I decided at the last minute to enter the Love At First Sight Blogfest presented by Critique This. I'm not a big fan of Valentines Day but read through some of the entries and thought it sounded like fun. My entry is a little tame, an actual first meeting and nothing sexy. Too bad :). Below is an excerpt from a memoir I've written entitled Gravity.
I left the house and climbed into my eighties Toyota, with which I had an ongoing love-hate relationship. Hate because it was old, cheap, and smelled like mildew due to the leaky trunk. On the love side, I was not exactly the best driver around and in the three years I'd had it we'd survived five accidents together. By the end of the summer we would make it through two more. Granted, most of them had been minor and involved inanimate objects such as mailboxes and other vehicles. I only hit another person once. Don’t worry, I’m not a felon. It was just her foot and it remains an alleged incident. I won the Worst Driver title for my senior class, an honor which embarrassed me to no end but that I had managed to escape by leaving the state for college.
I did my best to drive carefully on the way to work and managed to arrive in one piece and ready to get started. Maybe cute Sam would be the one training me today. The guy was no Gabe Daniels, and actually not my type at all but still…he wasn’t the worst thing I could have been stuck following around all day. I walked in the door a little before 10:30 which was a full half hour before the place would open for business. Mike, my new manager, told me yesterday not to expect much business until after Memorial Day. He thought there just might be enough time for me to hone my apparently lagging waitressing skills. The smell of grease, chips, and onion hit my nose at the same moment the Jimmy Buffet music assaulted my ears. If this place goes under as a restaurant they could use it as a torture chamber without changing much at all.
A bright-eyed young hostess with dark red hair smiled at me and thrust out her hand. “Hi! I’m Callie! You must be new.” She waited for me to respond as she pumped my arm up and down until my shoulder ached.
“I’m Leigh, and yes I’m new. I’m supposed to start at 10:30.”
“I’ll take you back to Mike’s office. He’ll let you know who you’ll be shadowing today.”
As we walked toward the back I noticed three things simultaneously. First, Sam leaned on the bar and watched our progress with interest. Second, Callie gave him every type of come-hither, sexy eye I'd ever seen, and he didn’t mind one bit. And third, he had a friend. A very attractive, more my type friend. He was about the same height as Sam, maybe a little over six feet, with short curly blond hair and a nice body. Like he definitely took care of himself but wasn’t a beefcake. I had always preferred the soccer/tennis player body to the football player body, and this guy fit right into that mold. And my personal favorite, a very nice pair of calves tucked into clean white socks and tennis shoes. I had a thing for legs. Hmmm, interesting. His blue eyes met mine for a brief second and I saw Sam elbow him gently in the ribs. Callie and I both managed to stop staring as we stumbled past and I followed her into the kitchen.
I can’t say I got any premonitions at that moment, saw any fireworks, or watched my future flash before my eyes. Nothing foretold that this handsome stranger held the power to change the course of my life. Sure I noticed him, but…I was still here for Gabe Daniels. I had a one track mind and no well-built good looking guy with nice calves was going to distract me from my ultimate goal.
