Читать книгу Stories at Happy Hour - A.M. Hoot - Страница 5

Alex was married to Darius McMasters, a motocross racer that stole her heart the day she laid eyes on him. She met him at a Halloween party that Alex’s brother dragged her out to. Alex was cute and fun. Her brother couldn’t understand why the heck she was still single. Alex was in her late 20’s at the time and just never met the guy that tripped her trigger.

Alex told her brother, Brax, short for Braxton, that she would go to the Halloween party but only for an hour. The Halloween party was way out in the sticks somewhere in a small dinky town. There were about 50 people in a shed all dressed up and drinking. Alex was dressed up as a pregnant nun, while Brax and his wife went as vampires. Yes, Brax was married so no wonder he thought Alex was dragging her feet to find Mr. Right. Brax and his wife Desirae were high school sweethearts, who got married as soon as they could. They couldn’t wait to be together and start a family. Brax and Alex came from a very religious background so if Brax wanted to start a family he needed to put a ring on it.

Brax knew a lot of the people at the party, he was so charismatic. People seem to gravitate to him. He knew something about everything and could keep the interest of just about anyone. He had a very high IQ and if he didn’t know what a person was talking about, he would ask just enough questions to get enough information to partake in the conversation, and he would be funny and woo the crowd. He was always a blast to be around. While he was busy being the center of attention, Alex was on the search for a stiff drink. In her head, she kept thinking Man, I want a captain diet. I hope they have captain here. I bet all they have is keg beer. I have a shit ton of captain at home. If I was at home I wouldn’t be in this stupid costume, I would be in fuzzy pj’s, watching a scary movie, and on my 4th captain by now. Alex walked up to the designated bar area. A guy was bent over behind the bar getting solo cups. His head popped up, Alex and his eyes locked. He was wearing Yamaha blue racing gear, dressed up like a motocross racer. He had short dark hair, but the tips were bleached blonde. He was about 5’10, and hot as fuck. She had never laid eyes on such a beautiful man in her whole life. He smiled, and dropped the solo cups he just picked up, and said, “Hey! You want a drink?” All Alex could muster up for a response was, “Yeah, ok.” As she visualized herself wipe the drool from her lips, she was thinking, I’ll take whatever you are willing to give, sweet baby Jesus…..my brother is a genius. The hot man poured her a beer in a red solo cup and handed it over. Their eyes were locked. He had this amazing grin that flashed over his face as if he knew she was awestruck by his beauty. Yes, his beauty. He was Goddamn Beautiful, and she wanted to scream it. He had these crystal blue eyes that sparkled and matched his award-winning smile. He said his name was Darius, but Alex couldn’t catch what he said, maybe she was so dumbfounded by his good looks, but she just looked at him as if to ask him what he said but didn’t say anything. He stepped away from behind the bar area and closer to Alex. He smiled and laughed a genuine laugh and said, “I’m Darius. What’s your name, are you from around here? I know pretty much everyone, but I haven’t seen you around.” Alex snapped out of her dumb gaze and said she was a pregnant nun. Darius laughed and said, “Oh are we staying in character? I’m sorry, I am a motocross racer.” Alex laughed and said, “My name is Alex, short for Alexandra.” She didn’t like the name Alexandra because it was too formal. She knew Alex was kind of a butch name, but she didn’t care, she’s obviously a girl, and if anyone questioned her sexuality or anything that was their problem. Darius repeated her name, and said, “Wow! Alex! I was expecting Mother Teresa or Mary” he laughed, “but I like Alex.” He smiled and looked so intently in her eyes. Darius said in a cute, flirty way, “So you like role-playing do ya?” Alex was just amazed by the specimen in front of her. He was PERFECT. He was tall but not too tall, he was built. Darius works out, Darius definitely works out. Alex could only think one thing…what is underneath that Yamaha gear? And without hesitation, her instinct was to grab his ass. She was so shocked that she actually grabbed his ass. Man, was it firm, good lord was it FIRM! She didn’t know him, didn’t know him from Adam, and didn’t know anything about him if he was married or had a girlfriend, and if he did, was she at the party? What the hell was she thinking? He had a surprising look on his face and laughed and then he squeezed her ass. He said, “Oooo…you like playing a little grab-ass too. I think we are going to get along just fine.”

