with Jared. Maybe she was good with twenty-dollar bottles of wine.
“So I’ve got to ask, why do you pick your nose so much?” Now would be the time he’d tell her he was kidding.
Please let him say that.
“I can’t stand having things up there,” he said seriously. “And I can’t blow them out. It drives me nuts. Ever get a big booger stuck right up in your sinus cavity?”
How the hell was she having this conversation? “Sure, doesn’t everyone?” she said, humoring him.
Even if it was true. Just not date conversation material.
“That’s right,” Joey said. “And I can’t get it out. It’s so annoying.”
“How about saline spray? It could loosen it up to blow it out better.”
Exactly what she told her patients’ parents when they asked how to suck out snot from their kids’ noses.
“Ugh,” Joey said, shaking his head. “I can’t spray things up my nose.”
“But you can put your finger up it?” she asked, her voice drier than she intended it to be. Nah, she meant to sound like that. She couldn’t help it.
“It’s not the same thing,” Joey argued.
“Isn’t it though?” she asked sarcastically.
The bell went off a few minutes later. Somehow she got through that without arguing hygiene and grooming with him.
This time she walked out the door leaving the next man there by himself.
No. She just couldn’t do it again.