Alex and Darius did hit it off, for about 10 minutes, and then his cell phone rang. He ignored it, and then it rang again, and again. Alex didn’t know if it was a girlfriend or a buddy calling. Or maybe he was a drug dealer, and someone needed some “candy” for Halloween. He looked at his phone and apologized to Alex. He looked at Alex like he didn’t want to answer the phone; he didn’t want to stop talking to her but obviously, it must have been urgent, the person kept calling him. He answered the phone and got real quiet, he hung up quickly. He looked at Alex and said, “I gotta go – but I need your number. We are not done yet.” Alex was disappointed but didn’t want to come across that way, and said: “Oh your girlfriend calling and wanting you back home?” Darius looked at Alex and said he didn’t have a girlfriend; worse he had a mother and he wasn’t supposed to be out at the party. Alex sharply responded, “Well, how old are you? Holy crap!” He laughed and said he was 24, but he had to go, he would explain later, could he just have her number? Alex being the tough bird she liked to pretend she was, playing hard to get and all, rattled off her digits. He said, “Wait, say it again, I need to put it in my phone.” Alex rattled it off again, and Darius repeated it and started putting it in his phone. He turned to walk away, and then came back to Alex for one more ass squeeze, smiled, and ran out of the shed. Alex kept thinking he better have gotten my fucking number right. Ugh…he probably didn’t. He was too pretty to listen and type at the same time. HA! She laughed to herself. She was hoping she would hear from him, but she was betting she wouldn’t.

When she returned home that night from the party, she had a message on her phone. It was Darius. He left three numbers for her to reach him. He wanted to see her again as soon as he could, and the feeling was mutual. They decided to meet at the Outback Steak House at 7:00 on Tuesday night. Alex was so nervous about the date. She knew he was hot, way too hot for her. The night of the Halloween party was the first and only time they had seen each other. He was dressed up as himself, while Alex was dressed up as a pregnant nun. The only thing he could see of her was her face, not her hair, not her body, her face, her big ass eyes, and her big ass nose. UGH!!! Why was he even interested in her? She decided to dress casually but cute. She didn’t want it to appear like she was trying too hard. She went with her “go-to” pair of jeans. They were light-colored denim boot-cut jeans. They hugged her in all the right places, showed off her cute little ass, and her lean legs. She always felt good in those jeans. She wore a black Taking Back Sunday t-shirt and a short black leather jacket. She also wore black, chunky heeled booties to give her some height. She showed up at Outback at 6:55, not too early but not late. She hated it when people showed up late, it was a sign of them being inconsiderate and rude. She walked in and walked straight up to the bar. She figured if he wasn’t there yet she could order herself a drink, calm her nerves, chill up at the bar and wait for him to show up, but as she was walking up to the bar she saw him at the corner of her eye sitting in a booth. She looked directly at him and their eyes locked. He smiled. She felt her face flush. He was wearing light-colored blue jeans and a button-down plaid shirt, un-tucked. Holy shit he was so fucking hot! She was nervous and needed that drink. He stood up right away and said, “Sorry, I got here early, I didn’t know if they were going to be busy and I wanted to make sure we got a booth seat by the bar.” He smiled and went on to say, “I guess I am a little nervous. I ordered a Captain. Can I get you a drink? What would you like?” Alex smiled with relief, holy crap he was here early, admitted he was nervous and was drinking a captain. She was starting to feel better already. “I’ll have what you’re having,” she said. He looked at her and smiled, “A Captain Diet with a lime on the side it is then.” Alex thought could this guy get any dreamier, what’s the catch?

They sat opposite of each other. Alex was relieved to get a drink in hand and start sipping. Darius smiled at Alex and said, “So you’re a blonde? I was wondering what color of hair you had.” He smiled and Alex started laughing and went on to say she realized that he probably had no idea what he was agreeing to when they decided to meet up for dinner. For all he knew she could have been a pregnant skinhead. He laughed and said, “A smoking hot pregnant skinhead.” Alex flushed again. He thought she was hot, not just hot but smoking hot. YES! She laughed.

They started talking about anything and everything. They talked about the party a bit. Apparently, it was his cousin’s party. Alex didn’t know who his cousin was and admitted that her brother dragged her out to the Halloween party. They talked a bit about Braxton. Alex ended up sharing with Darius that she and her brother were super close. They grew up in a really strict, religious home and they only had each other to turn to. She admitted she was devastated when her brother left home to go off to college. Brax asked his friends who were still in town, to keep an eye on his kid sister. Alex was invited to a lot of college parties and was able to get booze easily. She admitted that she drank a lot after her brother moved away. She was about 15 when Braxton left. Braxton was the only one who could truly relate to her.

Alex said that she was more of a daddy’s girl when it came to her parents. Her dad worked as a heating and cooling guy, on his spare time he loved to tinker out in the garage, working on cars or building things. Alex found herself hanging out with her dad a lot if she wasn’t hanging out with her brother. She would help her dad with doing little things like holding a flashlight or handing him tools. He usually had the radio on, and they listened to Elvis and Johnny Cash. As Alex grew older, she realized why her dad spent so much time in the garage. Her mom was a little hard to be around. She remembered as a child she would watch her dad grab her mom’s ass and her mom snapped at him. When someone snaps at you every time you touch them, you eventually stop. After a while, he stopped touching her at all. There didn’t seem to be any love or affection between her parents. Her parents fought a lot and her dad would retreat to the garage. At least he could find peace there. Her mom was constantly going off to church; there was Monday night fellowship with the church ladies, Wednesday night bible study, and Friday night was choir practice for Sunday’s church service, and it seemed like she was at church all day on Sunday. A lot of the conversation in the house was about church and what the pastor was preaching about. There was no conversation about what anyone else was doing or anyone else’s interests.

Alex laughed and said when she thinks of her mom, she thinks of Carrie’s mom. Carrie, from the movie, Carrie. Darius laughed, Alex said no she was serious. She identified with Carrie on multiple levels. Her mom was a nut. Her name was Sharon and Alex referred to her as Psycho Sharon. Alex said Sharon was off her rocker. Alex told him a story of when she was a little kid, maybe 6, she loved unicorns. She had unicorns hanging from her ceiling, and stuffed animal unicorns, unicorn everything. One weekend her parents went to some church revival thing and when they came back home, her mom went into Alex’s room and ripped the horns off of every unicorn she owned, saying that they were of the devil, because they were magical creatures. Alex cried. She had no idea what she did wrong or what was wrong with the unicorns. Just the day before the unicorns were fine and her mom was ok with it, but one or two nights at some church revival thing and her mom comes back acting like a monster. Braxton, being around 10-years-old at the time, ran into his sister’s room and yelled at his mom. He thought it was cruel and he didn’t know why she was doing such a crazy thing. He hugged Alex and told her it would be ok, the unicorns were just horses now, the same thing just missing the horns. Alex didn’t want plain horses. She liked the unicorns because they were magical and made the horses special and pretty. Braxton told her he would fix them. Braxton did too. He tried to put the horns back on the stuffed animals, he sewed the horns on the best he could. Alex laughed. Braxton was a good brother.

Alex said her mom was bat shit crazy and depending on which preacher she was following that month; her mom would switch her beliefs. Alex was surprised her mom never ended up in a cult-like the Jim Jones cult, where Jones coerced a mass suicide/murder of over 900 cult members, 300 of them being children. Murder by Kool-Aid. Yep, Alex thought for sure that’s how Sharon would get her, murder by food or drink.

Alex said her family had a rule that no matter what, they ate dinner as a family. The whole family had to be there, and it was required that everyone ate all the food on their plate. She laughed and said, “Thank goodness she only made liver and onions just a few times a year”. There was one night where everyone in the family got extremely sick after dinner, but Sharon was not as sick as everyone else, Alex and Brax thought for sure Sharon was poisoning them. Sharon would talk about the pastor preaching about the evil in the world, and how they needed to protect themselves from evil. Brax and Alex could see Sharon offing the family to “protect” them from evil. Her mom was so warped. Alex hoped the craziness didn’t run in the family. Darius chuckled. Alex assured him she had worse stories, but she didn’t need to bitch about her mom all night. She loved her parents. They were her parents. It was just tough being their kid sometimes. She knew her dad loved her, but her mom, that love came with conditions and it hurt.

Alex asked Darius if he had any horror stories about his parents to turn the focus off of her and her tortured childhood. Darius said that he actually had a great relationship with his folks. They were chill. Not religious or anything, and very supportive of him, which was cool because the lifestyle he chose with wanting to go into motocross was not exactly a sure thing. It was a dream of his to go pro, and his parents supported it. Of course, he had a real job working with his dad and he enjoyed that too, but he wanted to make it big in Motocross. It was nice hearing him say so many positive things about his parents. Alex could tell he was being sincere and when he talked about his parent’s he was joyful.

Alex heard one of her all-time favorite songs come on. She couldn’t believe it. It was Possum Kingdom by The Toadies. She hadn’t heard that song in ages. She started dancing in her seat a little. Darius said, “You like the Toadies?” She was shocked! He knew who they were? Alex nodded her head and said the Toadies were one of her favorite bands and the song playing was her favorite song. He agreed and called it a classic. He told her she should get up and dance. If she feels it, she should FEEL it. He said, “Take in all the feels.” She laughed at him. There was no way she was going to get up and dance at Outback. There was no dance floor and there were people there trying to enjoy their dinner, they didn’t want to see her dancing around. She told Darius it was kind of a dark song; people don’t usually dance to it. He told her that she was dancing to it in her seat; she needed to get up on her feet. Darius could see that Alex was not going to move. She stopped dancing in her seat. He stood up and offered his hand. She grabbed it like she was in a trance. She instantly stood up without thinking, and they started dancing right by their table. The other customers looked up at them, and the bartenders glanced at them. Alex was nervous, but Darius was solely focused on Alex. Suddenly the music got louder, and Alex just kept looking at Darius, he was crazy, but he was fun and exciting. Alex and Darius sang and danced to the song as if they were out on a dance floor. Alex was mesmerized looking at Darius, he was hot, he could dance, and he didn’t care what other people were thinking of them. Alex found that so refreshing. She felt like her whole life was a lie.

Alex’s parent’s church preached about God and God’s love and forgiveness, but she didn’t see a lot of that. From her experience, people from the church ended up being the worst people ever. They hid behind religion to control people. They did not show love or forgiveness, they judged and shamed people. She felt like she had to pretend to be something she was not to please everyone else. Whenever she thought about the church or religion, she always got in the mood to listen to Nine Inch Nails, Terrible Lie came to mind at the moment. She usually drank to numb all the feelings of hurt, pain, judgments, and rejection.

She wasn’t numbing the feelings tonight though. She was feeling all the feels and she liked it. She liked being with Darius, she felt safe, confident, and free. Their song ended and as Alex and Darius went back to their booth, the bartenders and some of the patrons clapped. Alex’s face turned red. This time instead of sitting opposite Darius she sat right next to him in the booth. She just wanted to be near him. She felt like there was this force pulling her closer to him. She had no control. When she sat next to him, he smiled at her and rubbed her leg gently. She touched his hand and they smiled at each other. From that moment on, they did not stop touching. They could not keep their hands off each other. Darius told her that he thought she was a great dancer and that she should dance whenever she feels it move her. He thought she danced like an angel like she was making love to the music, it consumed her and that turned him on. He told her whenever the music moves her to go with it. Don’t worry about what other people are thinking and stop trying to please other people. You cannot please everyone all the time, the only person you have control of is yourself, so please yourself. If you feel like dancing, dance. Alex blushed. She always thought she was a crazy dancer, but maybe he liked a little crazy.

They ate dinner and had a few more drinks. They talked as if they had been friends forever, friends that couldn’t keep their hands off each other that is. The night was ending, the restaurant was closing, and it was time for them to say goodbye. Darius holding Alex’s hand walked her out to her car. He told her he had a really good night, maybe one of the best nights he has ever had. Alex felt the same but didn’t want to admit it. She just smiled and nodded her head in agreement. He leaned in and moved a piece of hair that was stuck to her bottom lip and then he kissed her. It was gentle, sweet. She kissed him back and then she kissed him more deeply and then kissed him again and again. Finally, she let go of him. He smiled a big smile and said, “Correction, this HAS been the best night of my life.” She laughed at him. She was embarrassed and laughed a little more, “Yeah, I really like the steak here” she said with a wink and got in her car. Darius said he would call her later. He told her to drive home carefully because he wanted to see her again.

She started driving home and screamed out loud to herself. That was the best date she had been on and the best night of her life. She felt like she was in a movie. He was so cool, so dreamy, she couldn’t get enough.